However after that takeover fails (you already know it will,)

It had better fail. Corporate consolidation in the US has been a disaster.

Weren't there huge complaints as a result of this?

Oh yes. And they were told, "elections have consequences".

You idiots also said that about TV's, music devices, homes etc...

No, they didn't.

But I'll say it right now: My house does not need to be on the Internet. My shoes do not need to be on the Internet.

Not this Internet, at least. Because every one of those connected "things" is going to require connecting to a web page to manage, and that web page is going to require you to create a profile, that is connected to your personal information. The Internet of Things is not designed for your benefit. Right now, in 2014, do you really need to be told that? Have you not noticed anything happening around you?

For a group of people who are supposed to be tech-savvy, a lot of techies really don't seem to get what the Internet is about. There is some fantasy from the 1980's that still seems to hang on in the minds of people. Maybe a fairy tale that is told from generation to generation. But it has nothing to do with the truth. That Internet we dreamed about decades ago never happened.

I don't understand why this has been modded as a troll. He took the words right out of my mouth.

My "things" don't need to be on the internet. I like the Internet being in a neat compartment where I can go when I want it. I don't want it following me around.

Seriously, what the fuck is so attractive, I mean, given that the Internet has become pretty much a combination of a low-rent shopping mall and the equivalent of having your boss, your government and your phone company looking up your ass every minute of the day, about an internet of things? Have people really gotten that bored with life? Can you really not live one single minute without the illusion that your measly existence matters one bit to the universe?

Can anyone be so dense as to not be able to see what this "internet of things" is really all about? And here's a hint: It's not about making your life better. For fuck's sake.

So if it's a representation of the community, why would you believe it has anything to do with affirmative action? The "point" of the GPP was that black people are "takin' ar jerbs".

I could say that you see it because the government is a bastion of political correctness where people are chosen based on quotas rather than on experience

You could say you're Superman too, but that won't give you x-ray vision.

And this is the fault of Apple / Google ?

No, it's not the fault of Apple/Google. It's a feature/bug of any bubble market. If you can get in early and score, get out fast and buy real property. Then think about what you're going to do next. Not the other way around.

I bet a lot of those app guys wish they had bought a house with their money instead of renting that warehouse and hiring their WoW clan members to develop the next big app.

You seem to think the institutions are racist because they wanted some "very sharp" kid to get a GED ?

Not at all. I don't think the institutions are racist at all. I think they saw talent.

And because of (and in some cases, despite) the efforts of people who have fought these fights for many decades, there are now such opportunities. There was a time, not that long ago, in my lifetime in fact, when this young man would have not gotten the opportunity because of the color of his skin and his station in life.

Now his job is to make sure he gets as much out of them as they get out of him. That is the hard fight.

All the arguments based on classical economic theory only work if the assumptions of classical economics hold, particularly the assumption that there is a free market.

Amazon is arguing for its freedom to set prices it charges in its ebook store; that would be no concern of the publishers if we lived in a world where ebook users could simply buy books in non-proprietary formats from any Internet storefront they wanted. But we don't live in such a world. We live in a world where most ebook readers are controlled by Amazon and inextricably linked to its store. It wouldn't have been hard for Amazon to build the Kindle that way. Define some public book trading protocols, bootstrap the standard by building those protocols into the Kindle and Amazon's online store, and instantly the world is a better place for everyone except printers and bricks-and-mortar bookstores with no Internet presence. But Amazon didn't do that, because the Kindle is designed to tie the user to Amazon, the way the iPad is designed to tie the user to Apple.

So what we're looking at is a maneuver by Amazon to corner the market on books *in general* by killing off the traditional paper book trade. Preserving the ability to buy most books from someone other than Amazon seems like a legitimate reason to me.

Nobody's book is so incredible that people would buy them no matter what the price. If my only way to get Shakespeare was to pay a ten thousand dollar license fee I'd find a way to do without.

You really shouldn't assume that anyone who disagrees with you does so because they're stupid. Publishers know their marginal and fixed costs and certainly have a pretty good idea of the price elasticity of their books. The situation is more complicated than you know.

You can't compare Hachette to Valve, because Valve owns the whole Steam ecosystem, and delivers its services to users' commodity PC hardware with no intermediaries (other than Internet service). In the case of Hachette v. Amazon, we're looking at a situation where Amazon owns the point of sale, and has more control over the users' devices than the user himself has. And yes, you can read ebooks on a PC but few people will want to do that. And yes you can download ebooks in non-proprietary formats like epub from sources other than Amazon, convert the format to .mobi, and use file transfer to move the converted file onto the kindle; but that's a significant barrier for most people.

So what we're looking at is a move by Amazon to take control of the book market in a way it cannot as long as paperback and hardback sales remain strong. Amazon *looks* like a friend of the consumer because they're calling for lower prices. If they get what they want, then ebooks may well make a significant market share headway against paper books.

You might think that's fine, but it's not *generic* formats and *commodity* hardware we're talking about. It's formats and hardware controlled by an inextricably linked to *one* company. And that may mean lower prices today, but what will it mean ten years down the pike when Amazon corners the market on books?

I'd be interested in your source for this particular tidbit, particularly how it shows blacks are any worse than whites in this regard.

I went to high school with a lot of tough white guys from South Boston and Charlestown in Boston, back when Whitey Bulger was still a big deal in Southie. Let me tell you most of them didn't see intellect as their path into the middle class. A few did, but not many. I've also worked with PhD scientists who were black and came from urban black neighborhoods. You get a mix of attitudes everywhere, whether it's in a black ghetto or white ghetto or a middle-class white neighborhood, but usually being academically advanced doesn't make you popular unless you live in town with a big Jewish population.

Speaking of Whitey, his people used to spread the myth that he kept drugs off the street in Southie. In fact he was kicking the Italian mob out of Southie so he could have the drug trade all to himself. Whitey wasn't a hero, he was a parasite. So why did people believe the lie? Wishful thinking. The people who got education and became professionals moved out of the neighborhood, so the one example of guys who rose in life that you saw every day were the mob. And you had to hope they were good lads at heart, because they had the neighborhood by the balls.

There's often a "we're all in this together" thing going on in poor, downtrodden neighborhoods. Part of that is a resentment of anyone who acts like their above the rest, and that includes people who flaunt their education or sophistication. But that's because intellectual accomplishments don't seem to be within the reach of everybody. You don't get that attitude in cultures which believe in self-improvement.

So let's *not* talk race. Let's talk education and economic opportunity. If people have a way up, see that way, and believe they can do it, they will rise.

Yeah, hate that $13 billion *developers* have made so far.

That money's been spent a long time ago. A lot of it on development of more apps that have not been profitable.

Assuming your figure of "$13billion" is correct, of course.

Anyway, this article is about the marketplace, not about the relative handful who have scored big on an app, then hired a staff, invested in their businesses, took venture capital and private equity and now are well and truly fucked.

Why, in theory, build out municipal fiber when internet service is already offered by two respectable private businesses?

Because places have done it and saved the population money and provided better service?

If there's been consolidation to the point where there are only two providers, I completely understand a municipality providing the competition. I lived in a town with municipal power generation. It was cheap and the service excellent. Until a group of Koch-backed corporatists got elected to the county board and privatized the service without public hearings or comment.

Home energy bills doubled within six months.

Oh, of course not. It just demonstrates the hypocrisy of the accuser.