Apple Removes Infowars from Podcast Directory - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-removes-infowars-from-podcast-directory-1533538681 <comment><USER3> All: there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of intellectual gratification happening in these threads, but please try at least to avoid things like gratuitous inflammation, generic politics, and all such low-information flameage. Those things do actual damage to the community, and for what?

</comment><comment><USER4> I agree with the comments that it's their store and they can do what they want with it, and Jones actively uses his platform to bully individuals so I'm not disappointed to see it diminished.

That said, the trend of centralization of Podcasts worries me a bit. Podcasts were one of the few real success stories of an open syndication format that allowed an ecosystem of podcast apps to flourish. I've noticed a trend where podcasts make it hard to find the RSS URL or even make it hidden and require you subscribe on the major platforms. Let's not turn podcasting into the same walled garden we have for every other aspect of syndicated content!

<comment><USER5> The fact that private stores can do what they want does not mean that they _should_ do what they want or that consumers shouldn't demand otherwise. More generally, not all bad behavior is or should be illegal. The fact that the first amendment only legally applies to the government does not mean that free speech as a concept doesn't have moral force on other organizations.

For instance, we expect universities to act as neutral debate platforms for all sorts of views that are not endorsed by the university administration. When they fail to do this, they are not legally penalized (modulo constraints from accepting government funding), but we (should) lower their public esteem. Newspapers and online media companies like Apple and Facebook could and should be held to a similar standard by the public, although in practice they are unfortunately given more latitude.

<comment><USER6> ""Debate"" needs to have a minimum legitimacy requirement to be taken seriously. You can't just make up a string of provably false stuff and use it as a pretext for harassment, Sandy Hook passim.

<comment><USER7> Sure, by the private individual. The problem is many things that were major moments in world history didn't pass the ruling-class's "minimum legitimacy requirement" at the time. Top-of-my-head examples: the Magna Carta, the Protestant Reformation, Indian Independence, anybody else's independence, Snowden, etc.

<comment><USER6> The Magna Carta is literally an agreement among the ruling class.

By "legitimacy" I don't mean that people agree with the conclusion being expressed, but that people agree it's at least an attempt at a structured argument based on actual facts. The 95 Theses were complaints against _real_ injustices, not a set of fabricated smears.

Colonial independences generally were discussable - and discussed - at the time and in advance of their happening.

<comment><USER7> > The Magna Carta is literally an agreement among the ruling class.

Not in the way you're thinking. This is at the time when the King had absolute or near absolute authority. King John was the ruling class. While it was the English nobility that opposed the king, they did so (1) at great risk to their own safety, and (2) as the only ones in a position to do so. Certainly no serf could have accomplished this -- they would have been killed.

Second sentence of the (excellent) Wikipedia article about it:

> First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the > unpopular King and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of > church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access > to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be > implemented through a council of 25 barons.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta)

<comment><USER8> > the King had absolute or near absolute authority. King John was the ruling > class.

In theory, perhaps. But the barons could and did challenge the King with a degree of success. The king did not have a practical monopoly on the use of force. So the description of Magna Carta as an 'agreement among the ruling class' seems reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone of average intelligence who spends 30-60 seconds listening to Alex Jones will quickly realize that Jones suffers from some kind of mental illness or personality disorder, and that there is nothing of interest or value to learn from his rants.

Those who ignore the obvious signs and still choose to listen to it do so for their own, identity-driven or emotional reasons. This is the same process that causes humans to rally behind demagogues of all kinds.

When uncensored, Jones' folly is obvious and can be easily evaluated and dismissed. But when it's censored, those inclined toward conspiracy theories will assume that Jones is speaking some kind of truth to power, etc.

So Apple's move strengthens Jones in all the worst ways and does a great disservice to American civil society. The only way to prevent dark ages beliefs is to shine light on them.

<comment><USER10> > The only way to prevent dark ages beliefs is to shine light on them.

This is the sort of principled belief I used to hold that I'm no longer sure holds up to scrutiny.

There's always been a fringe that was willing to believe anything. But how do you call something like Infowars "fringe" when it's on the same "network" as NPR and CNN podcasts? Placement like that legitimizes Infowars. That "light shining" on Infowars was a spotlight.

You're probably right that this will galvanize the true believers, but what was going to turn their beliefs around? The flipside is that this move may cauterize a growing infection.

<comment><USER9> > ... but what was going to turn their beliefs around?

Educating people about morally correct beliefs is a separate undertaking that is typically what members of the clergy undertake with worshipers. I don't think there is any need for such a role in secular society. If you disagree, don't just downvote this, explain what level of moral education and policing is appropriate in a free society.

> ...this move may cauterize a growing infection.

I understand the point you are making, but I would like to add that I think it's a bit dangerous to use nazi-style rhetoric like "infection" or "infestation" to describe people we oppose politically.

<comment><USER10> > explain what level of moral education and policing is appropriate in a free > society.

The problem, as I currently perceive it, is not how society performs moral education or policing on adults, but rather how we teach critical thinking skills to children.

For a related example, there was an excellent article recently where someone visited a "flat earth" convention and interviewed various participants. What he found was that adherents didn't exactly disbelieve in a globe; they were instead embracing rejection of factual authority. [https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/looking-for- life-...](https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/looking-for-life-on-a- flat-earth)

I don't see Infowars types as those I "oppose politically." Their beliefs are not merely "right-wing" — their worldview is simply craziness.

If I'm right that this is a problem of rubber-stamping students through graduation who are unable to think coherently, then "moral policing" is a post-facto treatment, and what's really necessary is prevention. (These ideas are mostly spread through memes, for crying out loud; the term is literally defined as an infection.)

(I didn't downvote you, incidentally.)

<comment><USER9> Interesting thoughts.

I agree that students should learn critical thinking in school, but I'd argue that Alex Jones has not gained popularity by appealing to untrained minds, but by appealing to human emotional needs.

I take solace in the realization that humans are extraordinarily hypocritical. Consider the massive engagement numbers from Youporn in the most religious counties in the US. Belief has virtually nothing to do with action, so there is no reason to be concerned about anyone's beliefs.

People act for emotional reasons that are beneath the level of belief. Jones appeals to people for those reasons, and I fear that censoring him only strengthens the emotional meaning of his existence for his followers, and will motivate them to share his messages more actively now that the content isn't as easy to find by accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not familiar with Infowars, or the podcast. That said, I think we have to be very very cautious about allowing corporations, especially corporations as powerful as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple, to act as gatekeepers on speech. It's hard to get the balance right on speech issues, and that's when the determination is being governed by a democratic government. Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter are in no way beholden to a representative electorate, and just because this particular instance makes sense, this is a massive shift of power from government to private corporation.

History has shown that this power has and will be abused. Even if it is not here, it will be in the future.

</comment><comment><USER12> With Apple, Facebook and Spotify doing this (and lots of reporting about it) I'd say ... cue the Streisand effect.

Sometimes it's better to just not do anything, but I guess that doesn't get you PR points.

<comment><USER13> I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing.

Adding barriers to passive consumption, by vulnerable (misinformed) people, is probably also a good thing. It's not being censored/outlawed, just made slightly less convenient to access. Fake news are a threat to democracy.

<comment><USER14> Censoring "fake" news is not the way to a healthy democracy. Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need.

<comment><USER15> I agree we need better education about this sort of thing. I think it would be useful for all public schools to include this as part of their curriculum; I think you could easily spend an entire semester on learning to qualify media sources.

However, I think we should make the tradeoff explicit here. Just saying "Apple shouldn't do this because it's censorship, and censorship is bad" is a rather naive attitude. I would argue two things:

1\. This isn't censorship, it's a refusal to broadcast. It's one thing to say "You can't say that", and another to say "I'm not going to allow you to use our platform to say that." The government is not allowed to prevent speech, but that doesn't mean that private companies are required to enable it.

2\. It's not "fake" news. It's fake. It's literally made up stories, about child sex rings in pizza parlors and slave colonies on Mars.

So you might say, what's the harm in making up stuff? Well, people are shooting up restaurants and making on-air death threats to journalists and generally gravitating towards authoritarian viewpoints sponsored by organizations such as infowars. And guess what tool authoritarians love to employ? CENSORSHIP. Failing to hold these jokers accountable for their words and instigation actually and inevitably leads us farther down the path towards actual censorship than refusing to give them a platform. I would rather companies take a stand against this stuff than just allow them to exploit our misguided notions of democratic rule to undermine actual democratic rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just to be clear - It looks like iTunes does allow you to subscribe by entering the RSS url directly.

They are removing the podcast from their directory of podcasts, not blocking the ability to subscribe.

<comment><USER17> There may be a market for an anti-malware that targets content like Inforwars and classifies it as malware.

I'd love to see that.

<comment><USER18> Be careful what you wish for.

<comment><USER17> I kind of half-jokingly made one. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpepefy-making- tw...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpepefy-making- twitter-g/ldjnhcjpldbplikakcfkcmeblikfadpe)

It really doesn't prevent infection, just warns you about stuff that may be unhealthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you send Alex Jones a submission on how great Hillary Clinton is, do you think it'll get posted on infowars? No Does that mean Alex Jones is limiting your free speech's by denying you access to his platform?

You can argue that Facebook, Apple and twitter are bigger platforms, but the principal is really the same.

Free speech is the right to say what you want, the way you want it, without being procecuted by the government or murdered by a violent mob.

