Readit News logoReadit News
pokot0 commented on Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft and people are paying anyway   techcrunch.com/2025/06/12... · Posted by u/achristmascarl
harmmonica · 3 months ago
As a Waymo-booster on HN for a while now, here's my latest anecdote. I tried to figure out how to take Waymo to LAX even though it's not actually in their territory yet just because I value the experience so much. I was borderline going to take it within walking distance (about half a mile), but got lazy at the last minute. I took Lyft instead, and, as if the universe cursed my laziness, I booked a "comfort" car for $3 more than the base level Lyft. At first I was going to get a Tesla Model Y to take me, but that cancelled. Instead, what must have been a first generation Honda Pilot picked me up, suspension creaking and muffler that had seen better days. Did Lyft recognize what they sent instead of the "comfort" they promised and therefore charge me $3 less? Of course not. When I tried to contact customer service I ran into what I'm sure plenty of HN people have, which is a dead end where you report the issue and they (programmatically?) adjudicate the complaint on the spot. Their determination? I wasn't entitled to a $3 refund. Ironic that the rideshare app with human drivers doesn't allow me to contact their customer service whereas Waymo has no problem with it (yeah, yeah, I get it, "we'll see once they reach a huge scale." But today the experience is so much better than Uber or Lyft that while it lasts I will bask in its driverless glory).
pokot0 · 3 months ago
People don't hate automation. They hate BAD automation.

From your description seems like: Waymo -> Good Automation, Call Center -> Bad Automation.

The day we will have a chatgpt level automated customer care experience, we will complain every time humans answer our requests, with their accents and attitudes!

pokot0 commented on Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US   developer.apple.com/app-s... · Posted by u/macguillicuddy
pqtyw · 4 months ago
> US is historically more prone to favor business, while EU seems more concerned in protecting consumers.

Well that's not that obvious... Sure EU is more than willing to protect consumers from foreign(American) megacorporation because the cost of doing that is very low.

Entrenched major local companies? Well stifling competition through excessive regulation and propping up to bit too fall semi-zombie corporations is not necessarily that great for consumers long-term.

pokot0 · 4 months ago
Do you have examples of targeted protections against foreign companies? Everything that comes to mind to me applies to all companies local or foreign.
pokot0 commented on Apple App Store guidelines remove ban on encouraging external payments in US   developer.apple.com/app-s... · Posted by u/macguillicuddy
deeThrow94 · 4 months ago
> So it adds legitimacy to the free market spirit seen in markets like EU, which has been criticized for making up arbitrary rules for self-interest.

I'm confused a) who is taking the concept of free markets seriously, especially in this context where markets (and competition) are arbitrarily defined and owned by corporations and and b) who would view self-interested laws as either surprising or bad? Of course laws are in self interest. Why on else else would you pass a law?

pokot0 · 4 months ago
I think a more interesting question is: who is “self”? US is historically more prone to favor business, while EU seems more concerned in protecting consumers. And of course there is the noise generated by incompetence/corruption/lobbying that makes the question of “in the interest of whom are laws made?” very nuanced.
pokot0 commented on Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney   washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
riffraff · 4 months ago
Italy had 64% for the parliamentary elections in 2022, which is the lowest ever but it's pretty far from 30%.
pokot0 · 4 months ago
just to note that if “30% voted for this” participation was roughly 60%
pokot0 commented on America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back   molsonhart.com/blog/ameri... · Posted by u/putzdown
pjc50 · 4 months ago
> China generates over twice as much electricity per person today as the United States. Why?

This appears to be completely wrong? All the stats I can find say that the US has about 4x the per capita electricity generation of China.

Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight.

> If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will alternate between maybe it will work, and catastrophic loss according to which way the tariffs and the wind blows. No one is building factories right now, and no one is renting them, because there is no certainty that any of these tariffs will last

Policy by amphetamine-driven tweeting is a disaster.

> 12. Enforcement of the tariffs will be uneven and manipulated

Yup. The 145% level seems designed to create smuggling, and the wild variations between countries to create re-labelling. It's chicken tax trucks all over again.

> This is probably the worst economic policy I’ve ever seen

Per Simpsons: this is the worst economic policy you've seen so far. The budget is yet to come.

> If American companies want to sell in China, they must incorporate there, register capital, and name a person to be a legal representative. To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. For Europeans and Chinese to sell in the United States, none of this is needed, nor do federal taxes need to be paid.

This is .. not a bad idea, really. It would probably be annoying for small EU and UK exporters but less so than 10% tariffs and even less so than random day of the week tariffs. Maybe one day it could harmonise with the EU VAT system or something.

(also I think the author is imagining that sub-par workers, crime, and drugs don't exist in China, when they almost certainly do, but somewhere out of sight. Possibly due to the internal migration control of hukou combined with media control?)

pokot0 · 4 months ago
Can someone explain to me why EU VAT is considered a tariff, while US sales taxes are not? They both seem a sale tax to me.
pokot0 commented on Nvidia DGX Spark (formerly DIGITS) available for reservation   marketplace.nvidia.com/en... · Posted by u/cdata
g42gregory · 5 months ago
What is the memory bandwidth? Otherwise, it’s not clear what are we buying.
pokot0 · 5 months ago
Memory Bandwidth 273 GB/s

Not comparable with an H series gpu. I am not sure what kind of applications make sense but I am sure that if it sells enough, developers will find a way to squeeze good stuff out of this.

pokot0 commented on Pornhub Is Now Blocked in Almost All of the U.S. South   404media.co/pornhub-is-no... · Posted by u/pavel_lishin
viraptor · 8 months ago
"easy"? ISP can only apply the rules per-connection, so it's not great for parental control. It also can't enforce any filtering past the domain, so sex subreddits are still open. It also creates a list of people enabling sex sites. It would still be a problematic solution.
pokot0 · 8 months ago
you can just make a law that websites are required to flag the html for pages that contain rated content so that isp and parents can filter whatever they want. all without infringung on people freedom.

i am sure smarter people than me can come up with an even better solution. this honestly just feel more like imposing religious values than anything else

pokot0 commented on Pornhub Is Now Blocked in Almost All of the U.S. South   404media.co/pornhub-is-no... · Posted by u/pavel_lishin
clcaev · 8 months ago
Why hasn't the ISP "market" provided a solution for concerned parents?
pokot0 · 8 months ago
I agree. It’s as easy as that if you respect people having different values. But these laws come from a “my god told me that this is right” mindset and you can’t really argue with that. if this is what people want, so be it. who cares!
pokot0 commented on AlphaProteo generates novel proteins for biology and health research   deepmind.google/discover/... · Posted by u/meetpateltech
pokot0 · a year ago
Safety is the new gatekeeping.
pokot0 commented on Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?   blog.cryptographyengineer... · Posted by u/md224
bryanlarsen · a year ago
Try the mud puddle test: log into your account on a new device using the password recovery flow. Can you see your old messages?

If the answer is yes then law enforcement can too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/08/05/how-se...

pokot0 · a year ago
Unfortunately if the answer is no, it does not mean law enforcement can’t

u/pokot0

KarmaCake day294June 17, 2020View Original