Readit NewsHow shit the product is for Wordpress is a matter of debate, but the documentation and ecosystem around it is robust enough to make it fairly easy to hack and use/abuse to do what you want it to.
It's sad to see Google -- the once very promising small company with big ideas -- getting sucked into the vacuum.
One common trend in evolution is toward gigantism in places of intense competition. Whales, for example, may be as large as they are to avoid having to compete or be eaten by smaller animals. Being bigger means they eat more, leaving fewer resources for competitors.
It can be quite the winning strategy.
At least so long as the environment can provide enough stability to feed such large organisms in the manner in which they are evolved to exploit.
For companies, being large means you can always buy the competition or make sure the barrier to entry is too high for competition (thinner profit margins, "free" services, regulatory capture, etc.).
It works, and quite well. These large corporations can withstand enormous financial shocks, and if they can't, they get purchased by those that can.
For most mature markets this generally seems to shake out to most of the product area being divided between two or three big players and a host of smaller companies at the edges.
Oddly enough, when things are stable being large may be a winning strategy, but it is also very fragile and if the whole system gets disrupted, can be the first to fail when things change too much.
Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor.
Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes.
For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be seen at symphonies. Nowadays, it's the artists who can fill stadiums (and get fans to buy lots of merch) that make the most bank. As such, it is often those musicians who provide a sellable brand that do best. To many, this can feel fake and plastic. But like any product designed for mass consumption, it's essential.
Looking at the symbiotic dance between artist and viewer/reader/listener is really something special, and helps to provide context for changes in trends.
You could be the best guitar player in the world, writing the best guitar solos of all time, but if you can't get people to pay for it, it's just a storage problem for your guitar.
The people who lose their jobs, in turn, are forced to cut their spending, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at companies that sell to consumers.
The service providers who see their billing examined with a microscope and who are told that new projects are now on hold, in turn, find themselves forced to cut their own spending on people, services, and facilities, contributing even more to the ongoing revenue slowdown at other companies.
The office buildings who are given notice of lease terminations, in turn, find themselves forced to cut their own spending, contributing as well to the ongoing revenue slowdown at other companies.
The more every company and consumer cuts spending, the less money all companies and consumers earn. This unpleasant state of affairs is called a "recession." When it's really bad, it's called a "depression." It's no fun. Many unprofitable companies and many consumers without savings are at risk of financial ruin.
Big business and financial firms have been signaling a belief in a downturn for a while now -- including while posting about record profits.
Seriously, I clicked on the link thinking I'd be able to get a list of the dinosaurs that are believed to have lived in my hometown. As cool as this link is, it doesn't answer "Which dinosaurs lived in my hometown?"
It seems limited and not quite as cool as as say, showing a field guide of dinos in your area during a time period.
Feels like "trust" that they're actually seeing the best results are going down.
That said, many of these same people rarely actually google things outside of simple factual information that Google does okay at (e.g. height of the eiffel tower). Their experience of the internet is mostly through various social media filters (e.g. Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.)
I also suspect this is part of the reason Google is giving worse results. Most of the actual content being generated on the internet is now occurring in various walled gardens that either pollute search results (Pinterest!) or don't show up (Facebook).
It's a tough problem for a company built on the open web that web mostly resembles a late-game Risk map with just a few big players.
In fact, nukes are useless now, let's just get rid of all of them. (wink wink)
Whether that's fast cruise missiles, more powerful drones, more disposable drones, robot warriors, cyber-warfare, etc. militaries are trying to find the technology that breaks the stalemate caused by MADD.
Of course they have agency and their own goals. It's fascinating that humans are surprised and sometimes baffled by this.
Some things are obviously overstated or cited for propaganda value. For example with our ability to detect elements in parts per billion or less, it matters very much how much arsenic etc. is in them, I doubt it makes any sense to reduce those to 1 part per trillion or less.
TL:DR:
Demonstrably the existing big three, Abbott Labs and Mead Johnson produce(d) 80% of the US market share, Nestle another 18% are very weakly regulated by the FDA.
The hurdles for starting up in the US market are astronomical, and there's only one contract manufacturer Perrigo Nutritionals which not surprisingly has a large minimum order size. ByHeart became the 4th brand to have its own factory, first in 15 years.
Half of all formula is bought by the Federal WIC program, and states negotiate a monopoly with one firm.
All of the above results in prices double that in Europe, although I'd add we and the FDA are generally much more paranoid than they are, be it thalidomide long ago or COVID vaccines in the last couple of years.
The regulatory hurdles for starting a brewery are even more intense (likely one of the most regulated of any consumable product short of marijuana), yet there's not been a shortage of new ones of those starting even during this current pandemic.
I think the article leans too heavily on "heavily regulated" as a blame for lack of new players in the game and ignores the economic aspects are probably the bigger player.
That division of a mature market seems fairly standard for a consumer food product. I suspect you could say much the same about peanut butter or cream cheese (both of which have had some shortages).
1. contents erupt from the corner like a volcano in the microwave
2. burrito unrolls itself during heating
3. mostly ice cold inside (although some ice cold spots will still happen in #1 and #2)
4. Learn how to use the power setting of the microwave to ensure even heating.