Free speech is not the right to be heard.

I see the problem of the idea of huge media platforms banning content, but only as an idea. Alex Jones is a hate mongering asshole, that while entertaining, is also dangerous. When infowars ran a piece on the Sandy Hook tradegy, labeling it as a false flag and the victims as actors, some of those parents who lost their children received death threats. Some of those parents are still in hiding today, thanks to infowars and their insane audience.

I don't think the free world, or free speech, suffered anything from this asshole being banned from iTunes.

<comment><USER20> I don't think Infowars has ever advertised itself an a non-political way for people to connect with each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What if we find out the government _were_ making the frogs gay?

<comment><USER22> As an Austinite (well now Iowan) who grew up with plenty of Alex Jones on the airwaves, it's stuff like this I'll actually-in a morbid kind of way-really miss. I suppose you have to be exposed to it long enough to grow numb to it but Alex Jones became a source of entertainment as I grew older just to see what wackiness he'd come up with next. Gay frogs still manages to put a grin on my face even on my most stressful days.

It was almost a contest between he and the considerably less inflammatory but still uniquely weird John Aielli.

This isn't, nor should be read as a defense of Alex Jones by any sane person- but an acknowledgement of the absurd. I mean come on. _Gay frogs_? You gotta admit--it's chuckleworthy.

<comment><USER6> Serious question: how do you make sure that none of this stuff you're listening to leaks into your perception of the real world? Are you _sure_ you're just regarding it as some weird dystopian fiction, like Scarfolk or the SCP foundation, and not letting it affect your real politics?

<comment><USER23> It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's a good point, and the very same can be said about late night comedians and their "I'm just a comedian bro, you expect me to be accurate and consistent, lol" bits on the news of the day. These things do have an effect on perception of reality.

<comment><USER22> I admit I wasn't at all surprised to see it getting downvoted so heavily-I was not one of them I as I agree; it's a good question-even if, directed at me-I'm not inclined to go through all of the setup and groundwork necessary to give a response in the affirmative or otherwise.

Being willing to critique ones own body politic is a healthy thing. My lack of surprise comes from this strange phenomenon going about that presumes anything short of full-fledged vociferous condemnation or admonishment must automatically mean harbored complicity and is worth the harshest rebuke or silent dissent in the form of drive by downvotes without much contemplation or substantive discussion in the slightest.

<comment><USER23> > this strange phenomenon going about that presumes anything short of full- > fledged vociferous condemnation or admonishment must automatically mean > harbored complicity and is worth the harshest rebuke or silent dissent in > the form of drive by downvotes without much contemplation or substantive > discussion in the slightest

It's not so much strange, it's simple human nature really. The strange part to me is how common it is becoming on a forum as intelligent as HN. Most people here see themselves as a cut above the general public when it comes to intellectual capability, _and they 're right_, but even with this genuine intellectual advantage so few people seem able to notice that they too are neck deep in the cultural meme war, and guilty of many of the same (or at least similar) transgressions of those they criticize, albeit to a lesser degree.

To me, this is the big elephant-in-the-room problem we should be talking about rather than obvious idiots like Infowars, and the stakes are very high in the long term.

(.....and, possibly relevant, I'm "you're posting too fast" throttled, once again. Is that message 100% consistent with the underlying algorithm? Oh right, "freedom of speech doesn't guarantee you a platform", _there 's nothing more to be said about the matter_, full stop. As long as we follow the law to the letter, "it's all good bro".)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Am I disturbed at the idea of a centralized publishing / distribution platform censoring videos/recordings that it characterized in a certain way?

I'm actually far more concerned that not a lot of people are challenging the question of whether those characterizations can one day become (if they are not already becoming) arbitrary, self-serving, overly broad, or even simply 'by popular demand' removing items based on an increasingly politicized/bifurcated population.

I would argue that choosing winners and losers in the realm of ideas -- which is different than, say, graphic videos, where the criteria are easier to craft ["no nudity" or "no violence" examples of criteria with fewer edge cases] -- goes against core concepts of Western ideals of liberty and the marketplace of ideas. For if there's an objective reality out there, and each of us can seek it out for his/her self, there's no need for an overarching authority to remove "conspiracy theories" to protect our simple minds from accidentally becoming infected with false ideas.

I never enjoyed the screaming histrionics of Jones, nor his absurd obsessions, but I'm increasingly concerned that this Postmodern society is more concerned with what it views as Correct and Incorrect Ideas in such realms as comedy and discourse (the overly used "political correctness" that we often argue over so much) than letting individuals think things out for themselves.

I have a cultural foot in the door in both Europe and the U.S., and one point of contention I'll forever have with the European leg of the value system is the absurd notion that laws or norms should protect people from being offended and root out "false ideas." Not because I want people to be offended or because I think false ideas are good; instead, I simply don't trust anyone -- not a European judge nor some Apple bureaucrats -- to have better judgment than the rest of the population in this matters.

Applauding Jones getting wiped clean from these channels of distribution is short-term: one day there might be something less vile, less clear-cut, an edge-case, that gets removed and you'll have to shout to get it back. Be careful.

</comment><comment><USER25> I used to think the name "Infowars" was melodramatic, but I guess not.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's crazy to me that they banned pornographic apps from the app store but still let this hot garbage be listed on their platform for so long.

<comment><USER27> They go further than that. We had an app for models and fans to interact which showcased Instagram models and celebrities with profiles built using the Instagram API for verification. Apple told us we had to tone it down and censor a lot of the sexier photos like bikini and so on that was found on their Instagram profiles. We explained they were simply using the same photos found on their Instagram and if they had a problem with their images they should report them to Instagram. They basically told us no, we would have to manually censor the profiles instead. They found another reason to remove us from the store in the end flushing years of work down the toilet for us. They are completely arbitrary in how they censor the stores, there's no equitable standard. Basically, if you're Instagram or Twitter you can push the limits, but smaller businesses like ours get thrown out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The bigger story is that Facebook removed several Infowars pages. That's a big hit in terms of their ability to grow through shares/likes and reach a wider audience. I don't know if the Podcast directory is a big source of newcomers, is it?

<comment><USER29> I do agree that the Facebook news is bigger than both Apple and Spotify combined. And InfoWars seems to agree as well, as they've published a video complaining about Facebook's decisions almost immediately.

However, I don't think that's the biggest damage they could face from a single provider. I'd say that YouTube could absolutely break the entire thing down to pieces.

There are dozens of YouTube videos on their channel with millions of views, often multiple hours long. Hosting multiple hour long video files in a way that millions of people can stream them reliably, that's going to take some effort (and a non-negligible amount of resources).

Since YouTube offers them both discoverability and unlimited video bandwidth, if YouTube made a similar decision to Facebook, they would most probably be destroyed in an instant.

<comment><USER28> YouTube has now banned them as well so they will probably move to dTube / HookTube or one of the blockchain / p2p alternatives. Ironically a big channel like Infowars moving to these alternatives might start the ball rolling in making those platforms more popular.

I occasionally listen to Alex Jones for background noise and entertainment value. There is something amusing in his voice, delivery and absurdity - perhaps I am a little privileged to be able to feel that way because he is nowhere close to home for me, as I live in India.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _The one platform that they CAN 'T ban and will ALWAYS have our live streams > is [http://infowars.com/show](http://infowars.com/show) _

Challenge accepted. Where are they hosted? The videos stream from Akamai CDN. CNN can now press Akamai to remove Infowars.

Do they use CloudFlare? CloudFlare is know to censor far-right sites (but not jihadi sites).

<comment><USER31> This is basically the issue with the internet as it stands now. There is no space outside of the control of a company that might wish to protect their reputation at your expense, meaning that anything unpopular enough can be de facto banned by no one ever hosting it. It's like if the streets and town square didn't exist, and shopping malls owned every 'public' area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> important and accurate subhead:

'Move thrusts tech giant into the debate over censoring content on internet platforms'

<comment><USER33> Apple has been censoring podcasts all along. This debate might be about technicalities in the Terms of Service but it's not about censorship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's their store. Surely it's entirely their prerogative to decide which products they choose to sell or not sell.

</comment><comment> S-E-P Won't change anything. Do you really think that InfoWars listeners really use Apple as their only point of exposure.

Also a little hypocritical of Apple, they have some very inflammatory/deceptive podcasts run by some pretty nasty people, but because they aren't InfoWars it's ok.

Apple is not virtuous, nor will they ever be, regardless of what they want you to think.

</comment><comment><USER35> I see a lot of comments regarding freedom of speech. But this has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It has everything to do with hate. I would not eat at a restaurant that has hate propaganda on their walls. This is same thing.

He is free to publish his podcast on the internet, no one is stopping. If US government bans him, then we are in a big trouble.

</comment><comment><USER36> Regardless of your views of specific individuals, I hope the big corps enjoy their censorship abilities now because it won't be very long before they lose their positions of power. Decentralization is coming...

</comment><comment><USER37> Previous discussion from 8 hours ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17695323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17695323) (107 comments)

</comment><comment><USER38> so wrong.

Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction. - <USER2>

<comment><USER19> None of those things happened to Alex Jones.

Freedom of speech isn't the right to be heard, mind you. If you came by my house wanting to sell Jesus and I shut the door on you, you'd still have free speech.

<comment><USER38> True, he was using a private media outlet.

