As much as most don’t like Facebook, I honestly don’t see why Facebook is at fault here. They’ve got a platform where advertisers come on, say “I want to sell ads to people Ages X-Y , Gender A, in Geography I, J and K”, and they serve ads accordingly. What are they supposed to do? Tell the advertisers “No no no, you need to also pay for ads on these other demographics that you explicitly excluded”? The plaintiff should be suing advertisers, not Facebook, for intentionally not targeting them.
WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com (AMZN.O) on Tuesday, charging the online retailer with harming consumers through higher prices in the latest U.S. government legal action aimed at breaking Big Tech’s dominance of the internet....
Remember that AZ takes a percentage cut of each sale and is also able to ship cheaper than basically anyone because of their position in the market. So imagine you have a product, and in order to make a profit from said product you have to charge $x. But in order to profit after Amazon’s fees you have to charge $x + $y on Amazon’s platform. So that’s where the “prices too high” cones from. If your product does well on amazon they’ll make their own version and sell it for less than $x. Now you get less sales on AZ and you can’t go back to selling on your own site because you can’t compete with your higher shipping costs, plus AZ can run at a loss on the product they copied from you until you’re out of business… This is where the “prices too low” comes from; the price AZ can offer is too low for you to compete with. After you go out of business, AZ can charge whatever they want. So you see “prices too high” again.
When you start selling a new product you take on risk because there might not be a sustainable market for it. AZ never has to take this risk, but they can reap the rewards from your risk if it does well.
pehaps, but the trend is there and its accelerating. I suspect that in short order (timeline unknown) we will actually have a legitimately marketable “life extension” option at which point its only a matter of degrees. the extra x years that you and I might possibly afford will eventually pale in comparison to the extra y years for the truly wealthy - at that point, generational wealth and power take on a wholly new and rather frightening dimension.
I admit… I may have a particularly bleak view of our possible futures, but an “undead” ruling class does not figure into any rosy endings that I can envision.
Eh, it’s food, there’s only so much I can eat. So it’s not as if I’m going to suddenly buying more food because I’m walking around the grocery store. Even if I did, it would be longer before I’d need to go back and get more food.
I think it’s more down to certain brands paying the grocery store to have their products placed in more prominent places. So yeah people will buy different things, but not more. But if it’s more Brand X instead of Brand Y, Brand X makes more money and kicks back some of that to the grocery store.
Major typically writes these as much for his own notes / thoughts as anything. Having some insight into how he got where he is in the process can help some others learn. I’ve learned tons from the guy.
I’ve known him over 15 years, and he always has written posts for himself first. This isn’t a bad way, just maybe not the simplest for experienced folks. Laying out your own thoughts along the path can help later when you wonder why you did X instead of Y.
I wonder if trickle down economics would check out if CEOs were replaced by robots who made decisions on how to allocate funds…
Oh, your company has over x employees or pulls in over y tax dollars? Hello C-suite. Meet AI-C, your entire c-suite replacement AI. You’re all immediately bought out. You may serve on a board of directors but it’s salary will be determined by the AI-C.
I mean, lots of people do. Just not the ones here on lemmy. But thanks for the compliment!
I’m probably somewhat unique here inasmuch as I’m a real estate agent and landlord and I have made an attempt to get into commercial real estate. But I’ve also been homeless in my adult life and grew up with very unstable housing, so I get the angst of many people here and don’t discount it. Their feelings are completely valid.
I think the two things that people who are concerned about housing prices get wrong consistently are housing supply and the importance of financing.
Left leaning people are forever fighting against landlords and simultaneously yelling about gentrification and development. Here’s the thing. Housing was affordable when we let people build densely with relatively few restrictions. Housing today is still most affordable in places where it’s easy to build more. If that means the neighborhood character changes, oh well. Anywhere you get liberal people (and I count myself as very left wing) making rules about housing, you limit supply, prices go up. In the immortal words of pogo, we have met the enemy, and he is us. Take a look at Tokyo, the NYT did a great story about it recently, they have no problem destroying old neighborhoods to build more housing. As a result, it’s remained shockingly affordable, and has a huge percentage of small businesses because rent is cheap for small non residential spaces, too. We need to stop clinging to our old buildings and allow growth. And I say that as a man who lovingly restored a 175 year old house. It is dumb. There should be 6 families living on the plot I own, but the neighbors would never allow it.
The other thing is financing. Commercial owners have a completely different borrowing structure from owner occupied housing. They don’t have 30 year fixed rate low interest loans with low down payments and government programs to help them for x, y and z. Most commercial loans require refinancing every 5, 7, or 10 years. They also cost more than residential loans, both in up front costs and interest. So my personal residence is locked in on a 30 year note at 3%, but my rentals are in the 3.75-6% range and will require me to refinance in a few years at much higher rates. I have one that resets in 18 months. My interest rate is likely to go from 3.75 to 7.75. I owe about 100k on the house. My mortgage payments will go up $4000/year when that happens (on top of a $1000/year insurance hike last month). There’s no possible way I can raise my rent enough to cover. So I would be in the hole every month. But the bank won’t lend on a property that loses money every month. So either I come up with $100k cash or I sell the house. Sorry tenant, but you’re getting kicked out at lease expiration next year because I have to sell the house to py back the lender. If it won’t cash flow for me it won’t for anyone else, either. So the only possible buyers are home buyers who want to live in it and it needs to be vacant. Yay for a home buyer, sad for my tenant (and for me, now I am out a cash flowing property that I’d prefer to hold). The tenant will yell about greedy landlords when I tell him to get out, but I literally have no option.
