Got it. Until states subcontract access for this information via someone else willing to be the middlemen for a fraction of what Anthropic would ask governments. In the end, profits won again

Rather low. Either is is a very conservative number, or color me surprised how many companies out there are willingly waiting to be extorted.

Startup: Hey, let us use AI to solve a specific problem.
Established corp: Hey, let us use AI to resolve a problem we created by our bloated processes and decisions, and while at there, to reduce workforce.

No wonder why it is working for a few of them.

WTH comment section?!

Tim Sweeney embraced a crusade for both Google and Apple to give the world access to their app stores for free. Yet, he charges 12% for every developer to put things on his Epic store (after the developer made its first USD1M).

Part of the success modern mobile devices is their app store ecosystem. Before that, Java based apps were rare and scarce, mostly offered by the carrier or the managed service (such as Blackberry Enterprise users). When the first iPhone came, right on its heels came George Hotz, the Installer.app store, then Cydia, and the rest is story. Wasn't for these names, perhaps none of mobile devices would be where they are today.

Now, one might argue the app store costs subsidize the global infrastructure, technical support, SDK, updates, security and almost everything else needed for such large-scale operations. Others might say these shouldn't be charged. Once again, Epic's Unreal Engine also charges 5% of gross revenue (again, after the game made its first USD1M), unless the game is hosted on their own Epic Game Store.

Even if the mobile world shifts to match the 12% of a game store, they are still short of everything else. First, not every app in a mobile app store is a game. Second, Epic support isn't free either. Sure, you can ask the community via Github and forums for help, but if you want Epic's help for support, get ready to shell them some more cash. Which means "12% isn't all inclusive". Third, Epic does not provide support for the OS, that's on the mobile to do it. Fourth, Epic does not do in-depth security checks as mobile stores do, nor care if a DRM tool is deployed to an entire OS from a game (or app) delivered by their platform. Finally, app stores fees is also a way carriers can offer phones for free: there will be data used by the user, by all apps loaded on the device. The device cost is too subsidized by these app stores fee - something Tim also has zero fingers in it.

Which goes back to the original discussion point: 12% for a dedicated type of service is fair, but there is far much more done by the Googles and the Apples than Epic does. And it is not exactly unfair for them to charge an extra for everything else they provide to the end user. IMO, Tim and maybe some of the lawmakers could be missing this point. Could they charge less from the app developer? Sure. Would it be a successful capitalist model? Maybe. Maybe not.

Tim wants a freeware but he himself sells a shareware.

Google is always retiring and deleting tools and wiping users data, so Gemini just made the process more straightforward.

Ransom.

Such are the outdated views from foreigners. This is the Brazilian Supreme Court avenue to sue US companies, in a clear response to the Trump Media Group suing Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice and recently the actual ruler of Brazil.

Funny how the red state of California leads the scheme. Bad King Orange and his minions stealing from the poor.

Nice thanks for sharing. /sarcasm

When the content already has loads of ads? Or does anyone think products showcased or sometimes spoken about by the actors are there because the actor actually enjoys it?

With the likes of Oracle and Broadcom.

Google has been doing this for ages, even prior to becoming one of the many subsidiaries of Alphabet, via YouTube. As a content creator, unless you are in the top 1%, you hardly have access to a human, and most appeals falls into deaf AI bots. Yet, the platform continues to grow, attracting more content creators, all in the hopes they can make a living without taking strikes and not losing it all thanks to the lack of humans.

No free email provider will ever encrypt messages. Like headers with a SNI style of communication, or the message body, be it with PGP, S/MIME or the likes. You cannot scan your users mailbox for advertisement when you know nothing about the message, and if you think Google was just being generous when they gave the world free multi-Gb GMail mailboxes before anyone was able to afford 250Mb in their paid email services, think again.

Now, for corporate customers, yes, proper email security is still an incentive and a huge differential, that never work in full when you still have to exchange data with systems from the 60s, government included, one who also has no interest in missing this opportunity for extra free intel.

Because they can be users of such product, and Gd forbids the world to know what they really think and did during their eternity as country leaders...