They do have a legal right to discriminate which they used against him.

But still that does not change the fact that the media outlets are the ones that choose who has a right to speak and discriminate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Reposting this here since just after I posted in the Ars version of this that got marked as a dupe:

I consider myself an extremely strong First Amendment advocate and "free speech absolutist" when it comes to government force, and I am also uncomfortable about where the line should be for "private entities" that manage to achieve quasi-governmental levels of power, though I do not think that any level of non-violent restriction is directly comparable to censorship via the government's monopoly on physical force.

That said, a major question for me that has been growing bigger and bigger in my mind over the last decade is what exactly should be Free Speech's answer to denial of cognition attacks (and I want to be extra clear that it is a _question_ , I have not been able to come to at all a satisfactory universal answer myself yet). Likely everyone on HN will be familiar with the concept of resource exhaustion attacks in the context of computers and networks. DOS mitigation has regrettably become a near requirement for any significant public facing Internet service. But fundamentally resource exhaustion attacks apply equally well to humans. In the idealized world of discussion and debate and philosophy abstract models of conduct are often used, but at the end of the day "implementation" still comes down to individual humans, each of whom only has so much mental capacity and so much time. And many arguments involving reality can easily be asymmetric too: it takes very little time and energy to make an assertion but a great deal to disprove it. Reality is under no obligation to be simple and elegant to human preferences.

I have seen this get put into practice with ever greater sophistication on a lot of my favorite forums. Someone arguing BS will throw out a bunch of simple stuff that takes a great deal of careful posting to show is wrong. If people volunteer their time to answer in that thread, it does no good in preventing the exact same assertions from being tossed out again (maybe remixed) in a new thread a week or month or whatever later. Eventually people just get tired or are busy. If they try to point towards a centralized source instead, that source can then be attacked and you see "argument from authority durr" and the like thrown out. It's bad faith but in a way that exploits a lot of the norms around free speech and argumentation, which classically didn't have the same scaling and automation threats. In fact, perhaps even more pernicious is when it's _not_ bad faith but someone who has been fed a bunch of stuff they are arguing in all earnestness, yet there simply isn't time to address them individually. They must be directed to authorities and be expected to educate themselves on it.

I'm not sure what the answer is but we do clearly have a problem as some of the previous natural barriers due to cost of speech have fallen. It is common to speak of a "Marketplace of Ideas" when it comes to Free Speech, but it's important to remember that "Free Markets" are specific real tools that require regulatory support to function and have no goals of their own. Costs need to be internalized, information and processing ability needs to be symmetric, there needs to be a shared base of legal structure and norms to work on top of. Getting too far away from that results in market failure. I don't know how that might be translated to Free Speech but I do think we're seeing a "market of ideas failure" to some extent right now, and that it could easily get much worse in the near future unchecked. There is a need for better ways to improve the signal/noise cost function, and for systems to re-internalize that the _point_ of Free Speech, of marketplaces of ideas or markets of anything at all, is to come up with _good_ products. They're tools to serve humanity. Bad ones shouldn't be banned by force but they shouldn't be flourishing either, if they are then something isn't working.

<comment><USER19> I think the answer is fairly easy. If someone is an asshole online, you ban or ignore them.

Free speech is the right to speak your mind without being prosecuted by the government, it's not the right to force your opinion on people who don't want it.

<comment><USER39> To call that "fairly easy" seems a little overly glib maybe? I mean just look at the HN comments on this, or the comments on the WSJ article or the Ars version. Lots of people have internalized that banning people is "censorship" and nearly always wrong, and that the "right answer" to bad information is _more_ information. Of course that framework for dealing with info attacks doesn't really address what to do when the shear amount of information _is_ the attack.

As it stands though, within current speech norms and ideals of debate dating back to Athens at least, there are lot of people very angry about bans. And that matters to commercial entities in particular, which means banning isn't "easy" (even ignoring the lack of any time equivalency token system to deal with the economics of suspensions or bans better).

> _Free speech is the right to speak your mind without being prosecuted by the > government, it's not the right to force your opinion on people who don't > want it._

You don't need to tell me that, I covered in the first paragraph of my post. But it's not unreasonable to talk about wider concepts for the "marketplace of ideas" as it serves society beyond the critical foundation of the 1A. I think we may need better norms and tools to help private entities in determining where lines should be and how to go about that. And I also think it's disingenuous to not address private entities that achieve levels of societal power that approach modern government even if they don't have armies of their own, particularly when there is in fact subtle government backing down the chain somewhere (DMCA for example).

<comment><USER19> I think it's fairly easy.

It's not my fault people have the wrong assumption that free speech meant you could say what you want without consequences.

Part of why free speech work is because adults accept responsibility for their actions, and part of that is living with the consequences of how you behave. When you offend people for a living, people are going to get offended and then they genuinely won't want to listen to what you have to say.

Which is their right.

<comment><USER23> He is very clearly talking about something broader and more nuanced/complex, a "marketplace of ideas", yet you've twice misinterpreted that as a simplistic appeal to a pedantic interpretation of "free speech as defined by the US Government".

Dismissing any discussion on this topic as _simply_ "you have the right to free speech, but you're not guaranteed a platform" in the age of the internet, with absolutely no consideration whatsoever for larger long term considerations and risks displays that the speaker is not righteously unbiased. Sure, they're undoubtedly more correct than Alex Jones and his ilk, but they're not fully willing to support a marketplace of ideas _on principle_. If your ideological team is winning, this is a natural tendency, but consider a scenario where your team isn't - then what?

From where I sit, this is a good demonstration of the nature, difficulty, and importance of the problem we're dealing with in our complex societies.

<comment><USER19> It's not broader or more nuanced though, the first amendment is very clear. Apple is no more forced to include infowars on their platform, than inforwars is forced to post an article you sent them.

It has nothing to do with free speech.

I can see why inforwars readers aren't happy with this, but I don't really care what they think. People who send death threats to parents who lose children in school shootings because infowars labeled them as actors in false flag operations are assholes.

Who wants to listen to them? And it's not like they're not allowed to say what they want, they absolutely are, they just can't force anyone to listen.

Ironically, if you want the government to force private companies to include inforwars on their platforms, well, then you're really not very different from the left-leaning marxists who wants the government to force companies to hire 50/50 male/women directors.

Equality of outcome is always evil, and there is nothing complicated or nuanced about it.

<comment><USER40> > If someone is an asshole online, you ban or ignore them.

Who watches the watchmen?

<comment><USER19> You do, none of this was done in secret. If you fundamentally disagree with then decision the nobody is forcing you to visit infowars.com through itunes.

<comment><USER41> Your whole "easy" solution is not a solution. You just avoid the condition and expect it's solved.

<comment><USER19> It was solved, Alex Jones broke the rules and reaped the consequences. If you posted the same sort of content you would have been banned a lot sooner, and rightly so, being popular shouldn't give you the right to be evil.

I mean, by all rights, Trump should have been banned from twitter as well, but I guess you can become popular enough that rules don't apply.

But that is frankly wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> There's a weird balance where just saying "hey we don't want to censor things" doesn't seem to make you seem very neutral when you're hosting something that is hateful towards others or just straight false information.

<comment><USER43> Apple doesn't host any podcasts in iTunes - it's just a directory. And you can still use iTunes or the iOS Podcasts app to subscribe to the podcast via it's RSS feed.

<comment><USER42> I guess I was thinking of "hosting" more generically. Feel free to substitute a better term, I'm operating on limited sleep ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I may disagree with what you say but I'll defend with you the right to say it.

Apple's wrong here.

<comment><USER19> So Apple isn't allowed the freedom to do as they want?

On a smaller scale, you couldn't get your content posted on infowars if they didn't like it. Does that mean infowars is stepping on your rights?

No, because freedom of speech isn't the same thing as the right of being heard. You can say what you want, but I don't have to listen to you.

<comment><USER45> > So Apple isn't allowed the freedom to do as they want?

Giving for-profit corporations "freedoms" like they were people was a mistake. Once an organization grows to a certain size, it has more in common with a government than a person. When that happens, their "freedoms" should be appropriately circumscribed.

<comment><USER19> So who determines which companies have the rights to exclude others and which doesn't?

<comment><USER45> > So who determines which companies have the rights to exclude others and > which doesn't?

You misunderstand: I wasn't commenting on _which companies_ have rights or not, but about _which rights_ companies should have at all, and where their rights stand in relation to those held by individuals. Corporations are not natural persons, they're creatures animated by legislation and can be regulated by it or abolished entirely.

<comment><USER19> This has absolutely nothing to do with that though. You can't force a company or an individual to listen to your opinion on whether penguins are the greatest birds alive.

<comment><USER45> > You can't force a company or an individual to listen to your opinion on > whether penguins are the greatest birds alive.

No, that's wrong. The government _can_ force a company to provide services to someone, despite however much that company may disagree them, their views, or their identity. A lot of anti-discrimination law works that way. For instance: private individuals have the right not associate with a particular person for _any reason_ , but companies do not.

<comment><USER19> The government shouldn't though, equality of outcome is evil, forcing someone to keep Alex Jones is similar to forcing a company to hire 50/50 male/women staff.

If you violate a TOS you get banned. Alex Jones is a vile troll, he broke the rules and reaped the consequences. The government shouldn't prevent this just because he has vile listeners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> They should've made their Podcasts app actually usuable while they were at it.