Same thing with how all big developments look the same now. All driven by lenders. They won’t lend to a developer who wants to take on mom and pop businesses and quirky startups. The building is valued as a multiple of its rents, and so all the money chases national credit tenants or strong local chains that have proven they can oy high rents, and lenders all want to see recognizable name brands in those ground floor retail spaces. Developers hands are tied. Lots of developers would love to do something different but nothing different can get financed.
I could keep going but the text wall is long enough and my thumbs are tired.
You’re right, I did get the pseudo-quote backwards.
As far as customer experience, that’s one thing, and that’s valid. “I prefer to use Steam because it has features Epic doesn’t, even if one’s a monopoly” though is very different from the quote above, which is distinctly about supporting X company over Y company; not about product difference, but actual support.
Let’s be real though, if Epic had literally just released Steam but with a good UI people would still boycott it, referencing xenophobic shit like “because china”, angry at tim sweeney, complaining about another launcher, and anything else. The PC market has this really strange and uncomfortable adoration of Steam. It’s console-warrior levels, really.
I don’t disagree that EGS is a lackluster product in many ways, but it’s pretty clear that the complaints about it by and far are simply justification for a pre-existing opinion, both because of predisposition towards steam, and against “the guys who made that stupid fortnite game”.
What’s the bad space? Based on them mentioning block lists, I’m guessing it’s a community that gets blocked by a lot of instances?
Fwiw, I think it’s totally fine for communities to defederate from other places en masse. The whole point of federation is for small, customized communities. If a community decides it doesn’t want x or y, then that’s fine. Individuals who no longer feel like they align with the community can find another or create their land.
Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do::The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.
(It was kind of expected at the time that the Millennials would be named Generation Y because they followed us, but that name never took hold. So they skipped Y and went straight on to Z, then continued with A.)
Amusingly, your post forgets either the Millennials or Generation Z.
Gen Y are the Millennials and Gen Z are the Zoomers, which sounds more like a street gang from a Silver Age comic that it has any right to. Millennials and Zoomers tend to get conflated just like Boomers and Gen X do but they are distinct.
If you were born before the early 80s or after the mid-90s you are not a Millennial, you’re a Gen Xer or a Zoomer. Generation Alpha are typically the kids of Millennials and some of them are starting to enter puberty already.
Basically, you can divide generations Y and Z by whether they have any clear memories of before 9/11.
See? That’s where I get confused and I end up with the “that can’t happen” attitude in my head.
If you abolish private property, then who has that property? Someone will always have some of that, at least. Let’s imagine that it’s seized, by whom? How? And why wouldn’t that be thievery in the eyes of those who don’t want it? Because if I want it to happen, then it would be relinquishing, but if I don’t it would be coercive, because I cannot pay anything to that person, otherwise it would become a “haver” against all of those “havenotters” that gave their property for nothing but good will.
And then there’s the redistribution fact, of how to do that? Equitable? By some principle? Depending on who you are and are not, you get X o Y amount of “property”? And then it’s the issue of how do you measure that “property”? Because two cups of sugar can be of similar value, but not two houses. It’s not the same to live in downtown Manhattan than in the middle of Saskatchewan.
Finally, who does that? We? And who is “we”? Who organises “we”? How is “we” not anarchist? And if it’s anarchist, how do we ensure it’s just?
If you abolish private property, then who has that property?
Everyone has it, referred to as “the commons”
Let’s imagine that it’s seized, by whom? How?
The State, which will still be necessary during this transitional period. It will use the power invested in it by the democratic process (because havenots vastly outnumber the haves) to take and redistribute the wealth. This will likely not be a peaceful process, but the creation of private property was not peaceful either!
And why wouldn’t that be thievery in the eyes of those who don’t want it? Because if I want it to happen, then it would be relinquishing, but if I don’t it would be coercive, because I cannot pay anything to that person, otherwise it would become a “haver” against all of those “havenotters” that gave their property for nothing but good will.
Property is theft.
The very existence of private land is based solely on violent theft from the commons. All land was stolen by armies and gifted to nobles and aristocrats and settlers and companies. The history of land acquisition is bloody all across the world.
Profit, too, is theft. Profit is the surplus value created by labor and unequal exchange through unfair trade and State-backed violence i.e. the market. Then those profits are used to buy politicians to steal even more, leading to endless wealth accumulation and evergrowing inequality.
And then there’s the redistribution fact, of how to do that? Equitable? By some principle? Depending on who you are and are not, you get X o Y amount of “property”?
Democratic decision making works here; we all own it together and we decide how it is used/distributed.
