flipht

100%. Most business is just advanced sophistry at this point. Marketing and advertising serves a useful purpose for new products, when the market isn’t aware that it exists.

But by quantity and cost, most advertising is just social manipulation and is effectively an extra drain on the economy.

I saw one program that Rick rolled Bluetooth device lists.

Almost across the board, new technology is used to spread two things: religious dogma and porn.

And the farmer’s almanac, but mostly the Bible and porn.

Not just their business practices, but also just the oculus purchase.

I already had an oculus. I was told (via press release) that I wouldn’t have any issues with not having a Facebook account…only for them to turn around a little while later and require a Facebook login.

This describes what I want - being able to have relatively blank walls/spaces that light up and fill up with content when you’re wearing the headset.

It’s social media in the technical definition - it’s a place to view media, both entertainment and news, with commentary, groups, the ability to follow someone, etc. Which makes it social.

But yeah, it’s not quite like Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn. A little bit like Twitter though.

My concern is that if you can drop tens of billions of dollars on a single acquisition, what’s to stop you from spending “just” one billion to manipulate the situation to put your target in a vulnerable situation?

Our entire society is set up to wring out anyone who is unfortunate enough to find themselves buying anything.

And as resources get squeezed, more and more people are trying to claw at smaller and smaller pieces of the overall economic pie.

The breaking point will be catastrophic.

Exactly. A broken clock is right twice a day. If “idiot” rich people can monetize their mistakes, consistently do so, and manage to do it almost as if by using the same playbook as each other…they’re not idiots, it is on purpose, and they just want enough plausible deniability that they don’t get strung up from a Michelin star restaurant.

I mean, you’re kind of seeing this with Donald Trump’s legal issues. He can’t get anyone with real clout, so he’s actually facing consequences in that arena now.

That assumes all things are equal.

They rely on you repeating this adage to get away with this shit. It’s too consistent. If he were actually stupid, he’d face negative consequences, which is something these folks very rarely have to do.

He does not have to do it himself. He has accountants and lawyers who can take his stupid decisions and turn them into money.

At a certain point the economies of scale of being a billionaire just keep you rich. What I’ve said is pretty standard tax bullshit that they grow up pulling.

No one will convince me he isn’t doing this on purpose to tank the brand.

He and his buddies were mad that they couldn’t compete. So he made the offer in a manic moment, and then was forced to go through with it. Now that he’s got it, he’s going to destroy it, and use the loss to reduce his taxes from all his government contracts.

And he simultaneously gets to platform fascists and silence people calling out the powerful. Wins all around.

For a normal person, this looks like failing. I totally get that. But rich people can derive massive benefits from stuff that would ruin us, and every single thing Musk is doing benefits him in some way.

Honestly, I agree with the antiboomer sentiment.

But at the same time, it is annoying when you’ve had an included service for decades that will now be worse or cost money.

This. I was fine with streaming when it started. It’s literally what most people were asking for - a la carte pricing for specific channels you want, rather than having to pay a bloated fee for a bundle that you want less than a tenth of.

I’ve enjoyed streaming over the last few years.

But over the pandemic and now beyond, they’ve decided to start conglomerating, bundling up a bunch of content I don’t want, and charging me extra for the privilege. Which was the complaint about cable.

Citation for the drama around betamax recording, including Mr. Rogers testifying to Congress: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr

When it all falls apart, he doesn’t need a bailout. He leaves his investors holding the majority of the lost equity, pays off his portion, writes it off and carries it forward, and uses it to reduce his tax bill in upcoming years when he’ll have a bunch of government contracts.

All of this looks stupid if you assume he’s trying to run a profitable business. But he’s not. He’s moving cash flow through as many other of his own ventures that he can, and he’ll cannibalize the rest. The only people who will actually lose money are normal citizens who will have to make up the list tax dollars.

Grotesque? Maybe I missed seeing something else, but “Fuck Spez,” isnt grotesque.

Nor can you really call using the canvas as intended “graffiti.”