</comment><comment><USER47> Infowars: "Californian tech communist gay froggers thwart free speech with help of nazi BDSM aliens"

<comment><USER48> I'd download that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Read through the dead comments here on this topic. Now tell me censorship isn't political.

</comment><comment><USER50> Alex Jones is a fruitcake, but I don't like this as a general trend. Effectively, once things aren't available on the main marketplace, they don't exist anymore for most people. RSS is still kind of a thing for podcasts, but everything wants to use either iTunes or Soundcloud etc. iTunes is so bad on Windows that I want to rip my hair out...

</comment><comment><USER51> Only took them long enough.

</comment><comment><USER40> Honestly curious - I wonder how many people on here that are arguing in favor of limiting access to Infowars have actually spent time watching/listening to it? Or have they formed opinions based on 'what they are told' it is, or blog headlines etc... I see a lot of that these days. A headline comes along and describes something, and a whole bunch of people accept it as literal truth, without bothering to spend time really learning about an opposing viewpoint.

A great example of this is Jordan Peterson - he's sort of an interesting guy who got caught up in limelight for various political reasons, but the bulk of his lectures are truly interesting to me, looking at Christianity from an evolutionary psychology perspective, etc... but to read the headlines, you'd think he was out there whipping up Nazi sentiment and trying to crush democracy. I see a lot of people cherry picking small sentences taken out of context, and repeating them to mischaracterize an "opponent". See the painfully uneducated criticisms of his discussion about 'enforced monogamy'.

I freely admit I haven't seen a lot of Alex Jones' stuff. I've watched it a bit, out of curiosity. What I saw was colorful and impassioned. I saw a dude getting riled up and speaking more from emotion than critical analysis. That's not my favorite thing, so I haven't spent more time watching it.

I just wonder if he's being given the 'Jordan Peterson' treatment because his views are unpopular, and sometimes disagreeable? I saw at least one comment on here accusing him of inciting violence directly. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I wonder if that person actually watched/listened to him incite violence? Or if they were just repeating something they heard somewhere else. Several other comments followed that argued that he'd never done that. Hmm.

Like I said, I don't have a valid opinion on Inforwars itself, because I haven't really spent much time watching it. I wonder if our discussions about a topic like Infowars would be more positive and constructive if more people were able to withhold judgement until they'd actually researched the topic directly.

Or maybe they have? Maybe the dislike is valid from people who have spent time looking into it? It just seems questionable when there is disagreement about basic statements like "he incites violence".

<comment><USER20> Jordan Peterson cites research that people don't agree with. Because they don't want to take him to task over research, they often create strawmem.

Jones makes things up (and has admitted he's acting in court). Some of the things he makes up - like the parents of the dead lids being actors, or a pizza shop being a storefront for pedophiles - mean that people who believe him might be tempted to expose the secret actors, or punish the seemingly- immune pedophiles (who obviously are just people running a pizza shop). This is a serious danger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> First off, I have never listened to or read any of Infowars material, my knowledge is from what is reported. When the censoring is not meted out equally is when I get worried. I noticed in more than one article that they labeled specific groups you cannot say anything derogatory about but left it open that other groups may not be protected.

There should be no group selection, it should be all or nothing. We also need to be damn careful of the recent attempt to brand speech some groups do not agree with as "weaponizing speech" which seems to be a new means to get the government to step in. With hate speech the government is still very limited on First Amendment grounds however by branding some speech as "weaponized" it implies violence and that does not have the same protection.

Frankly I don't mind the haters being out there, at least then I know who they are. Let them post, let them march, because in public venues we can at least assess when they are truly dangerous or not.

tl;dr censoring is fine when applied equally, be wary of anyone trying to change how speech is labeled as a means to get the government to do their censoring for them

</comment><comment><USER53> Alex Jones got banned for telling the truth. Crazy people are allowed everywhere, because their arguments can easily be refuted. Jones was shut down because he is speaking uncomfortable truths that cannot be easily waived away.

</comment><comment><USER54> When it comes to the internet, Apple, Facebook, and Google are more powerful than the most powerful governments in the world. They should uphold the principles of free speech, despite not being required to by law.

Everything that is legal to say, which is almost everything, should have a equal access to these major platforms. Everyone else should have the basic faith in humanity that whatever problems this causes are a price worth paying of living in a free society.

I'm _more_ concerned with the cynical fools gleefully espousing the anti-free speech perspective than I am with the relatively(!) small number of dumbos that follow people like Alex Jones.

Whatever happened to the beautiful American principle of defending the right of your fellow humans to have equal rights as yourself? Is it young people that don't know history, people becoming more cynical, or are we just hearing more from the loud fools?

My fundamental faith in humanity makes me believe we'll have a backlash from the freedom-loving majority. Most people are smart and principled and will see the error of going down this dark path. It may take a while but I'm not worried.

<comment><USER19> The principal of free speech isn't the same thing as the right to an audience though. It's the right to say what you want without being prosecuted.

Alex Jones wasn't prosecuted and he had the right to say what he wants, he just can't do it on Facebook. But that isn't an infringement of his rights, it's a simple consequence of being a total asshole.

If you always talk about how great eating feces is at every dinner party you attend, you're not going to go to jail, but you're probably going to find yourself without any dinner party invitations.

You could argue that Facebook and Apple are big platforms, but so what? I'm fairly sure infowars wouldn't publish your submission if you sent an anti- trump article. Does that mean they are hindering your free speech? No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> FB has also removed Infowars' page.

[https://www.facebook.com/InfoWars-80256732576/](https://www.facebook.com/InfoWars-80256732576/)

FB doesn't cite a specific post (eg, the implication that some of the school shooting victims were part of a hoax), which is a pity.I dislike Infowars, but I like a consistently applied ToS:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj6T8ppXoAIqbXB.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj6T8ppXoAIqbXB.jpg)

'Glorifying violence' is vague - should all police/military/veterans/people who celebrate July 4 be banned from Facebook? How is 'glorifying violence' treated the same as 'graphic violence'? One is praising violent action, the other is depicting it. They are clearly not the same thing.

<comment><USER33> They removed four pages [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/enforcing-our- community...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/enforcing-our-community- standards/) and they mention that the posts were made in the last week, so that probably narrows it down?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you want out of an online restaurant menu? - <AUTHOR>

I sometimes cringe when a restaurant website pipes out super loud music when looking at their menu similar to
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website
If you could create your own ideal online menu (or physical menu), what would you want out of it? <comment><USER2> I just want to know what the dish is called, what's in it and what does it cost. A picture would be nice, but not really needed.</comment>


Looking for People Interested in Trying Out a Beta Product - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN,
We are looking for people who would be interested in looking at Tripket, a new social media platform that we have been working on for over a year now. Anyone can join by going to http://beta.tripket.com. Looking for feedback. If you have any, please email me at email@example.com.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Any details on what exactly it is and how it's different that existing platforms?

<comment><USER3> They need a much better landing page. 1\. Give some more information about what the site is about

2\. If you are going to put a gorgeous picture as a background move the signup form to the side. Keeping it in the center takes away from the image's beauty.

3\. Make page scrollable. On chrome I can't scroll down to see obstructed text below the fold.

4\. If space between textboxes had been reduced on signup we wouldn't need to scroll to see the rest of it.

5\. Make sure landing page is tested in all browsers before posting on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Link to privacy policy returns a 404

[https://beta.tripket.com/corp/privacy- policy](https://beta.tripket.com/corp/privacy-policy)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this site retina optimised? some assets (like the logo) appeared a bit fuzzy on my retina mac 13 inch. Might wanna have a look.

</comment><comment><USER6> Page doesn't scroll on Chrome when content is longer than screen. I can't see the bottom of the form.

<comment><USER3> And hitting back on the browser does nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 404.</comment>


What cracking open a Sonos One tells us about the Sonos IPO - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bolt.io/what-cracking-open-a-sonos-one-tells-us-about-the-sonos-ipo-dcab49155643 <comment><USER2> I've got lots of Sonos speakers, one in every room of my house. Before Soundcloud was an option I wrote my own SMAPI service to get that going for myself. Then, when I switched from Mac to Linux I created my own client app [1] to control my speakers.

I feel Sonos have really missed a trick by not opening up their API more. Most of the features I had a reverse engineer or check from other libraries. Their own apps have also not exactly gotten better. For example, I _HATE_ the unified search feature, it makes the search slow and sluggish. Controlling the speakers from Spotify directly also never worked glitch-free for me. Other niggles have to do with the grouping features, which are also a tad flaky and sometimes time out or only partially group. Most of all I am annoyed by the frequent updates asked for, without the ability to "pin" the speakers to a version and download a specific version of the client app.

All that said, I love their speakers because they sound good. The old Play 3 and the Amp especially. I feel they should focus their efforts on making the apps snappier and faster, not much more feature rich.

[1] [https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller- fo...](https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-for-linux)

<comment><USER2> Also, I forgot to say: There is no way I'd put an Amazon alexa or similar device in my home, period. I take a "speaker company" instead any day.

<comment><USER3> I was sad when they integrated Alexa into the Sonos One. But it did make the Play:1 cheaper, and there's really not much room to improve on that speaker. Love it. I just hope they keep making Alexa free options.

<comment><USER4> AirPlay support would be great though … I hate that I have to use the Sonos app and cannot directly play music from a Mac or iPhone.

