Explicitly taking stakes in private companies is a lot more problematic than a lot of people seem to think.
Republicans used to claim 'picking winners and losers' was a bad thing.
I also 100% believe they would "take a stake" in particular companies in return for... certain considerations.
I don't share some of your concerns, but that's fine; I expect you don't share some of mine. But it does sound to me like you're much more familiar with Republican critiques of Democratic policy than actual Democratic policy. One such thing is you putting the words of activists into pols' mouths and pretending that's the official capital-D Democratic line. It isn't - activists are activists precisely because they want to change the current party line. This is literally
. None of which is to say I'm a rah-rah fan; only a few of them actually come anywhere near reflecting my policy preferences. But given a choice between a getting a cold and getting measles, I'll take the cold.
you have to admit is effective.
Define "effective". Musk is great at self promotion but if you looked at the details, he just made everything worse.
With a team of unpaid (??) minions and unfettered access to quite literally everything, he spent weeks on end tearing everything apart to find inefficiencies.
No he did not. What he exposed is that he does not understand basics of things. For example, Musk claimed there were fraud in the Social Security Administration because he found "duplicate SSNs". What he exposed out is he does not understand basics of data and a fact table can have duplicate foreign keys . . . because it is a fact table. It would be like me claiming there is "MASSIVE FRAUD" in my companies sales data because there are duplicate Customer IDs.
He singlehandedly proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the US government is AT LEAST 99% free of Fraud. 99%+ free of Waste. 99%+ free of abuse.
What he proved is he is an idiot. What you proved is you believed him without looking at details.
He said "chosen at the setup screen".
They could easily have two options: "Install everything from the get-go (RECOMMENDED)" blinking and flashing and a tiny option in text-only link below that, labeled "Manual install" (everyone hates everything manual). And the user would need to type in a CAPTCHA and click a big "I know what I am doing" checkbox to have the phone accept the "manual install" variant.
And "manual install" comes with nothing but Settings and App Store. I mean nothing. Not even the "phone" and "camera" apps. No thing.
That would be absolute bliss.
And phone makers will never never never do that, because all these devices are sold as data vacuums first and usable devices second. Try buying ANY non-smart TV nowadays. Try it, look for a non-smart TV. Set your budget to the moon, if you must, but there will not be ONE model that is not hoovering your data.
This is going to be their own private backhaul connecting regions in North America and Europe.
Will it have excess capacity that Amazon will lease? If no, then this cable has zero effect on Europe and North America. That was my point. I simply did not understand why the OP would have objections to a private companies building something that affects no one else.
I understand this is a partisan fight issue, our policy of most rationality vs. their utter barbarism type of discussion. But please:
Air traffic safety is an important service. Why would that need funding from the government, if so many customers need and purchase that service?
Every flight passenger is using this service to get from A to B safely. Every flight passenger is buying a ticket that includes all sorts of fees and taxes, including airport security. (we disregard a debate about the TSA for now).
Why don't all airlines PAY for the FAA service proportional to the number of flights they perform? Why would "the taxpayer" have to fund and subsidize "the airline passenger"? Why would the state go into more debt to pay for something that is a commercial service to a select few people, many of which are tourists or foreigners who don't even pay US taxes in any substantial amount.
Use a service -> pay for that service.
If John is purchasing a flight ticket and boards an airplane, his ticket must include all the costs required to do that safely. John cannot expect some random Steven and Michael to pay for that with their taxes. It's John's flight. John pays for John's safety. Steven and Michael aren't traveling right now and so they don't pay anything. If they were to travel later, they, too, will pay for safety of THEIR flights, respectively.
Everything else is immoral. I don't understand why this is an issue at all.
The monopoly is not that "nobody can offer an alternative", its that there are no real alternatives for whatever reason.
Except there are alternatives. A developer can sell their game on Epic Games, Steam, GOG, Microsoft, etc. Now Steam is the behemoth and if a developer decides to ignore Steam, that will greatly affect sales. Developers that feel they need to sell on Steam because it has the largest majority of potential customers is very different than "nobody can offer an alternative".
Your ability to find an alternative doesn't make something less of a monopoly.
It literally does. One of the characteristics of a monopoly is lack of substitutes:
Some of the major characteristics of a monopoly market include the presence of a single seller, high entry barriers, price inelastic demand, and lack of substitutes.
Common sense would dictate that if a consumer can get a suitable alternative then there is less of a monopoly. The keyword is "suitable". If there is a butter monopoly, can consumers substitute margarine or other products? Most of the time yes. In this case, a consumer can buy the exact game somewhere else.
A monopoly is defined by its market power.
Market power is not the one and only criteria for monopoly.
It is also about the overall fascist project - they have sold themselves on the need to dominate and crush. Being forced to negotiate is a big power-balance setback for them.
And it is also about Trump's BFF. Right now Holy Mike is refusing to swear in a new (D) representative. That rep just happens to be the deciding vote on releasing lots of juicy Epstein documents. Documents that have already been confirms by members of this admin to mention Trump.
Just remember the phrase, "Everything Trump touches dies." It hasn't been wrong yet.
Steam is definitely not literally a monopoly. Most people don't seem to know either of the most important things about monopolies, which is 1) what one is and 2) that it's not necessarily relevant whether they are, because antitrust doesn't require a monopoly. It only means you're abusing a somehow dominant position in a market.
By definition of their share and control of the market, Steam is a monopoly. However, people seem not to differentiate legal and illegal monopolies. Many monopolies are allowed to exist as long as they do not engage in illegal behavior which would warrant antitrust action.
I think 30% is a lot, but I don't think Steam is really doing anything to prevent anyone from releasing anything else anywhere.
The only thing that might garner scrutiny is the price parity clause that Steam allegedly imposes so that games are not cheaper on other game stores. I however do not know the details or whether this clause even exists. I do know that Steam imposes price parity when it comes to Steam keys since it is their keys that 3rd parties are using and selling.
They don't care for reasons they choose not acknowledge.
Their revenue appears unconnected to Slashdot importance, or is sufficient without the effort to restore quality. I find this interesting.
That's why they choose not to respond to (not the same as "ignore") valid criticism. The enshittification of Slashdot is deliberate. It's easy money for minimal effort.
Slashdot owners could easily replace editors with AI and arguably should since the threshold for acceptable "quality" has been so low for so long no one would notice.
I guess if they actually started making medium format sized sensors (ie the size of MF film) or larger then it might work...but those would be insanely expensive.
The new stuff they're releasing for motion pictures without the old remjet backing that had to be "washed off" before processing sounds exciting....and would make life easier for those developing at home with either C41 or ECN-2.
Hell, really make me happy and start selling a version of the Vision3 films in 120 medium format and PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY.
When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. -- James H. Boren
