thenewbtg

We are in the midst of a massive trend towards automation and robotics. Every year, we are seeing more tasks and more jobs successfully completed by robots, and more and more robots completing "work" tasks more efficiently than humans.

I am not qualified to statistically prove the automation trend, but I believe you are being obtuse in rejecting the premise that said trend exists at all.

It is true. Apple has a 70% profit margin on sales that they reinvest.

Just because revenue is reinvested doesn't mean it isn't revenue or a margin.

And, seeing as Apple has >$100,000,000,000 of cash and near cash, your "reinvestment" line is a total fantasy. Apple is printing cash with a massive profit margin, and reinvesting a tiny tiny tiny fraction of that money back into their business.

Actually, the part where you invent a bad strawman solely for the purpose of labeling me an asshole makes you an asshole.

You couldn't even quote me. You couldn't even use my words. You just invented a pathetic little fantasy and then attacked ME directly based on your fantasy world.

Pathetic, dude, pathetic.

Hey, step out of the 1980's!

I have used telecommunication services for over a decade now, and I have never once done business with AT&T or a Mabell company.

Perhaps it's YOU who needs a sense of proportion. It isn't 1984 anymore. Mabell isn't a massive monopoly: Google, however, is becoming one.

Instead of arguably, I think "currently" works better. We are currently much better robots at these tasks.

Your entire rant completely forgets that Apple runs, on average ~70% profit margin ($700 phone costs about $200 to make). Samsung's profit margins aren't AS high, but still are massive which help drive profit.

Your analysis pretends that Apple and Samsung are selling very custom hardware at a margin, and so one cannot beat the margin AND beat the custom hardware.

But there is a LOT of wiggle room to experiment with price when the incumbents are running 70% profit margins.

Kent described anarchy as law and freedom without force, and a republic as force with law and freedom.

I'm sometimes amazed how otherwise competent adults believe that one investor focused for profit corporation isn't capable of behaving just like another investor focused for profit corporation.

When I look at Google services, I see a lot of monopolies forming. For example, Hangouts now takes over SMS messages, and is automatically installed on all Android devices as a system app that cannot be removed. Or, in order to interact with Youtube, one requires a wholly unrelated public Google+ profile.

For someone to say that Google is incapable of abusing monopolies for strategic reasons including profit, while they are already abusing monopolies for strategic reasons including profit, is amazing to me.

"In my opinion, the best way to deal with these unsolicited emails is to use the unsubscribe link, delete the email, and then swear at them on Twitter or find their CEO's email and send them goatse or something. Fuck 'em. That way you get your revenge, and you don't muck up the spam filter for everyone."

This is totally absurd. My choices are "click one button" or "do a whole lot of bullshit that sounds like a lot of annoying work".

I hope you can understand why "one button" is taken more often than "raise hell on and offline".

The real solution is to separate spam and unwanted emails. Gmail and services need to add a separate button for non-spam unwanted emails, so they can categorize and learn about usage habits effectively.

But it's horrific, insanely bad UX design to create a flawed system then blame the users for using it naturally. I'm sorry but the user is not wrong, the system is wrong. The solution isn't "user training", it's "system redesign".

If the system were designed correctly, users would naturally gravitate to the correct option without training. That's good UX. Until then, it's perfectly acceptable to use whatever tools are available to achieve the desired outcome. That's software for you.

Personally, there are a select few brands from whom I enjoy reading unsolicited emails.

They have proven themselves to me and I like them on an irrationally human level.

What bothers me, however, is when the other 99.9% of the brands I interact with automatically assume that they are the 0.1%.

Yes, it's possible and acceptable to have that kind of relationship between a client/business, but the problem becomes when a brand believes that they can control that relationship, or define it themselves, or simply assume that it exists.

"Personal vendetta"

Hahaha! YES! I have a personal vendetta against unsolicited email.

If you send me an email that I am not expecting, then I will flag it as "unsolicited".

I do not care if you provide other mechanisms for handling unsolicited email. I do not care if you used a dark pattern to technically ask me to solicit the email without my conscious knowledge.

The way you call it vindictive is empowering and enlightening.

It's your way of calling it unfair, of attacking the person as immoral and undermining the point of their behavior. You're trivializing them as petty. Instead of saying "I understand why someone might be unhappy at me sending them email they do not want" you say "it is vindictive and petty for someone to treat unwanted advertising from for-profit businesses this way". What a sick joke.

So you know what? GOOD! If "vindictive" means "control over your inbox" then I AM VINDICTIVE. I will PUNISH anyone who gets into my inbox without my approval. Email is WAR and I am fighting for Inbox Zero. Send those emails my way lightly ... tread carefully with that send button, because you might just find your messages are unwanted and end up clearly marked as unwanted.

Insult us users all you want, trivialize us all you want, attack our behavior all you want: I DO NOT WANT UNSOLICITED EMAIL and will HAPPILY and "vindictively" (lol) mark unwanted email as "unsolicited".

I would point out the recent fun little study showing that the class we are (those who work for a salary) have less say in policy outcomes than the rich (those who do not require a salary).

They bill it as "The US is more of an oligarchy than democracy" because those very few >0.1% of Americans have a greater political say than the rest of us.

Surge Pricing is illegal in Berlin, and probably other European countries. And I imagine the illegality of price gouging ("surge pricing") while also skirting taxi regulation will be expanded dramatically in the coming years, all across much of Europe and blue states.

Yes, you can profit when you find loopholes in regulations that your competitors can't take advantage of. Color me shocked.

There is nothing we can do, really. Money is very close to power, and obviously the relatively poor (those who rely on a salary) have far less say and control than the extravagantly paid (those who do not require a salary). It is a fundamental trait of our free and capitalist society. We're merely mourning obvious inefficiencies, "bugs" in the convoluted system of laws and philosophies and culture that govern our society.

This is a suboptimum outcome, in our opinion. Watching inequality rise dramatically over a few short decades only bolsters the belief that these are suboptimal outcomes.

And watching these unmeritorious fools perform poorly while being paid thousands of times the average pay of their own staff is disheartening. It's obviously not a meritocracy. It's obvious that the extravagant, suboptimal pay scheme isn't buying quality leadership, nor is it rewarding any kind of out-sized risk on the part of management. Tiny risk compared to venture or entrepreneur, small or negative benefit, massive reward.