<comment><USER5> AirPlay 2 is coming "soon"

<comment><USER6> But only on their newer devices! Would be ok if it was that you needed only one new "airplay 2" device on the network to act as a bridge but no, it will only work on the new ones (or a one and a play:1 in stereo)

<comment><USER5> They said if you have an AirPlay 2 capable device you can use it to pair with older speakers. It's right in their most recent press release on the matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's cool that Amazon's product is more advanced, and that's interesting technically... but what does that have to do with the Sonos IPO?

Beats cost $18 to make.. cheap plastic.. nothing premium about them.. they even put a few pieces of metal in it so they feel sturdy.. People love(d?) them. Sold for $200/pair. Company sold for $3b.

The bill of materials isn't the sole determinate of success.

<comment><USER8> Totally aside... I don't really understand why beats gets singled out so often, when it comes to cost of components. IDK, I feel like beats doesn't get enough credit as a company.

First, if you look at a shelf of products (say an airport gadget shop), beats is not the worst value on the shelf. Most beats products are OK. Half the gear (in general) in those shops is crap.

Second, Beats did a good job on "product". They understood what price ranges to target. The understood what each form factor was for, and how to explain this to consumers. Beats' actual competition was earbuds, not alternative "studio headphones." They knew which sound qualities (bass, basically) customers would want, for the music they actually listen to while walking around a mall.

They aren't always the best price performance across categories, but they aren't crap either.

Anyway, the reason I think they deserve credit is not that. _They_ understood the implication of "wearables." _They_ are the ones that managed to build _that_ company, with a foot in fashion and another one in electronics. Part authority on what's cool, part predictor of what's cool.

If you do the bill of materials test on versace it won't go well.

Compare beats as the fashion-tech-wearables brand to all the smartwatch attempts at similar. Beats stands out.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry but their sound quality is pretty abysmal for the price; there is a reason they're lampooned. I agree that a lot of the headphone market is poor but 20 minutes of googling will get you some good headphones for a decent price. That aside, I certainly agree with you they were able to build a brand, make mostly junk products pretty fashionable and sold a lot of merchandise.

<comment><USER8> You can say that about literally any major electronics brand. About 5 years ago I googled for the new "oneplus" which turned out to be a great phone at half the price of Samsung or LG. Unknown brand. Great deal. I was happy. Bought again.

I also once bought soy sauce that wasn't kikkoman, half price and it tasted good. Go figure. This doesn't make Samsung or Kikkoman "junk." It makes them a brand name.

Maybe I should put this differently....

If Beats announced today they are putting major effort into smart watches, I would expect to soon see lots of people wearing them. I'd beats to make smart watches that people want because they're relevant piece of culture and utility.

If boss or plantronics announced the same... I wouldn't.

<comment><USER9> Yes I totally agree people really do buy things because of celebrity endorsements and don't do their own research before buying most things. Its mind boggling to me but hey to each his own. Tangent-y but I feel the worst for the people who have their iPhone/Apple headphones turned up to 11 b/c the earbuds don't fit their ears well, and you know, everyone in the bus/metro/subway with them that have to listen to their music bleeding out of their ears, too.

<comment><USER8> I think if we reduce this to " _people buy things because of celebrity endorsements_ " than there isn't much to talk about.

Xerox invented the modern PC, Apple spent the next 30 years applying celebrity endorsements and marketing nonsense to make money. That's the story. I think this is very wrong.

If you are selecting a component to put in a device, this is a mostly objective question. Price. Objective quality, longevity. For a person to get value out of a thing, you _must_ cross into more "subjective" territory. If you refuse to rely on anything that is subjective, nothing about humans makes sense. Why do people want to look cool anyway? Why are people listening to music?

<comment><USER9> In fact I think the psychology behind celebrity endorsements and advertising is particularly interesting and there is a lot to talk about.

Unfortunately, this topic, audio quality, is extremely subjective, yes, like someone mentioned in another comment to my original post. But objectively the audio response of Beats are very bass heavy and, in my opinion, the high end response is lacking, but other people really enjoy their beats headphones so thats up to them. Although, the divers in Beats, for the price, are objectively a poor purchase. You can get stronger and clearer drivers in other headphones at a fraction of the cost. I'm not really sure where the last bit of your posts ties in with what I've been saying but I totally agree people will be people, especially when the topic is complex and they can just buy what Harden/KD/etc. wears and be happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is not directly relevant to the article - more a critique of the Sonos product which I've wanted to get off my chest.

I was a Sonos skeptic then a convert before becoming skeptical again. I stopped buying after the third Sonos 3 speaker.

Some basic features are missing which mean that users like me are clearly not a focus. Primarily I want to play my own, ripped-to-FLAC media.

The most irritating thing is that users have been requesting these features for 5+ years on the fora.

A random list of grievances:

\- No regain support - this renders the playlist feature useless unless you want to constantly fiddle with the controller to adjust the volume between tracks.

\- No cue support (i.e. single FLAC with a .cue file) which allows transitions between tracks. This breaks play back for lots of classical, Opera, ED music and classic rock albums like the Beatles' Abbey Road.

\- Multi-disc support is poor - no grouping or separate disc images. 2 CD boxsets are o.k. but larger (4+) are unnavigable.

\- Can't handle higher than 16/48 digital rips.

\- No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to replace all audio speakers in your home.

\- Wierd/undocumented rules for file naming - silently ignores tracks with quotes, colons and maybe others (these are the ones that hit me)

\- Finally the controller software has gotten worse with every update: poor album art caching, illogical navigation, confusing search, artist search cannot find tracks on compilations, etc.

Then again, it seems going the "smart speaker" route has boosted their revenues. I have no interest in such functionality so I guess I'm not the target market for Sonos.

This is a pity because much of the package is quite compelling and it wouldn't take much effort to support libraries (rather than streaming).

(edited for formatting)

<comment><USER11> > No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to > replace all audio speakers in your home.

Not ideal, but you can hookup an AppleTV to line in on a connect:amp and airplay this way.

Insanely expensive buy in for that feature. I just happened to have the amp as my first sonos product and an appletv I no longer use (switched to Fires)

<comment><USER12> I run airsonos on a local server, which exposes all my Sonos speakers over Airplay individually.

<comment><USER11> Ooo thanks for this! Will try it out. I already have a pi running pi-hole, would be nice to have 1 less device sucking electricity :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > "Interestingly, this is the same system-on-a-chip used in the 6th generation > Amazon Fire HD; maybe Amazon had a few extra laying around?"

A little-known fact about the echo smart speakers is that they run a minimally modified version of FireOS at their core. In fact, many references to the Fire tablet lineup can be seen around the echo firmware. Using the same SoC makes sense in this regard as it allows for a more unified build process by enabling kernel/driver/firmware blob reuse.

<comment><USER14> The original Echo ran something akin to the Kindle e-reader Linux-based OS. Once the Fire Phone failed, many Android engineers were absorbed into the Echo projects and the follow-on products seem to have been migrated to FireOS (or vice versa?).

There are some sparse details about the original Echo floating around[0], but I couldn't find the specifics.

While they may be able to share some firmware, I'd still wager their kernels/drivers/firmware blobs are different enough due to drastically different components interfacing with the SoC. I personally question the value of putting Android on non-mobile screen-less devices (forgetting about the Echo Show).

0: [https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you- listenin...](https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listening/)

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I'm not sure we should be forgetting about the Show; I can't imagine that Amazon wants different kinds of Echo to have different operating systems, and once you've got the screen, it makes more and more sense to reuse your existing systems.

<comment><USER14> You're implying Amazon knows what it wants. They thought the Fire Phone was going to be huge. They thought the Echo wasn't.

While reuse is nice, optimizing for experimentation and different products is probably more useful. Given most of the magic of Alexa lives in Amazon's servers, there seems to be less incentive to use existing solutions over what makes sense (and is cost effective).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was about to buy some Sonos stuff but asked if I needed to go online to activate them (I claimed I did not have internet), and sure enough, an internet connection is a requirement. So sorry Sonos, I am buying an _appliance_ which I expect to function independent of your company for years to come. If that can not be guaranteed then my money will stay in my pocket and I will continue to use my open-source cobbled together solution even if it is slightly less polished and convenient.

<comment><USER16> I get what you're saying, but Sonos works differently than a normal speaker. It is playing the music, not your other device. The app is a control. So if you turn on music and leave with your phone, the music keeps going. When other people connect, they see your music and services, not theirs. It's its own thing - not just a speaker.

That said, your point about, "will it continue to work if sonos, the company, is shut down?" Is a valid one.

<comment><USER17> All you described is local network, no need to involve the internet.

<comment><USER3> It works by streaming the music from the internet. If it's just on a local network, it has no source of music.

<comment><USER18> You don't have music on your local network?

<comment><USER3> No, I don't. All of my music is on the cloud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So he spends what looks to have been a substantial amount of time carefully disassembling and commenting on the manufacturing processes and material quality of two speakers, without ever even looking at the actual speaker cones and housing at all? Seriously? I kept waiting for there to be SOME discussion of the actual speaker itself, and even went back and re-read, figuring I must have missed it... but no. Nope. He actually managed to do a teardown of two speakers without ever actually looking at the most important bits. Wow.

