thisnotmyacc

I'd sum this article up as:

This isn't news because we've known for ages and ages that governments do evil things, known for ages. None of the evils listed are new or that interesting. Nothing to see here.

To me, that is like saying, "come on, it's murder. We've had murder since Cain killed Abel. Wikileaks attempt to expose such an ancient crime isn't news. Now look what Kanye said..."

Not so much "heavily discounted shares" but "lower price to earnings valuations". PE ratio differences are how companies like Berkshire Hathaway use arbitrage to increase their value. They take the difference between a private entity's PE (2-4 X) vs public (17.94 in the case of the Berk beast) to increase the value of their stock.

This is both Voodoo economics (how is $1 million a year profit worth $4 mil in one scenario, and $17.94 in another?) as well as somewhat logical, as public companies have more rules and transparency (in theory, if not always in practice) that make a profitable more public company more stable.

This never has any numbers to support it, which is unfortunate.

Also, in a world of bubbles, how is a less free an open Twitter better? Is a Twitter with no controversy, with no argy bargy, really worth visiting?

I think Twitter's problem with trolls is minuscule compared to the problem of making it more entertaining, and easier to switch in and out of thoughts. If I like the NBA, cricket and South African politics, how do I switch between those three interests when, say, there is an NBA finals and a local election on? That is a problem much more so than trolls.

FTFY

> 1. cut costs by a lot. they shouldn't be spending $2B per year

Really, is Twitter doing poorly? $2.52 billion in 2016 is more than enough revenue, I'd wager, to maintain a solid company. Twitter seem to me to have an explosive-growth mentality - spend like crazy and grow our way to success - in a post-explosive-growth reality.

Fix the cost structures, and make ~$1 billion in profit, and you have a solid company. With continued YoY growth of say 5%, and a valuation of $20 billion in the near future, about double their current $11.33B, is not out of the realm of possibility. Sure, it isn't Google or FaceBook sized, but is a $20B company in anyway failing?

Which, ironically, is virtual signaling. That's the modern world though - lets everyone retreat to your corners and come out throwing buzzwords at each other.

"Misogynist"

"Cuck"

If only we could talk about ideas, not labels.

But where you ever accused?

I dunno, I'm happy to throw anyone under any bus, pretty much of anything ever. I just think we should consider sticking with "innocent until proven guilty", if only beacuse cultures without it, like Middle Ages England and the witch hunts, didn't seem like very fair places.

I think a question like this is so nebulous that people can answer it in a multitude of ways, none more or less valid.

Global warming doesn't really affect the USA specifically and/or uniquely, so maybe that biases the answer? Also, dying of smoking is less a worry when you see a truck about to run you over. Maybe people preference immediate danger over longer term danger?

The issue of "country" is an interesting one in the other direction as well. If a state/city/county has 16% unemployment, but the country has low unemployment, some people may think it is a country-wide issue, and preference that. Ditto other issues that are state or local level issues.

In any case, I can see why almost any answer is valid, which kinda makes the whole question an odd one.

Hosting companies would be either adding capacity (new locations, new land, new construction) or filling existing capacity. Once capacity is full at a location, then what?

The marginal, incremental value of adding a single server once capacity is reached is currently quite high. Using bogus numbers, lets say a location can hold 100,000 servers, then the marginal cost to add the 100,001st server will be very high, and might cost millions. These costs include:

- Cost of planning - when? Which countries? Which locations? Do you serve Kenya out of say South Africa? Or do you need to go to the mountains of Kenya where the air is a more consistent temperature?

- Cost of finding locations - doing deals to get the land for server farms is likely costly.

- Actually buying/leasing the land - how in advance do you do this? Years? Months? Weeks? Leasing land that lays dormant for say 18 months is wasted money.

- Getting approval to put in the required infrastructure (data cables, electricity, redundancy etc)

- Engineering/architectural costs to design buildings each and every time for varying sizes, in different regulatory environments.

- Cost of construction.

- Wasted capacity. There may be a need worldwide for say 50,000 servers, but with multiple continents, that may equate to several locations with 100,000 capacity.

All those costs add up.

Compare that to the marginal cost is adding a standard pod, with a lower server numbers per pod, mass manufactured in one location and shipped to a regulation free spot in the ocean. The marginal cost is not millions to go from (bogus numbers of) 100,000 to 100,001, it is the cost of one additional pod, at a much lower number, e.g. to go from 10,000 to 10,001 costs a fraction of the 100,000 to 100,001 example. The waste is also reduced, as multiple countries/continents can have say an additional X% capacity, added in smaller increments, rather than huge leaps in (initially) wasted capacity.

Now, is that overall cheaper? Maybe, maybe not, who knows? But many large hosting businesses might prefer say a 10% increase in theoretical cost per server added in smaller discrete numbers of servers. Factor in adding capacity in smaller increments with less capacity waste, less need to acquire the rights to land in advance and it might be cheaper in aggregate, even if it is theoretically more expensive per server at currently active locations.

Incidentally, that is the core value proposition of cloud computing like AWS - that you can add capacity incrementally. Despite there being theoretically cheaper options running your own hardware, this is larger capital outlay, with longer turnarounds to add capacity.

I don't think the plan is relocations. More than likely, MS see server numbers growing over time, at the very least for the foreseeable future, and they'll be located once, and then decommissioned, not moved.

That may change, but I doubt there are less server farms in 2020 than now.

As a side note, isn't that also Google's plan - the server farm as a single entity, where nothing is really fixed, just turned off and eventually replaced? In such a world, where a server farm exists then dies, underwater seems a great place for them. No regulations, no repairs, locally powered via means that no one can complain about (NIMBYism is a powerful force) just run until decommissioned.

Cost benefits though. $15 a month to save a few days coding is a bargain.

It really depends on what your turnover is, where you make the most money, and what your time is worth (objectively, rather than ideally).