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Comment Re:Where's my cut!? (Score 2) 55

Yes but also no.

The regulation isn't about "taking a cut", but primarily about financial crimes like money laundering and insider trading. Generally there are age requirements, as minors can't buy stocks or enter into futures contracts, though custodial accounts where the minor is authorized to use it are allowed. Every transaction is also associated with registered brokerage companies, every transaction tied to a taxpayer ID and account information. To participate the government requires documentation with a full legal name and government issued ID, and assorted other information to verify the person's identity.

In regulated markets every step has a paper trail can be tied back to a responsible human, the person who could potentially be jailed or fined for financial crimes.

Comment Re:And Nothing of Value was Included... (Score 1) 47

I got Google Play Music for my family back when that was a thing. It was the same price as Spotify, had the same catalog, and included any music on Youtube as well. The fact that it included ad free Youtube was just a bonus. These days that has morphed into Youtube Premium, and I still pay for it. I am mostly there for the music, but the ad free Youtube is not terrible.

The interesting thing is that it is pretty clear that most people just watch the ads. Youtube had $60 billion in yearly revenue last year. More than Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Brothers combined. Roughly $20 billion of that is credited to Youtube Premium which is bigger than any of its Hollywood competitors.

There's a reason that Peacock is being included with Youtube Premium and not the other way around. Youtube is worth something. Peacock, not so much.

Comment Re:Predictable. (Score 1) 47

Things have changed dramatically since the heyday when everyone had a cable subscription. I used to work for SlingTV (and then Dish), and I had a front row seat as the whole industry imploded. Every year the television networks and movie studios would sit down and renegotiate their contracts. Despite the fact that viewership was always down at least 10% year over year they always wanted price increases. If the cable providers pushed back (as Dish often did) they would lose access to channels, invariably during football season when it mattered most.

You see, as technology started allowing people to purchase their entertainment piecemeal it soon became clear what parts they were willing to pay for, and which parts they weren't willing to pay for. Hollywood thought that people paid for cable subscriptions to watch their scripted television. It turns out that, for most people anyway, the part of television that they were willing to pay for was live sports.

That's why Disney won't sell you ESPN unless you bundle it with everything else that they sell, and that's also why Disney is suing SlingTV for reselling access on a daily basis. SlingTV's "sports pass" allows you to pay for just the games that you want at a ridiculous price. Disney should be stoked, but instead it has sued because it wants to force sports fans to continue to pay for their other channels.

Almost no one is watching traditional scripted television these days. The few hits that the networks do have tends to be reality TV stuff like "Dancing with the Stars," where the audience can watch people compete in real time. Youtube (not YoutubeTV) has at least half again as many viewers as their next highest competitor (Netflix), at any time during the day, on traditional 10 foot devices (your living room TV). That's not counting people watching Youtube on their phones or their computers. Youtube is killing scripted content on living room televisions, during prime time. During the day its an order of magnitude worse.

Take a look at nielsen.com and take a look for yourself. It's absolutely grim. Look at the shows that are doing relatively well, they are all either sports or sports commentary. That's literally the only reason that anyone watches anything besides YouTube and Netflix.

Apple spent over $20 billion building up a content catalog. At their height they were spending nearly $5 billion a year making shows. They made some great shows and got rave reviews. Amazon spends $1 billion a year for the rights to Thursday night football. That is arguably the worst football game of the week. However, Prime generally gets as many viewers for a single game as Apple has total subscribers, including all of the free subscriptions that Apple gives away. It's not just Apple that is shifting away from scripted television either. Take a look at any of the streaming sites (including Netflix) and you will see that all of their recent moves have been to try and compete for the sports market. That's definitely what YouTube is doing by bundling Peacock.

Hollywood is currently circling the drain. Everyone is up for sale right now. No one is watching scripted television. They certainly aren't paying for it.

Comment Re: Insane (Score 2) 222

There needs to be accountablity, but there almost never is.

The police and prosecution tend to get consequences casually dismissed, "you win some, you lose some", or "mistakes are human, live and learn." Sometimes lawyers have a professional repremand, very rarely fines, but not time behind bars.

If the man is lucky, he might get compensation for the time locked up, and maybe some of the legal costs. Most likely it will be only a small portion, if at all.