<comment> yc-kraln you seem to have completely missed the point of the article. it isnt a speaker review, it is an analysis of the strategy of the company developing the speaker. the audio quality is not germane

<comment><USER20> Audio quality is _the_ reason why anyone would buy a Sonos speaker over an echo. It's a core strategy component.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> He correctly identifies the silicon labs Zigbee/Bluetooth chip but then remarks the Zigbee is not used? It's one of the major selling points of the Echo Plus and it was sold bundled with a Philips Hue bulb for launch. After this I doubt this guy really knows what he's talking about. Nice teardown though.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't think it matters that the Echo Plus is technically more advanced and that Amazon owns more of the stack.

If the Sonos One _looks_ better, is heavier, and costs more, then Sonos might be able to sell the product further up-and-to-the-right on the Veblen good chart.

Maybe.

I'm not convinced going public for these one trick ponies does anything other than let the early investors cash out.

I'm just a layperson when it comes to these matters, but wouldn't Sonos have been acquired if their product-market fit was believed to be worth something?

<comment><USER23> Acquired by who? It's a luxury niche brand. Acquisition by one of the giants they integrate with (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc) would inevitably result in vendor lock-in (Apple buys them and now Amazon Music doesn't work anymore), which would be devastating to their reputation and customer sat. A "neutral" giant (LG?) could pick them up, but why? Who wants to diversify into luxury home stereo? That leaves major audio companies (Sennheiser? Bose?), but those are mostly already luxury brands, and cobranding ("Sonos by Sennheiser") could get complicated.

The nature of the market Sonos is working in means that whatever P/M fit they have is potentially compromised by being acquired. Weird, but that's luxury goods for ya.

<comment><USER24> LVMH perhaps?

<comment><USER22> Your comment prompted me to read the LVMH Wikipedia article.[1]

I didn't realise the group owned so many labels.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries)

<comment><USER25> Also didn't know owner Arnoult catapulted to 4th richest in the world after last year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Read this for the interesting deep dive into the parts used and the insights on manufacturing process and cost of manufacturing.

Wished the article would have also covered the tweeter and midrange on sound quality. That seems necessary given its a breakdown of a smart Bluetooth speaker.

Other than that, I don't see much value in the business insights the writer has reached.

<comment><USER27> Aren't most PC speakers ie. integrated amplifier / 3.5mm input (is that what they are called?) inferior to having a separate amplifier, and a DAC?

I used to buy PC speakers before I realized that I was paying for a new (but shitty) amplifier everytime I got a new set of speakers.

Audio path is as such:

Digital File -> DAC -> 3.5mm -> Amplifier -> Speakers

Wireless audio path can cut the DAC out in well designed systems.

In any case, I think most people, even smart hackers in our group, think that they can get amazing PC speakers..audiophile quality. Its a popular misconception. But once you think about the physics of it, of course a 3.5mm cable isnt delivering enough voltage to physically move speaker cones back and forth.. So these "PC speakers" have really cramped amplifiers inside, dealing with very high voltages.

Invest in a good amp for the main sound setup that you care about. Youll have to buy new speakers with balanced red and white thick gauge cables but you'll get much better sound. It saves the environment, optimizes the process.

I recommend Peachtree [1] The amp has wireless streaming, mobile apps, USB audio from PC, skipping analog conversion. Absolutely stunning quality.

[1] [https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21](https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his conclusions?

Amazon is manufacturer and retailer (so no double margin), they own the Alexa IP which does the real work in both cases, and has deep enough pockets to try out this market (so they don't even need the margin).

If I had to have a reason why Sonos might still be worth something it's the luxury brand value. Like owning a B&O stereo in its day. Yes you can buy cheaper but are you a real connaisseur then?

<comment><USER29> From my quick review, Sonos is actually the most functional device now. I couldn't find another one which works with multiple (grouped) speakers on wifi, uses Google Play and Spotify, and allows DLNA input. Are there any non- luxury brand alternatives which fulfill this?

</comment></comment><comment> fake-name I'm deeply confused why the person writing this thinks speakers are a technology that even _can_ be "disrupted", let alone all the stuff he does that is for all intents and purposes just reading tea leaves^H^H^H^H^Hspeaker casings.

Sure, the manufacturing is interesting, and there is some truth to the smart aspect of the sonos being kind of "bolted on", but the attempt to read an entire companies outset from the manufacturing processes they use is just stupid.

As much as software likes to go on about "disrupting" this and "reimagining" that, manufacturing, particularly large volume manufacturing is extraordinarily staid, and different companies have in-house experience with different processes. Switching processes just because something is new and shiny is just not done, because the retooling costs are enormous, and you may not _have_ the in-house familiarity with the new processes.

Really, what it sounds like to me is that the engineers at Sonos are far __better __at designing things for production. They didn 't need to use fancy new tools, or design extremely exotic moldings. When it comes to cranking out a product, the LESS fancy new processes you use, the better in almost every case. It means the processes you're using are more predictable, you have more vendors you can use (because they're more broadly available), and you're likely to maybe have a old guy or two in house who's use process XXX for 40 years, and can tell you in excruciating detail _every single little thing_ you have to worry about _before_ you even start production.

Basically, this is a single decent point (sonos is a speaker company adding smart shit, and amazon is a internet-of-shit/retail giant adding speakers), buried in a whole lot of hyperbole and bullshit.

<comment><USER30> And most of the value added is in the software. The hardware is just an active speaker with the equivalent of a raspberry pi attached. Not new tech.

I owned a set a Sonos speakers for about 5 years now and I am in the market for a better replacement. The software has become unusable, the speakers keep depairing, not managing to read the network drive (and shockingly only support SMB1). But all the alternatives have moved into stasi-style "a mic behind every radiator". I feel slightly out of choice. I just want the music not the spying.

<comment><USER31> I have a Chromecast Audio, plugged into the HiFi amplifier and good floor- standing speakers I've owned since I was 21. I use BubbleUPnP to control it, and have MiniDLNA running on a small server to share my music. (Though there are other ways to expose a music collection from a phone, NAS or whatever, or skip both of these and use Spotify or similar.)

I don't know if Google log every track I play — the Chromecast doesn't work if my Internet connection drops — but they haven't got GDPR compliant permission from me, so perhaps not.

Streaming the audio directly from my MacBook is unsatisfactory, it drops out a lot. So the soundtrack to a film playing on a laptop can't be done this way, I would instead plug the laptop directly into the HiFi. The equivalent setup works on Linux with an ethernet connection, but was a hassle to configure and get working so I haven't bothered with my new Linux computer.

I only have the one pair of wired speakers, I haven't tried the multi room feature.

<comment><USER32> I find it hilarious that you offer a google product to someone who's concerned about spying.

<comment><USER31> According to [https://superuser.com/questions/1277872/what-kind-of-data- is...](https://superuser.com/questions/1277872/what-kind-of-data-is-google- chromecast-audio-collecting) the logging is easily disabled.

I would prefer a different manufacturer of a similar device, but I don't know of any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's interesting that he repeatedly refers to Sonos as a "traditional speaker manufacturer" which isn't something I would have accused Sonos of being

<comment><USER34> Sonos was a manufacturer of wireless remote speakers in the BC (Before Cloud) era. They had a good reputation until they got religion and started frog- marching their users into the cloud against their will. Pretty much every mention of Sonos I've seen online has been associated with complaints about that, e.g. [http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their- users-...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users- hostage-cloud-account-now-required/msg1624717/#msg1624717) and [https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers- software-228995/s...](https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers- software-228995/save-the-cr100-6800510/) .

So they appear to be a leading-edge wireless speaker manufacturer who woke up one day and found themselves to be a little less leading-edge than they thought they were. They are now trying to make up for lost ground by using Amazon's IP and storefront to compete with... Amazon.

So I can see why the author of the article is bearish on these guys.

<comment><USER22> The parents point still stands:

Sonos were always wireless remote speakers, as far as I recall.

Sonos was what you had when you wanted steaming audio around the home well before it became popular with the advent of these new tangled gadgets.

<comment><USER35> "new tangled gadgets"

Is that a typo or is it a new(to me) adjective? Curiously apropos, regardless.

<comment><USER22> Damn touchscreens and their auto-incorrect.

It was intended to be _newfangled_.

I coin a new term: _tapographical error_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't know if anyone ever looked at the mechanical prowess of b&o back in the LP day.. but they were basically crap. Crapper than crap. A Garrard turntable and sme arm beat them hollow. But.. b&o had charisma and marketing. Bests for profit giant isn't to be best, it's to be sexiest. Sonos is a sexy brand.

</comment><comment><USER37> Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best.

Very similar line-up to the original Sonos boxes, except they released a lot more speakerless hardware. Open source server (that could be run from the Touch model) which is still maintained and improved. Streaming options. House- wide sync. All for half the price of the Sonos.

It's especially galling reading that list of Sonos complaints. We've got regain support, good .cue handling, 24/192 and higher playback depending on your hardware, you could even do bidirectional Airplay and bluetooth (with some kicking and screaming)... And oh yeah, you could _make your own players_ because it's all open source, open spec.

And a _feature_ (for me), none of this smart rubbish.

For those of us that have a household full of it (and spares) it's still an amazing system... but Logitech ultimately binned it. I guess only selling one pile of kit every 15 years didn't seem good enough business for them.

Le sigh.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_play...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_\(network_music_player\))

<comment><USER38> In DIY circles, that ecosystem seems to be still somewhat alive (with client software running on Raspberry Pis etc), which is pretty telling about the alternatives...

