If you're a moth that contrasts too much with the tree's bark, birds will announce that they've spotted you, by eating you.
OTOH if you're a moth who blends in, then the birds' continuous canary announcement that they have not spotted and eaten you yet, provides encouragement to reproduce.
Don't most of the proprietary companies already claim their customers don't own the copies of software that they "purchased?"
By their standards, software ownership isn't changing one iota.
"It was just so very labor-intensive to do this," Marz said, despite "all the buzz about generative AI, and everybody saying this is going to revolutionize self-help and democratize access to the courts.
By "everybody" who do you think he means? 5% of programmers? 10%? I think most people would not predict a project like this would work well.
Nothing against trying radical things, but know when you're doing that.
Because if I put myself in their shoes, I would do the same thing. I can't see how they're making any sort of mistake.
Indeed, I routinely do the same thing they do, shopping by price. This set of tires costs $800, but that set costs $650 and its warranty is just as long. So I buy the $650 tires.
People do stuff. WTF, are we supposed to have a world-wide committee meeting every time some hacker starts a random project?
Sam Altman can have his own "AI," with blackjack and hookers. If you don't want yours to have that, then write it differently. If his project is affecting yours, it's because he's on the sharp end, running into scaling issues and regulators first. Let him bear the brunt of that, so you don't have to.
The only thing that can really go wrong, is if he uses his financial influence to get a government-granted monopoly. (And you'll have my support in opposing that.) Until then, though, how much is he shaping things? You can do something other than what he is doing right now. He isn't in charge of your project, is he?
This really requires a lot of faith. I can't blame people for having some but we're talking about putting all the eggs into one pretty speculative basket. I'd sure like to opt out of being impacted by this, if possible. If that means I "miss out," I am ok with that.
The sad part is that people believe that they are not paying a 5% premium for that 3% reward.
That's sad indeed, but probably rare. The issue we're facing is that rational people are saying "I'd rather pay a 5% premium to get a 3% kickback, than pay a 5% premium and get 0 kickback." Rewards cards put you into a prisoners' dilemma with other purchasers. Stab 'em in back, and you only get ripped off for 2%. Don't stab (i.e. don't use a rewards card) and you get ripped off for 5%.
Only if you get everyone to cooperate (get nobody to use rewards cards), then the 5% premium goes away. But if anyone defects, the 5% inflated price has to remain because the vendors sure don't want to lose money.
So the only way this is a win for me is if prices globally reduce 2% after this change.
The cards caused the price to be inflated by a lower bound of at least 2%, didn't it? (Though I guess it could theoretically be exactly 2.0%, so you'd only break even.)
Then I'm a fool. It's my foolish belief that whenever you remove an expense and thereby increase a margin, you create a competitive pressure to undercut that margin.
I've been this brand of fool for about 250 years, and I'm not about to wise up now!
That sounds like a good thing for consumers. I currently use a rewards card but I damn well know that everything (whether I use that card or not) is more expensive as a result of rewards cards existing.
Rewards cards are a type of prisoner's game ripoff. If you defect (use a rewards card) you profit at the expense of everyone who doesn't also defect and use a card like that, but if everybody got the kickback then obviously the total amount of kickbacks will always be less than or equal to the total amount that merchants collect through increased prices. TANSTAAFL.
If this is the death blow to rewards cards, then everyone wins. Let's hope!
Brain fried -- Core dumped
