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You're describing what economists call multihoming. The antitrust question gp asks - which I think is relevant - is whether the combined entity would have excessive market power in the relevant labor market.

Actually, they sell lots of ads in the app store. I will not be surprised if they sell video ads, display ads or search ads in the future. They could earn tens of billions in revenue per year; the main business question is how that trades off against the various downsides of advertising sales.

> most of the general public do prefer cookbooks with pictures

As a highly literate person, it is easy to overestimate the share of the population that is highly literate.

Have you ever heard of affiliate fraud?

Your comment claims that academics do not correct other academics.

Your comment appears on a post in which, literally, academics are correcting other academics.

What about $10000 human with many $200 agents?

You seem to be confusing intelligence with objective function.

Subservience seems to be sublimation of objectives to a master; intelligence seems to point out the ability to realize suboptimality of the master's objective function according to the master's actual objectives.

While an intelligent general may be absolutely loyal, he also would presumably help the king/president to avoid unproductive strategies.

Prompting is a skill.

I understand why this external view exists, as dissemination is inherently part of the scientific mission; but if you look more carefully, you will see that it is simultaneously science promotion, and many of the best participants do not shamelessly promote themselves.

Disagree. I have been driving Kia for 2.5 years. I think the UX is quite good.

I would assume that most people who live in a city would want to know when the Kia is unlocked at home. I think your dislike of that feature may reflect your residence type or garage type.

My experience of Tesla UX was poor, given how few manual controls were available, and the extensive touchscreen reliance required while driving.

False. There is no Economic Law of Consolidation such as you posit here. Haircuts are a mature market, yet plenty of small providers thrive. Counterexamples to your extraordinary claim abound.

The actual economics in highly competitive markets depend on what is known as the Minimum Efficient Scale, which in turn depends on the shape of the cost function.

It's nice if you find something you previously care about. But it can go the other way too-- you can care more about what you work on. You can focus on the reasons it is good, or efficient, or honest, or solves real problems, or whatever other metavalue motivates you to care more.

Oh come on. So you're rooting for the evil genius in the comic book movie? You would harm millions of people to move up the financial success yardstick?

I don't think many people would agree with such positions.

I do think that people who have succeeded financially might adopt that ethos as an ex post rationalization.

You could engineer the feed to maximize user satisfaction, rather than maximizing usage.

If Intuit and other tax preparers can protect their tax preparation rents at the expense of all income earners, then it is not difficult to believe that the medical industry is also able to protect its own rents.