<comment><USER37> Oh definitely. Yeah, I've got 4 real ones and 4 DIY squeezelite's in rotation at the moment.

And even while you can build you own, the used market is still strong. Hardware that's been used daily for 10 years selling for 70% its original retail pricetag. Practically unheard of for consumer tech.

Basically, Logitech are idiots. They could keep selling what they did and still make money but it'd be trivial for them to step back in and pick up development, but hey ho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm pretty sure the holes in the Echo Plus aren't drilled. That would be crazy! Perhaps it is injection moulded with an internal draft and then drilled out afterwards.

<comment><USER39> Also I have previously looked at these holes and wondered how they manufactured it, and the holes are clearly made in 6 groups with the same angle of hole in each group. This is how you'd do it with injection moulding - a load of pins attached together.

If you were CNC drilling them you'd use a CNC lathe and the hole axes would all be normal to the surface which isn't the case.

<comment><USER40> Your description confirms my suspicion. I bet they used a collapsable core. It is the same way they're able to mold internal threads and such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I have a strong feeling Sonos will end up like Aiwa[1] (the original brand) because they're in a very similar situation as Aiwa was. Aiwa died because of a combination of bad technology bets, not being able to cope up with technology fast enough while simultaneously struggling to fight a then monopoly (Sony). I did a couple of teardowns and found some interesting technical choices - The company, even in its last breath didn't let go of its "signature" design and sound of loudspeakers. They were later acquired by Sony and shut down for good after failed attempts at rejuvenation.

Audio is an unforgiving market. It will be interesting to see how Sonos survives.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa)

<comment><USER42> I still have an Aiwa system from 1990-1994. They were almost on par with Sony/JVC back in the day (~1996)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I loved the teardown and the article as a whole but that header was MASSIVE. On my 13" MacBook I could see very little content. I ended up deleting the header + nav and that mad it much better but I would have expected it to slim down or hide once I scrolled down.

</comment><comment><USER44> I think the author misses the point of Sonos somewhat. I don't think they aim to dominate the smart speaker market. They seem to be a fashionable upper midrange device that is as much for status as it is a speaker. They market Sonos speakers as a fancy home speaker that also happens to support Alexa. Amazon is more the mass market option and just aims to put Alexa in every home.

Sonos will never take over the world but will be an established niche player. I would also agree with the sentiment of no Alexa in my home. I was an early adopter of Amazon echo but I have given them away and will never have one in my home again.

</comment><comment><USER45> I wish the author had focused only on doing a straight-forward teardown and comparison of both products instead of inserting random comments, jokes and business opinions.

It felt unnecessarily forced and clickbaity.

</comment><comment><USER46> I used to own a ton of Sonos speakers and absolutely loved them. But the software was just too damn buggy. Ended up giving them away right around the time WiFi support rolled out and the speakers refused to stay connected.

I'm hoping for the best for them. Their customer support was absolutely top notch. Talked on the phone with an engineer from Europe on Christmas Eve trying to solve a weird bug in the Mac app.

</comment><comment><USER47> _Amazon sells nearly all of its Echo products through their own retail channel, this means they don't pay a margin to other retailers. I can't think of a single consumer electronics company that sells tens of millions of units directly to consumers like that._

Doesn't Apple sell far more (of its own manufacture) than Amazon, directly to consumers as well?

<comment><USER48> Apple sells on Amazon, Best Buy, Verison stores, T-Mobile stores etc... lots of places.

<comment><USER49> The margin on Apple products is tiny though. As a reseller, you'd be lucky to make 5% if you sold at the same retail price as Apple.

<comment><USER50> Yep. I used to work for an Apple reseller. We had a good relationship with Apple, but selling a £150 iPod and a £15 case, we made more on the case.

Apple margins are non existent. Companies sell Apple stuff because they have to.

<comment><USER51> So as a salesman, you would be trying to convince customers to buy the other brand you have on store?

<comment><USER50> No, we didn't stock iPod/Mac competitors. There was good competition for cases and other accessories, but we weren't told the margins between suppliers for those. All I knew about margins was that Apple stuff was ~6-12% depending on the product, accessories were great, and software was excellent at 50+% margin (except for iWork/iLife), but we didn't sell much software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Somewhat related question: I quite enjoy such articles where people take apart consumer electronics, although I don't know the jargon ("an extruded plastic tube with a secondary rotational drilling operation" \- wat?). Does someone know accessible resources (as in "no dry textbooks") for mechanical engineering?

<comment><USER53> Watch AvE take stuff apart on Youtube. His disassembly of the Juicero would be a good place to start: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp- BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ) or this one disassembling an overpriced Dyson hairdryer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I own Sonos One. Love it when the wifi connectivity between my cellphone/laptop and my Sonos don't die. Iisten Spotify and some radio podcasts. The sound quality is great, especially the bass is pretty good. I wish there's a bluetooth option which would offer better connectivity quality in short range.

<comment><USER55> I bought a Sonos One for my partner and regret it.

One of our use cases is playing audio from videos of dance classes. But it can't do this, because the WiFi streaming protocols are set up for linear streaming, using long buffers. That kills the ability to do frequent seeking and looping of sections of a video. Yet the most basic of crappy Bluetooth speakers has no trouble with this.

It never occurred to me that a premium wireless speaker released in 2017 could not do this. My fault, of course, for not researching it thoroughly enough. But Sonos's also, for arbitrarily restricting a perfectly sensible use of generic hardware like a speaker.

<comment><USER32> If you still have the One it's getting AirPlay 2 next week which solves your issue, assuming iOS user.

<comment><USER56> Can you reference that timeframe? I can't find anything from Sonos announcing a specific date. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm not going to buy Sonos, Amazon Echo, smart TV or any other "smart" device. They all have some things in common: vendor lock-in, manufacturer having more control over the device than the owner does, and little control over your own data.

For many websites it took quite a lot of effort to comply with the GDPR requirements. Updating the devices firmware is harder. Without OTA capabilities it may even be impossible. Soon we may hear some news about manufacturers with unscrupulous practices being fined and kicked out of the European market.

</comment><comment><USER58> I can't speak to their "smart" aspirations, but...it's surprising to me that the author lauds the Echo. Sounds like that speaker is far more demanding to manufacture, which...isn't necessarily a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER59> I just wish the echo had an ethernet port. Its WiFi chip seems real flakey.

</comment><comment><USER60> How long before Microsoft buys Sonos?

</comment><comment><USER61> this site format makes me feel like I wasted lots of money on my computer monitor, because 30% of it is taken up by enormous banners on the top and bottom of the screen...

<comment><USER62> Have you tried Firefox reading view? No banner, and you still get the teardown pictures.

<comment> Digit-Al Odd. When I tried using reader view it only showed the text and not the pictures.</comment></comment></comment>


Justin Kan Is Hiring Someone to Revive Justin.tv on Snapchat - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/04/justin-kan-is-hiring-someone-to-revive-justin-tv-on-snapchat/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1730_-2973959274636946735 <comment><USER2> The job requirements for this are prime: [http://justinkan.com/job-post-media- relations-and-snap-god](http://justinkan.com/job-post-media-relations-and- snap-god)

> Why on Earth you'd want to show up at some guy's house every morning to do > this

> Any relevant experience you have any how any experience could be relevant > for something this inane

Definitely made me smile, good way to start the day.

<comment><USER3> You should follow him on snapchat for more goodness. This guy is one insane moffo. :D

<comment><USER4> What's his snapchat name? Don't see it mentioned and failed to find it after spending 20 seconds of googling.

Edit: Found it - it's justinkan (Guess I coulda guessed that)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just as facebook and twitter users being, well, good at social media spawned viable careers in social media, the cycle continues with snapchat apparently. Is this the first time this has been done? I'm sure DJ Khaled and other notorious snapchatters have staff helping them, I've just never seen a job posting for one before.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems almost the exact same thing as Periscope:

[https://www.periscope.tv/](https://www.periscope.tv/)

<comment><USER3> Snapchat is asynchronous video/photos whereas Periscope is live video.

<comment><USER6> Ah, makes more sense. Yeah, I don't use either. Thanks for the enlightenment.</comment></comment></comment>


Specialist Knowledge Is Useless and Unhelpful - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2012/12/kaggle_president_jeremy_howard_amateurs_beat_specialists_in_data_prediction.html

<comment><USER2> That's a very clickbait-y title.

<comment><USER3> It seems to quite accurately sum up the content of the article though</comment></comment>


Show HN: Statsify – Graphite and StatsD for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/aeroclub-it/statsify

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the time spent in creating it and sharing it. It looks like you've been working on the project for nearly nine months, and that's a significant amount of effort.

