Price discrimination is bad. It's worth trying to ban. You'll never stop 100% of it (and trying to go too over-the-top in terms of stopping it would not be worthwhile), but this is a useful area for regulation.
Readit Newsaetherson commented on The behavioral cost of personalized pricing digitalseams.com/blog/the... · Posted by u/bobbiechen
aetherson commented on When employees feel slighted, they work less penntoday.upenn.edu/news/... · Posted by u/consumer451
On some level the headline is like "yeah, no shit," but the surprising thing is the claimed strength of the effect. 50% absenteeism increase for missing a birthday congratulations? Really?
aetherson commented on Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes" shreevatsa.net/post/dougl... · Posted by u/speckx
The game Disco Elysium is kind of like this. Just know that the game is 99% reading and rolling dice.
Apropos of nothing besides the mention of Disco Elysium, I present to you the best item in a CRPG: https://discoelysium.fandom.com/wiki/Volumetric_Shit_Compres...
aetherson commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404
>But I don't really see what overall lessons there are here.
So many chains to keep up with. There wasn't really a lesson here. Just "Vimeo is not Evernote"?
My wider lesson unrelated to this chain is that US at will employnent sucks and we need to overhaul it. You don't create a trusting career by treating employees like toys to discard.
The US has enriched a vastly larger number of software engineers through at will employment that Europe has through making it very hard to fire people who aren't adding value.
aetherson commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404
> the owners were paid by the sale.
the owners didn't have shares in their company? they weren't paid for their labor? They only get money when they sell off and are working for free out of a labor of love until then?
>The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen...
I guess it wasn't in this chain, but my argument was focused on the human element. I don't care if the owners got a trillion dollars and never shared. I don't think it's right to be able to lie to your employees only to let them go with no notice a few months later.
You're never going to convince me that "it's good for society" to prop up livliehoods on convinient lies and instability. That's how suddenly everyone starts talking less about Star Trek and more about Luigi.
The founders are probably not the owners of a large majority of the business. Most of the owners are not drawing any salary.
Look, lying is bad sure. It would be better if they had been honest in November. But nobody here is actually arguing that the layoffs are fine, they're only mad about the comms.
aetherson commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404
For a hosting space like Vimeo, I'd be surprised if this gave them 5 years. And remember, they acquired Vimeo for over a billion dollars.
This isn't like some B2C 5-10 dollar a month service. Video hosting is notoriously expensive and paying clients will quickly see other alternatives if they see smoke. These are already people with specialized needs that the main market leader (Youtube) cannot fulfill. They are "active", so to speak.
I mean, if your argument is, "Bending Spoons made a bad investment," then sure, okay. That's not implausible! Companies make bad investments.
But I don't really see what overall lessons there are here.
aetherson commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404
The owner got a big pay package from the sale on top of usually being one of the more highly compensated employees at such companies. What do you mean by "the owner didn't get paid"?
>No one wonders why loyalty is dead.
I see you missed the recent narrative of "Gen Z is lazy" and "most managers avoid hiring Gen Z" out there. I assure you many managers are baffled, bit blame the (relative) children instead of seeing how work culture has shifted since they were that age
Yes, the owners were paid by the sale. The argument by other people was that the sale shouldn't happen, or vice versa that the sale should happen only to people who were committed to continuing to spend the company's money on supporting employees who are stipulated to not be adding much value (and, thus, are not willing to pay much for the company).
Guys, I totally get it. Nobody likes to be laid off. I was laid off a month ago. But the money that is being soaked up by employee who are, again, stipulated to be not doing anything productive goes somewhere else. This may be a tragedy for an individual person, but it's good for society overall.
aetherson commented on Tell HN: Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday · Posted by u/Daemon404
It was like that with WeTransfer too. Fine company that had been profitable for years, but with little hope of getting ever 10x bigger again. I used to work there and had already left by the time of the acquisition, but all the old colleagues I've spoken to said the same.
The main business was throwing off gobs of money and there were SO MANY failed projects to try and find new revenue streams. Everyone who was not being pushed by the PE owners could see that they would never account to even 1% of the revenues of the main product. It was only a matter of time before someone came in, said "the main business is fine as is" and fired the people who were involved in the moonshots then sat back and raked in the cash. Sure, it will probably not last forever. But if it brings in millions per year for 15-20 years until the company dies, then that is probably an outcome Bending Spoons is fine with.
And honestly this is probably fine. If the main business can't grow and there have been a few years of attempts to produce complementary businesses with no success, that's a good sign that the business should be moved into a "return money to owners" model.
aetherson commented on California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years latimes.com/california/st... · Posted by u/thnaks
The statewide rain totals for the 2025-2026 water year so far rank 6th out of the years of the 21st century, so aren't that remarkable in context. Do you live in a place that got slapped with a peculiarly high rainfall?
California is big! That's also why there have technically been small parts of California which have been in drought for the last few years while most of the state is in good shape.
This year, Southern California is having a wet year while most of Northern California is having a relatively dry one.
Marketing ads are signalling, brand recognition, etc. You want the cool earbuds that everyone knows. You want to buy them from a big, reputable company with good r&d.
Sales is simpler - click on the ad and buy the product. It tends to be a bit sleasier - sales doesn't care as long as it makes a sale.
There's often a bit of tension between sales and marketing. A 50% ooff exploding offer can be good for sales in the short term, but can make the brand look cheap.