It's not the public, but insurance companies that matter. At least in sane societies that do not have the notion of punitive damages,
Once it is clear that robo-taxis, or self-driving cars, are safer than human-driven vehicles, insurance companies will take note and lower premiums for self-driving cars even if the operators are held responsible for whatever mayhem they are causing. In such a scenario, it is likely that your insurance premium will go up by a fair bit, if you insist on having a steering wheel and gear shift fitted to your new car.

Nice, I ought to look into it. I have some Windows only software that I expect will run fine in WINE, but it's games that keep me from migrating my main rig to Linux.

It's a big ask.

I always thought that should be the case: if a company grows beyond a certain market share, additional rules should kick in. Perhaps extra taxes, but certainly rules against them buying up more competitors in the same space. Grow even further, and they might be deemed a public utility subject to strict price and access regulations.

Companies have been broken up in the past, with good results. A company might split itself to get around antitrust laws, which is fine if it results in actual competition. If not, that's what we call collusion, and that is already illegal.

That's kind of what that (tired and overused term) "late stage capitalism" is: monopolies, oligopolies, and lack of competition. Companies seem to naturally gravitate towards cornering markets or collusion. The sad thing is that both in the US and the EU (and elsewhere too probably), antitrust laws have become a joke in practice. Capitalism needs checks and balances, and keeping the free market working is the most important one even for the more laissez-faire minded. That means strict rules around market share. a free market cannot function without meaningful competition.

I saw some the other day when visiting my mum. The ads drove me crazy, I haven't really seen one in a decade, and I can't imagine how we used to put up with them. Between streaming services, my personal media library, and a YT Premium subscription, my viewing is ad-free.

Been there done that, during crunch time, with paid overtime or time-for-time for the extra hours. It's fine as long as it's compensated, if the work itself is good, and if it's temporary, a few weeks max.

I could see myself doing it for longer periods in a promising but understaffed start-up... but if you expect me to work and be motivated like a founder, you better pay me like a founder too, with an equity stake, or options that I can take with me if you fire me (looking at you, Facebook...)

It's a flex. Same reason people buy $1000 bottles of iffy vodka for their friends in a night club.

I didn't write that, the person I was replying to did, and you didn't even get the quote right. But I'm done here.

The bulk of that cash isn't a subsidy (as those numbers point out), it's payment for services. I was talking about subsidies specifically, in reaction to this (surprisingly common) statement that lumps SpaceX's earnings and subsidies together, suggesting that they live mostly on handouts.

It's true that SpaceX would struggle without those federal contracts... so would many other companies. Lockheed Martin and RTX come to mind.

SpaceX received very few subsidies, they got a few tax credits and some money to develop stuff for the government. And all those lucrative federal contracts? The taxpayer is getting an absolute bargain with those.

Meh. Hästens mattresses start at around €10k, and their base model is about as comfortable as good run-of-the-mill mattresses (under €1000), and doesn't do anything other than being a mattress. Yet people are happy to pay €20k and up for these things, even if they have issues like getting hard and lumpy if you don't regularly "massage" them.

Having a cloud that requires users to sign up also makes your company more valuable to potential buyers.

Not really. Photographers might be swapping SD cards in their cameras all the time, and leave the ones not in use lying about, in a camera bag, coat pocket, or whatever. They are small and easy to lose, so encrypting them at least ensures that whoever finds your card can't get at the images. You might even want the manufacturer to have a copy of the key; in this application the convenience for data recovery in case of damaged hardware outweighs the small risk imposed by such a back door. Maybe it makes less sense on a camera mounted on a vehicle, but still.

Another issue is the lack of affordable public charging. Especially here in Europe with our sky high petrol excise, an EV might be a bit more expensive to purchase but a lot cheaper to run than an IC car. If you can charge at home, that is. Charging at a public charger can be twice as expensive, and if you're forced to use a fast charger it's even more. That changes the economics of EVs rather a lot.