If there is any compensation it won't restore his job, his relationships with friends and family, it won't compensate for the negative experiences in the legal system nor behind bars, it won't compensate for the lost opportunities and missed experience in the time he was detained, and it probably won't be enough for the lifetime of therapy he'll need, and that his family may need.

Comment Re:Economics (Score 1) 130

They might if they produced a lot products they cannot sell. In favor of AI, Nvidia stopped making consumer GPUs. That means they used their allocations from TSMC to make data center computers. If the AI companies renege or do not pay NVidia for all of those chips, it is not like NVidia can sell them to consumers.

80% of the current TOP500 supercomputer systems used nVIdia GPGPUs. Worst case scenario, nVidia sells cheap upgrades to existing supercomputer systems. There is demand for these things in a lot of sectors besides AI. Video/3D rendering acceleration, finite element analysis, fluid dynamics, etc... There's actually pent-up demand for these things because they are being diverted for AI.

Comment Economics (Score 4, Interesting) 130

You are making the classic mistake that, because a lot of people are investing in AI, there is nothing else worth investing in. There are plenty of sectors worth investing in, everyone is dumping money in AI because you can make a fortune on the stocks.

For instance, self driving cars will be a huge market. Several promising startups failed or reorganized because funding dried up, as investors shift their money into LLM based AI tech, which doesn't help self-driving cars at all.

Think about it this way. If AI goes away, will nVidia fail? Even before the huge demand from AI, they were the most successful graphics company. They use their GPGPUs in supercomputers. They are the go-to for gaming.

The other factor is AI isn't going away. The AI bubble burst will be like the .COM bubble burst in 2000. A lot of startups will go under. Most established companies will take a licking, but will be fine (Oracle is in a LOT of verticals) AI will still be around.

Comment Siri's Decline (Score 1) 130

The thing is, it used to be better. I don't know what changed.

It's transcription is hit-or-miss with me. It either nails it or gets one thing bafflingly wrong.

The thing I use it for the most, playing music through CarPlay, is almost worthless. It used to get everything right, even with weird track names in French or German. Now it barely gets English bands or song titles correct. 40% of the time it will play the wrong thing, 40% it will play any random song, and 20% of the time it will get it right. It went through a stretch last year where it couldn't find any song in my library, and asked if I would like to buy it.

Comment Re:Neuromancer looks good. (Score 1) 42

The Neuromancer TV show looks good although its hard to tell from that clip how well its going to follow the book.

The creator also made the Jack Ryan TV series which, aside from the titular character working for the CIA, has absolutely nothing to do with Tom Clancy's character. They turned him into Jason Bourne. Looking at his other productions, it isn't boding well.

Comment Re:Good for him! (Score 2) 218

Yeah, on reading the links, it looks like his lawyers already have a lot of that covered.

The law they are using is 18 U.S. Code 2232, and it's on pretty shaky ground. If you're reading it at non-lawyer eyes, sure the law uses words that seem to fit.

For the current administration, that's all they need to make the accusations.

For the defense lawyers there's going to be a long list of reasons that law doesn't apply, and it's got all kinds of reasons the judge is going to dismiss it. The "Terrorism Response Team" has a rather high burden of proof.

Comment TWiT (Score 2) 62

I stopped listening to TWiT not too long after they kicked Dvorak off. I think Leo didn't like him arguing about stuff. After he left, Leo would bring up a news item, the guests would say "Yeah that's cool" and they'd move on.

Not everything has to be drama-filled nonsense, but maybe a different perspective or two would be nice.

Comment Stories (Score 4, Interesting) 62

He got his start writing a wine column, but his editors noticed he was using a computer to do it, and put him on the fledgling computer beat in San Francisco. He has killer stories. Calling up Microsoft for information on a story at 9PM on a Friday and having Bill Gates answer the phone. Competing industry parties on mega-yachts. Producers at CNET-TV, before TechTV/G4TV, having no idea what they were doing. He'll be missed.

Comment Re: ...all of us...will have to prove our age... (Score 2) 144

My name is on my credit card. Apple knows. That's a problem.
The German system involves your taxpayer ID. The German government knows. That's a problem.

I am still a proponent of buying a (very cheap) card from the grocery store where they record only your birthday in exchange for a QR code that is good for 6 months of activation. It's good enough for buying liquor and cigarrettes. You can pay in cash. No tracking. I'd accept that.

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