throwaway_kufu

You previously brought up El Salvador’s murder rate as though that has anything to do with or diminishes their Bitcoin experiment.

It is really odd until you reveal below that you have a pretty clear bias against Bitcoin because you personally worked on some traditional payment processing software.

> Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.)

But did advertising on Google become more expensive for competitors once Google entered the market (e.g. did Google Flights also bid on Google Ads) and were those additional costs passed along to customers?

So while your example shows a competitor survived, it over looks the many start ups that did not, it overlooks the increased advertising costs, it over looks the increased cost to consumers and the chilling effect on potential new startups that might have been able to enter the market.

We do not even need to question any of this because before Google acquired the startup which became Google Flights the acquisition was reviewed and only approved under very strict Chinese firewalls between Google flights and Google search…but those restrictions only sought to restrict Google flight’s complete takeover of the market and ignored how it is being used to increase ad costs to the remaining market competitors.

The same has been seen with Google shopping, where Google essentially acquired a startup, it flopped, then Google positioned itself ahead of organic results and began systematically burying competition in the Google results. The fact you can’t name any of the travel or shopping startups that had thriving businesses that fell once Google entered the market is more telling of how Google has dominated the market rather than evidence Google hasn’t actually put anyone out of business.

How long to break even after building your own search engine?

How many people are you currently hiring and what’s the compensation package of each employee?

> Suppose that Fauci had known for a fact in May 2020 that SARS-COV-2 originated in that lab. How would that have changed the advice he (attempted to) offer regarding public health and safety?

If he had known the virus was being researched and escaped the lab, certainly his recommendation should have included requests for any and all research and records related to the virus research. As such records have been very pertinent to public health guidelines and guidance, if not potentially toward treatments and future vaccines.

Also there is the very real financial and legal component if that were the case. On a much smaller scale it would be on par with destroying video evidence of a slip and fall, denying it ever existed, then when caught claiming it’s immaterial to the medical treatment of the injured…that’s still fraud and at minimum a clear attempt to escape legal and financial liability.

Trillions were not distributed to the populace, trillions were distributed to businesses and the Fed to leverage even further to prop up the stock market. The “populace” got billions.

The printing isn’t really the problem either, it’s a symptom of policies from both parties for 50-60 years resulting in a nation that functions purely on debt from individual households, small businesses, publicly traded businesses, to the government itself.

Before the pandemic the majority of households couldn’t cover a $400 emergency. But the truth is businesses and governments were in the same position, and even in “the greatest economy the world has ever seen” the majority of them live the equivalent of paycheck to paycheck just servicing their debts.

Look I’m as jaded as the rest, like everyone. I’ve seen mass manipulation to promote bullshit wars. I graduated in 2008 and I am still told to shut up and say thank you to the banks for paying back taxpayer loans with interest that bailed them out of their own fraud and let them consolidate the market. I saw the CDC initially lie about masks to allegedly preserve supplies for healthcare providers. I saw the government take trillions in future taxes and mostly give it to businesses and for the FED to leverage into even more money to prop up the stock market (hey, all time highs again mid pandemic).

Still, for all the BS lawyers get, much of it deserving, for every lawyer behind the brokers/investors/funds there are others representing the victims. These are the types of lawsuits that include egos so big that sometimes discovery of emails/communications and the prospects of sitting for depositions result in a resolution, and even change.

It’s funny you mention the army of lawyers, because many of these cases have been consolidated and one 1 Zoom hearing were 141 lawyers…they represented the plaintiffs.

You seem to be sarcastic but in fact yes the Robinhood/GameStop BS resulted in both a congressional probe and it skipped the FBI and went straight to the prosecutors at the Department of Justice.

Except it doesn’t mean nothing because there are a bunch of lawsuits against Robinhood, because the law provides a remedy for the bullshit they pulled.

It’s the same company that attempted to keep its customers Bitcoin cash when Bitcoin forked right? Then only backed down after consumer backlash? Same company that tipped off its employees to buy Bitcoin cash to pump it before it was listed and then it was dumped on day 1?

To all the decentralized exchanges where poor fools have their money locked up to be sniped.

Except Crypto isn’t regulated like stocks, so what your likely seeing is the exchange themselves shutting off service to lock in their customers while the exchange liquidates its positions.

Location isn’t the legal standard…it would essentially be like saying customers can watch all Studio A movies at Theater A and then watch all Studio B movies at Theater B.

Sure it’s more convenient online, competition being 1 click away, but antitrust still applies to online content creators/distribution businesses.

So it’s more important to ask if you wanted to watch Netflix created content can you watch it outside Netflix? It’s not a simple yes or no, black/white kind of analysis though. You also have to look at the whole of the industry and when you do you will begin to see how the sausage is made and the antitrust nastiness.

Say you want to create a movie/show you contact film company A, Director B, actor C. Turns out you can’t hire any of them because they have contracts with Netflix. New content creators can no longer compete or even enter the market to compete and new distributors will not have any content to distribute so they won’t be able to compete or enter the market.

Even if it results in more/cheaper content, which may or may not be something to brag about, ultimately a competition is harmed and lack of competition is what harms the consumer.

For a little background on the movie industry and antitrust law, the Hollywood studios once upon owned everything from the way movies were produced, distributed and exhibited.

The monopoly held by the studios was effectively broken up following WWII. Yes, there were multiple studios competing but individually they were engaging in antitrust behavior.

This acquisition is essentially a waiving of the white flag and passing the torch. It will be allowed because big tech/Hollywood own politicians.

However, and I think to your point, it is impossible to reconcile that Netflix is engaging in the same behavior (producing, distributing and exhibiting) as the Hollywood studios when the courts broke up the industry to allow fair competition.

The mmm.pages post yesterday was really refreshing positive, until a comment floating to the top ranted about geocities style/gifs being schizophrenic, nostalgia being toxic, and real creativity = having the same cookie cutter modern web design as everyone else (now that’s irony).

But based on your comment, you either: a) were inspired by the post itself and decided to have a little fun roasting this comment; or b) need to take a vacation.