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pfisch commented on Germany: Amazon is not allowed to force customers to watch ads on Prime Video zeit.de/wirtschaft/2025-1... · Posted by u/febed

grepex · 3 days ago

At the very least they could not increase prices while simultaneously putting ads.

pfisch · 3 days ago

I agree it sucks, but I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do it.

pfisch commented on Germany: Amazon is not allowed to force customers to watch ads on Prime Video zeit.de/wirtschaft/2025-1... · Posted by u/febed

tra3 · 3 days ago

Yup. They can’t change the contract unilaterally.

Remember when Netflix inttroduced ads they added a lower tier to go along with it.

pfisch · 3 days ago

But you are paying to restart the subscription every month/year. They can't change it then?

pfisch commented on Germany: Amazon is not allowed to force customers to watch ads on Prime Video zeit.de/wirtschaft/2025-1... · Posted by u/febed

simula67 · 3 days ago

I am glad to hear that there was someone who argued for the right course of action in the Amazon Prime organization. I don't know why this is not being fought by other regulators. I also paid for Amazon Prime, expecting to get ad-free content, and then they started to add advertisements. This may not be fraud, but it is definitely lowering my opinion of Amazon.

pfisch · 3 days ago

I'm confused. Do you think you were owed no ads indefinitely? They can't change what the membership offers ever?

So if they stopped letting you watch their new content because you had an old no ads membership would that be ok?

pfisch commented on Video game union workers rally against $55B private acquisition of EA eurogamer.net/ea-union-wo... · Posted by u/ksec

Ferret7446 · 2 months ago

I don't see how you can outlaw it without being authoritarian. If they buy it they can do whatever they want. They can liquidate the entire company.

pfisch · 2 months ago

I'm not sure, but this seems like a form of anti-social behavior that destroys value for everyone except the people plundering the company. It is almost like piracy and we should honestly try to figure out a way to not allow large companies to be destroyed in this manner.

We just shouldn't let people buy profitable companies because they think they can make a return by destroying the business and then bleeding out a small profit once the company had been gutted. It isn't good for the economy, the employees, or really anyone except the plunderers.

pfisch commented on Video game union workers rally against $55B private acquisition of EA eurogamer.net/ea-union-wo... · Posted by u/ksec

terminalshort · 2 months ago

Once you buy the company you are free to borrow money because it's your company. Why wouldn't you be allowed to do that?

pfisch · 2 months ago

Well that isn't what they are quite doing though. They are using the money they force the company to borrow to pay for the purchase.

pfisch commented on Video game union workers rally against $55B private acquisition of EA eurogamer.net/ea-union-wo... · Posted by u/ksec

bko · 2 months ago

I don't think you need to "justify layoffs". If a company feels an employee is not being productive, they should be allowed to let them go. Same way if an employee feels he is getting underpaid or wants to work somewhere else, they should be allowed to leave.

I've actually always liked working for companies in which the objective was straight forward. None of this "we're a family" stuff. You should be kind, and all the places I was at were kind. But layoffs are a reality and reducing headcount at times is part of that. You need a way to get rid of dead wood, otherwise you would be too afraid to grow and hire when you need to.

pfisch · 2 months ago

I agree with you, though I would say what is happening here is more like strip mining vs cutting dead wood.

I don't know that it should be legal to buy a company and then pay for it by loading up the company with debt obligations. It seems like a form of value destruction in order to enrich a bunch of vultures.

Fundamentally it is basically saying maybe we could buy this company and then plunder it with some % chance that it will still stay afloat and keep generating profit after they gut the company to try to service a debt that should not be attached to the company at all and provided no value to anyone but the vultures.

pfisch commented on Ebola outbreak in DR Congo rages, with 61% death rate and funding running dry arstechnica.com/health/20... · Posted by u/bikenaga

paulcole · 3 months ago

Yes, that’s exactly what’s happening.

It’s not right or wrong, it’s just the decisions we’ve made about the kind of world we choose to live in.

Think about other problems like hunger or health care in the United States. These are problems we have created for ourselves! We could choose to fix them and instead choose not to.

pfisch · 3 months ago

Some problems are much easier to solve than others. The problems you are bringing up are far more intractable and far harder and more expensive to solve.

pfisch commented on GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation theverge.com/news/757461/... · Posted by u/Handy-Man

pbiggar · 4 months ago

Not just that, but Microsoft's reputation is in the process of taking a nose dive over its human rights record

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra...

pfisch · 4 months ago

Nobody even knows about this, no one thinks "Microsoft, hell no, they are a key player in the gaza conflict."

No one really associates human rights with Microsoft's reputation. That is the domain of Palantir, Meta, etc.

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