I've been interested in one of these for a long time - a StatsD-compatible server in .NET. Considering that many competing implementations are written in Node.js or Python, a .NET should be able to outperform it significantly.</comment>


The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students' papers tells his story - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/# <comment><USER2> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1901152>

</comment><comment><USER3> My favourite part:

 _While the deficient student will generally not know how to ask for what he wants until he doesn't get it, the lazy rich student will know exactly what he wants. He is poised for a life of paying others and telling them what to do. Indeed, he is acquiring all the skills he needs to stay on top._</comment>


Carl Icahn's Failed Raid on Washington - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/carl-icahns-failed-raid-on-washington <comment><USER2> >Icahn's role was novel. He would be an adviser with a formal title, but he would not receive a salary, and he would not be required to divest himself of any of his holdings, or to make any disclosures about potential conflicts of interest. "Carl Icahn will be advising the President in his individual capacity," Trump's transition team asserted. In the months after the election, the stock price of CVR, Icahn's refiner, nearly doubled—a surge that is difficult to explain without acknowledging the appointment of the company's lead shareholder to a White House position. The rally meant a personal benefit for Icahn, at least on paper, of half a billion dollars. There was an expectation in the market—an expectation created, in part, by Icahn's own remarks—that, with Trump in the White House and Icahn playing consigliere, the rules were about to change, and not just at the E.P.A. Icahn's empire ranges across many economic sectors, from energy to pharmaceuticals to auto supplies to mining, and all of them are governed by the types of regulations about which he would now potentially be advising Trump.

How is this shit legal?

<comment><USER3> How did Al Gore's pals get a billion federal dollars to fund their dumb Solyndra idea? This kind of stuff is as old as the federal government itself.

<comment><USER4> You're being voted down. That's because oh so many here weren't around when the Chicoms were funneling cash to the Democratic Party for the 1996 election.[1]

Al Gore explained himself thusly: _" The vice president also observed that he drank a lot of iced tea during meetings, which could have necessitated a restroom break," the FBI summary stated. "It was not uncommon for him, and for that matter the president, to excuse themselves from meetings to use the restroom."_[2]

And, boys and girls, unlike the current special prosecutor to investigate Russia's influence in the most recent election, the Democrats brazenly stonewalled and the media let them get away with it.

 _This kind of stuff is as old as the federal government itself._

Yup. Anyone who doesn't realize this either had a crappy US History teacher or daydreamed instead of paying attention.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy) [2] [http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=200...](http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000212&slug=4004391)

<comment><USER5> This is absolutely true.

The other thing to realise is that throughout human history there has always been some degree of grift. In a money driven system like US politics, especially so.

Therefore, it has always been the case that the degree and brazennesss of grift is a part of how it is judged in practice.

So if you want to be honest with yourself, respectful of the history - you've got to ask yourself whether you honestly believe whether Trump is doing a bit of grift for election funds, maybe fund a lifestyle, but otherwise seeks to be a great president. Or like his entire life, is he defined by fraudulent pitches, self-dealing, financial and moral bankruptcy, law-breaking, and stiffing his people every chance he gets?

This is why you get down voted. Not because people think the Democrats have been pure as driven snow, but because they (and past Republicans) have passed that test. Hell, Nixon resigned despite arguably passing that test end it was clear he was getting close. Trump is failing it, big time.

"There are faults on both sides" has always been a cop-out for the worst human behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great article, I love Carl Icahn stories. He's an unrepentant SOB, and massively OCD. He's a smart guy who is right a lot, usually thinks clearly about the long term, and that makes this story so compelling he's put his own nuts in a vise over such a trivial benefit, while relying on an idiot "friend". I mean Icahn should not be this dumb, ever.

Great quotes in the article as well.

"But, in reality, many New York financiers considered him a buffoon. In 2015, Lloyd Blankfein, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, greeted the suggestion that Trump might run for President by remarking that the notion of the former star of "The Apprentice" having his "finger on the button blows my mind."

"In 2010, Trump again found himself in trouble in Atlantic City. But this time Icahn was his antagonist. Along with a Texas banker, Icahn was trying to gain control of three Trump casinos. When a lawyer asked, during a deposition, whether Icahn intended to rebrand the casinos, he said that a consultant had deemed the Trump name a "disadvantage." In an interview, Trump shot back, "Everybody wants the brand, including Carl. It's the hottest brand in the country." But in Icahn's opinion the only real downside to shedding the Trump name was the expense that would be associated with changing all the signage"

"In court papers, Icahn's lawyers suggested that Trump's name was no longer "synonymous with business acumen, high quality, and style." Icahn told the Wall Street Journal, "I like Donald personally, but frankly I'm a little curious about the big deal about the name." If the Trump brand carried such cachet, he asked, why did Trump properties keep going bankrupt?"

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I'd call ~$500 million a trivial benefit.

<comment><USER3> It's a $200m a year benefit based on what the refinery paid last year for the credits . The article used a jump in the stock price to say Icahn made $500M, but that's not really true because

1) Stock prices go up for many reasons 2) Icahn didn't sell to monetize in that gain and hasn't sold yet. And likely wasn't going to sell even if RIN reform passed. 3) Now that he's resigned and the odds of passing any RIN reform is virtually zero, the refinery's stock has zero RIN value in it.

I say it's trivial because $200m a year on a $17B portfolio is barely 0.1% a year. His deal-making efforts are worth many times that, at least 10% a year. So why get tied up in a mud fight with a pig over a scrap of a morsel?

<comment><USER7> 200m on 17b is 1.1%, not 0.1%.

Why do it? Because the penalty for getting caught is both tolerable and much smaller than the reward if you are successful.

<comment><USER3> Math is hard, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like this piece made an impact before going live:

"Trump advisor Carl Icahn resigned ahead of negative magazine article"

[http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-icahn- resignat...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-icahn- resignation-20170819-story.html)

<comment><USER9> And the departure caused the article to be published early[1]:

> I've been reporting on Carl Icahn's role as an adviser to Trump. Monday, in > an email to me, the White House fired him. Today, he resigned.

[1] [https://twitter.com/praddenkeefe/status/898674961161662464](https://twitter.com/praddenkeefe/status/898674961161662464)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Because most attendants were women, Icahn insisted, they were not > "breadwinners," and should not expect compensation commensurate with that of > male employees. At one point in the negotiations, he reportedly suggested > that if the flight attendants were having such trouble making ends meet they > "should have married a rich husband." (Icahn denied having made sexist > comments.) C. E. Meyer, the company's chief executive, described Icahn as > "one of the greediest men on earth." T.W.A. eventually went out of business.

What a nice fellow.

</comment><comment><USER11> Isn't he one of Lyft's biggest investors?

</comment><comment><USER12> Corn lobby beats oil lobby this round. Yawn.

<comment><USER13> Meanwhile, Icahn makes money on the deal, by anticipating market reaction to his lobbying. Even though it doesn't succeed, the market drops, his short selling profits, and he's up about $200M.

<comment><USER14> Does that not violate insider trading laws?

<comment><USER15> Insider trading laws were written for small fish. Large players are protected because, apparently, the trading they do is "public". So, the thinking goes, it is just fine if they use inside information for their deals. A guy who uses inside information in every deal is, of course, Warren Buffet. But since he is big and a long term investor, they see no problem.

<comment><USER16> I don't agree with your statement about Buffett. I am curious about one thing though. Buffett prefers to buy businesses during a recession when the books aren't looking so hot and Berkshire Hathaway can get a good deal. What sort of insider information could be useful in that scenario?

<comment><USER17> I believe OP was referring to a few stories that recently showed how Buffett profits from the reaction to the news of his investments, and companies also offering him sweet deals (i. e. buying new stock at a discount) because they see an investment by him as excellent PR.

That's not so much insider trading, and "market manipulation" also doesn't completely fit. I guess Buffett has just become a self-fulfilling investment prophet.

<comment><USER3> Buffett's returns today, while still very good, are a pale shadow of the returns he put up in his first decade, or even his first 30 years. Somehow all these "sweet deals" haven't moved the needle for Berkshire.

The real reason current returns are lower is that the constraints on Buffett have grown over time and now are the heaviest they've ever been. Investing a $400B portfolio offers him far fewer opportunities than a $50M or even $10B portfolio did.

And announcements of his purchases are very damaging to his returns. Typically only has a month or two before he's required to file with the SEC disclosing significant new purchases. So accumulating billions of dollars of stock in most companies in those months without driving up the price is either impossible or really difficult. Once he files his SEC report, the prices almost always increase substantially from 'free riders' trying to piggyback on his trades.

The stock price popping up quickly not good for Buffett, in fact it's terrible. It forces him to stop buying what he regarded as a bargain. He never flips his positions, he's going to hold them for many years, usually many decades. The free rider problem means he has to invest less, and make less on each investment, hurting his returns.

And the "sweet deal" allegation is pretty ludicrous. Berkshire is a very special financial source, a CEO can call Buffett directly and get a hard price almost immediately. The price he gives is never very good, but for businesses that need money badly they know he will always close the transaction quickly without trying to renegotiate or bailing out.

Goldman Sachs during the 2008 crisis was a good example. Goldman is owned/run by hard eyed partners, but during the crisis their backs were against the wall. They had to add more capital, and were being forced to sell shares at really horrible prices to raise it. They got $5B from Warren in an emergency phone call, and in preferred shares were less dilutive than selling common shares.

No one else on earth was willing to step up during that immense crisis and give Goldman a better deal, more likely any deal at all (Lehman had just filed bankruptcy). If someone else gave them a slightly better offer, the sharks at Goldman would have taken it.

And Buffett is always laughed at when making these deals because wall street execs claim he overpaid. Its not till years later when the results come in that revisionists says they were obvious sweetheart deals. Yet somehow the revisionists never picked up the phone to get in on them.

<comment><USER16> Buffett and Munger both say that there are less opportunities because they have so much cash to invest.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpzrHPYWojY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpzrHPYWojY)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>