To anyone with half a brain not poisoned by conservative ideology this always was, and is, obvious. Crypto has always been pitched as a get rich quick scheme which only appeals to the financially illiterate.
Readit Newsabvdasker commented on I wasted years of my life in crypto twitter.com/kenchangh/sta... · Posted by u/Anon84
abvdasker commented on Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros about.netflix.com/en/news... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
It's a repeat of how cable networks were.
This is the issue with content production being owned by the distributors too. It's too profitable to own the vertical because each piece of content is an effective monopoly, because to participate in culture requires watching it (piracy notwithstanding). Therefore, the "fix" is to regulate this monopoly - by making sure that monopoly cannot exist without cost. One "simple" way is, imho, to make content production and ownership of distribution strictly prohibited in the same entity, and to also enforce mechanical licensing of content (such that you cannot have content exclusives in the distribution platforms).
Movie theatres have similar restrictions with film studios in the past - to prevent this very monopoly. It's high time we brought it back.
Yeah the best way to fix this would be to enforce the separation of distribution and production via the Paramount Decree. Separate content production from the streaming service itself. Get rid of the vertical integration plaguing the industry and we'll get better content since quality will be the territory on which studios have to compete with each other again.
abvdasker commented on I Want You to Understand Chicago aphyr.com/posts/397-i-wan... · Posted by u/tonyg
When this is all over and Trump has been consigned to history's dustbin, at the very least the public deserves to know the names of the individual federal agents and entire chain of command responsible for these atrocities. The people responsible for this wanton cruelty need to be charged and tried criminally for their actions. Nobody is going to forget this and I think a lot of Americans will demand justice and accountability once all is said and done.
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> If only it weren't for those few tweets, it would be successful and done by now.
Not what I said. I said he did it to try and kill high speed rail, not that he was solely responsible for its failure. And Musk did a whole lot more than tweet.
Just because you are ignorant of the significant evidence that this was (and remains) Musk's goal doesn't mean it isn't true. Ashlee Vance wrote about this way back in 2015: https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990 . Just this year he used his involvement in DOGE to cut federal funding for what remains of the project: https://gizmodo.com/musks-doge-takes-aim-at-california-high-...
At this point we all know Musk only did this as part of his general "hyperloop" boondoggle to kill California high speed rail. Why do we have to continue to pretend this was anything other than an idiotic PR stunt?
the reality is that most new projects started by Meta are going to be nuked from orbit when democrats are in control (even if started during republican control). Stripe has less reputational risk so is less likely to experience the same.
From what I have heard it wasn't just the US but other governments as well which came down on them quite hard. States broadly do not like it when a bunch of huge corporations get together to issue their own currency.
Didn't a number of companies led by Facebook already attempt to do this with Libra (Diem) and basically got nuked from orbit by US regulators? I have to assume this is primarily happening now because there is a more favorable (nonexistent) regulatory environment.
That is just a very simplified and incomplete model. I never owned a car, so should I advocate to stop all fundings for streets? Well I consume products build by other people that use cars to go to work. Now, if I don't consume drinks of the Coca Cola Company, what if my cleaning lady enjoys those in her break? Direct vs. Indirect is not a good measure of value, PRICE is.
> I never owned a car, so should I advocate to stop all fundings for streets?
Streets are generally paid for by taxes, which are categorically different than corporate profits. In theory taxes are under democratic control. If you don't want to pay for streets you don't use, you can vote for a politician who passes that law. You have no control over the governance of a private corporation, but it can still pass its costs on to you via externalities (in the absence of regulations preventing it from doing so).
> Now, if I don't consume drinks of the Coca Cola Company, what if my cleaning lady enjoys those in her break?
What are you even talking about? What is the externality here? The wages you presumably pay your cleaning lady are hers to do with as she wishes.
That's a strange definition of capitalism you're using.
Most people use capitalism to describe a system where people trade goods and services with as little interference from government as possible.
In this case, the government has written laws in a way that indirectly transfers wealth from consumers to large corporations.
Saying that such laws are "inevitable" in any conceivable capitalist system is unfalsifiable and adds little to the discussion.
I think calling it "crony capitalism" to make it clear that it's the undue influence of capital on government specifically causing the problem here lends more clarity to the discussion.
> Most people use capitalism to describe a system where people trade goods and services with as little interference from government as possible.
This is not a real definition. Saying "most people" use the term to mean what you want it to mean in this argument is ridiculous.
Capitalism is a system of private ownership of capital. We live under that system. Anything you see that happens now is the result of that system because it's the one that exists.
There is no such thing as "crony capitalism". What came before crony capitalism? Was it regular capitalism? Did regular capitalism turn into crony capitalism? Or — more likely — is it all one continuous process and system of accumulation?
Well, what if the corporations would pay the bills - then they would increase the price of the product so the people would pay for it again. Now you can say that you do not use Metas or Googles products, but their business models is ads - and you DO pay the products advertised for.
In scenario 1, a corporation externalizes some of its costs. Those costs are then paid by people who may or may not actually use the corporation's product — people who never chose to be part of any transaction. This is coercive because the people paying for the corporation's externalities are forced to: they may not use the product, or do so to different degrees not proportional to the price they pay for the externality.
In scenario 2, the corporation does not externalize costs and raises their prices, offsetting costs by passing them on to their customers. The people paying the additional cost are those who know the price of what they are buying and willingly engage in the transaction for the good or service.
Do you understand why scenario 2 is bad and scenario 1 is less bad?