And then it’s the issue of how do you measure that “property”? Because two cups of sugar can be of similar value, but not two houses. It’s not the same to live in downtown Manhattan than in the middle of Saskatchewan.
Is it so unthinkable that we could democratically determine the value of a house based on location, quality, size, popularity, etc.? Why must this be done by a market? And before you say that the market is democratic, remember that democracy is “1 person, 1 vote” but the market gives the haves more votes than the havenots.
Finally, who does that? We? And who is “we”? Who organises “we”? How is “we” not anarchist? And if it’s anarchist, how do we ensure it’s just?
These are strategic questions. I don’t think anarchism can achieve this because the State is necessary for the havenots to seize wealth and property and power from the haves. I worry that the State will need to be dealt with and won’t just ‘whither away’ on its own, as posited by Marxists. Some kind of synthesis between the two? I don’t know!
Ultimately, this is all just theory crafting divorced from real world struggle. Nothing you or I say on the internet really matters. We have to go out into the real world and test ideas against material reality, where things are ugly and messy
The world is already ugly and messy, though, so I think it’s worth it.
No self-respecting scientist concluded that either a natural origin or a lab leak were the definitive cause of the pandemic. This is clear if you actually read scientific literature. It’s why phrases akin to “the most supported hypothesis is X” or “the Y theory is unlikely without more supporting evidence” are used. Both hypotheses were and are still possible explanations.
It’s people who get their scientific info from sources like the Telegraph that keep jumping to conclusions. Or people who don’t understand what a section leader at the NIH does, how research grants work, or what gain of function research is. You know, like yourself.
Despite being a heavy cell phone user for more than 25 years, it only recently occurred to me that vertical navigation on most phones is inverted when compared to traditional computers. You swipe down to navigate upward, and up to navigate downward. I recently spent time using a MacBook, which apparently defaults to this...
I used to play games with both inverted X and Y. But lately (last 10-15 years) inverted X was often not an option so I had to force myself to play both axis non-inverted. It took a few months but it feels natural now.
It has always been my understanding that sites and apps get paid X cents for displaying an ad, and Y cents (where Y is larger than X) whenever someone actually clicks an ad on their site. So this would in theory help the website.
I run both similarity on the same box with the same source library but still prefer Plex for many reasons. One is that the nicer findroid app doesn’t seem to support Chromecast, which is how I watch all media 99% of the time. Also the JF UI is a bit rough between laggy menu interactions and views sometimes having transparent backgrounds causing you to see the previous view underneath while transitioning between screens. I also don’t like that the continue watching in the default UI uses landscape cards for each title that take up way too much space, and neither the default app or findroid has a recommended tab for individual library folders (like how in Plex I can go to movies and see recently released, added, top in genre x, top by director y). I think that would really draw me to use JF more. As it is it feels like I just have to resort to browsing the alphabetical list which I hate doing with thousands of library items.
People want more “real world usage” in college and school overall. Teach kids how to do taxes, teach engineers how to use X and Y software.
Well, in 10 years there’s a new software that does your taxes in another way, and plenty of laws have changed and there are new stuff to consider. And those software the engineers were taught, they are obsolete.
That’s why focus should be on getting people to a place where they themselves can acquire the skills needed to do those things by themselves.
Facebook accused of not showing insurance ads to women and older people in violation of civil rights laws (www.theverge.com)
US sues Amazon.com for breaking antitrust law and harming consumers (www.reuters.com)
WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com (AMZN.O) on Tuesday, charging the online retailer with harming consumers through higher prices in the latest U.S. government legal action aimed at breaking Big Tech’s dominance of the internet....
Drug mimics exercise in mice, raises metabolism, increases endurance, burns fat (medicalxpress.com)
They literally just flipped the order of the frozen foods aisle. WHY. (startrek.website)
Quadlets might make me finally stop using docker-compose (major.io)
How do you call in English
Imagine an XL table:...
yeah, sure thing. (feddit.de)
The price gap between renting and buying has hit the widest point since 2000 (www.marketwatch.com)
Dusk Developer David Szymanski: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly (twitter.com)
If I’m honest, I don’t disagree....
Last Week in Fediverse – episode 36 (fediversereport.com)
Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do (www.vox.com)
Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do::The generation that grew up with the internet isn’t invulnerable to becoming the victim of online hackers and scammers.
China's 1.4 billion population isn't enough to fill the country's empty homes, former official says (www.businessinsider.com)
China lab suspected of Covid leak stripped of US funding for violating biosafety rules (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Ask Lemmy: Traditional vs natural mouse scrolling; which do you use?
Despite being a heavy cell phone user for more than 25 years, it only recently occurred to me that vertical navigation on most phones is inverted when compared to traditional computers. You swipe down to navigate upward, and up to navigate downward. I recently spent time using a MacBook, which apparently defaults to this...
Will it ever get to a point where data is so over-harvested that it starts to lose value?
I’m speaking of online data harvested through apps, websites, hardware (such as phones/streaming devices)....
And now Bezos is trying to insert ads everywhere (lemmy.world)
"waves of technological innovation" have gotten faster over time, "students might now find themselves learning skills in college that are obsolete by the time they graduate" (www.businessinsider.com)