Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26756 <comment><USER2> "Price is nearly equal to value except in rare edge cases of market failure"

What does this even mean?

I'll give two thought examples.

1)Let's say I have a severe peanut allergy and peanuts are selling at $5.00/lb. Does the price meet the value? I.e. would I have a tricky time deciding if I would rather have the $5.00 or the pound of peanuts? Is this even true across society as an "average"? Do we believe markets are that rational, efficient and smooth?

2) over the course of the last year the price of gasoline in California has fluctuated by nearly 40%. Is this variance truly reflective of the relative value of gasoline to dollars over this time period, or is the "catastrophic market failure". How Scotsman must such a failure be?

<comment><USER3> This. Of value to whom, for what purpose they might have, for a given time.... and given the "value" of currency at any given moment. The price at which a market clears is a reasonable fixing of the value, given all of the variables. Even then the assessment of value isn't the same for either side of a trade: the consumer considers the product to be worth more than the money paid and the producer considers the money worth more than the product: they don't agree on the value of the product. If they do... one or the other is an idiot for making the trade.

A Picasso can sell at a lot of money because not because of the labor put into it, the materials it's made of, etc. It sells for a lot of money because to someone believes it's worth it.

<comment><USER4> No, because someone believes someone _else_ thinks it's worth it. There's a mimetic component to market economics that gets no treatment in writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The criticism of economic metrics is sound but the rest of the article reminded me of Politics and the English Language (the use of complex words where simple ones would do).

On the topic of economic metrics - I believe that at this point, in the UK at least, GDP, unemployment, median wage, inflation, and possibly more indicators are irrelevant, and the focus on them misplaced, primarily because housing (capital) costs have exploded whilst other (operational) costs have shrunk.

<comment><USER6> Our current inflation metric only captures prices of consumer goods. All the inflation that was intended to happen was actually absorbed by the financial market.

<comment><USER4> "All the inflation that was intended to happen was actually absorbed..." \- do you have a source for this? That seems a whopper of an idea, and I'd like to explore it at length.

<comment><USER5> >> intended to happen

Not sure I can provide a source on this (it's a matter of inner workings of Government).

>> inflation [...] was actually absorbed by the financial market

In the UK the CPI is made up mostly of operational costs. I deliberately use the term 'operational' here as distinct from 'consumer goods' or something because I am philosophically opposed to partitioning humans into 'consumers' and 'producers'. A naive idealist. :)

I would like to produce a 'teardown' of the specification at some point, but haven't motivated myself yet. I actually have a comment somewhere here on HN that has gotten lost - that's a bit of a kick up the arse for me to produce something a bit more structured like a blog.

Mortage payments, both interest and capital, and rent are dealt with very badly by CPI. As I recall, they're basically not even included. I think legal fees on home purchase, maintenance, and some other related expenses are in there.

At the moment, for at least the median household and probably a large percentage of them, some combination of rent, mortgage payments, or imputed interest is the highest annual expense by a large margin.

In that context the CPI becomes a sort of analysis of 'inflation of items purchased by discretionary income', because it fails to account for well over half of the economy.

On the ground I think this is sort of obvious, which is why I've been reluctant to produce write-ups with proper citations, because it feels a bit like preaching to the converted.

(This is taking as axiomatic that housing costs are 'the financial market'. I'm considering it 'obvious', because housing is essentially the only valuable asset that the median, or even 75th percentile person owns. It functions as capital.)

<comment><USER4> I'd had basically the same thought, and I was more or less trying to reproduce how I got to it, hopefully with some references.

I completely agree that it somehow seems self-evident, but that's sort of weak tea.

If we've lost the ability to use inflation as a steering mechanism for the economy ( and boy does it look like we have ) then I think that explains much of our present pain and suffering. It is as if we've basically internalized inflation bad" back to our limbic system and we only react in the one direction now.

I don't know if this will help, but I read the rise of all the political ... unpleasantness in the 1930s - leading to the deaths of 4% of all humans in the 1940s - as a manifestation of this same phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TSLH - too short, left hanging.

I've pondered similar diagnoses of various economic metrics. But what is his constructive outlook for what comes next?

Without one, the only approach is to cling to the outgoing paradigm, because being in a better position in the old one is not likely to put one in a worse position in whatever the new one may be.

<comment><USER8> I've noticed this repeatedly in these vast, sweeping future-of-the-economy outlook pieces. The writer is keen to point out everything that means that the current paradigm is bound to shift, but they never take the time to stick their neck out and postulate what it's shifting into.

That said, I did enjoy this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Capitalism and Communism which briefly resembled victor and vanquished, > increasingly look more like Thelma and Louise; a tragic couple sent over the > edge by forces beyond their control. What comes next is anyone's guess and > the world hangs in the balance.

Honestly how is this entire article not an exercise in historical materialism as proposed by Marx?

From Wikipedia:

"Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of human societies and their development over time and was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as the materialist conception of history. It is principally a theory of history according to which the material conditions of a society's mode of production (its way of producing and reproducing the means of human existence—in Marxist terms, the union of its productive capacity and social relations of production) fundamentally determine its organisation and development.

Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. Social classes and the relationship between them, along with the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect contemporary economic activity."

> In the first place, we should expect that because there is as yet no known > alternative to market capitalism...

I can't even.

</comment><comment><USER10> The most interesting part is that up until recently Capitalism and Democracy were considered (at least for propaganda purposes) to go hand in hand. That was often sold to third world countries as a package deal. "It's ok if there is a bit of brutality and less freedoms, as long as the capital revolves, because democracy will come in time, it has to, right...". But it is interesting that in cases of countries like China, Singapore, Taiwan? maybe other Asian countries have shown the two don't have to go hand in hand.

<comment><USER11> For how long though? China has had a market economy, in some sectors on its economy only, for a couple of decades. The UK has been struggling with democracy since Cromwell. You can't expect them to converge in a time scale measured in less than generations.

Taiwan and South Korea were both authoritarian within my lifetime. Now both are clearly dynamic democracies. Not perfect ones by any means, but dramatically transformed in a single generation.

Some will change faster than others, and who can say when any given country will pass the tipping point? But can't you really authoritatively say that it's never going to happen?

<comment><USER10> But I don't see them converging. In other words even if takes a long time, you can estimate a bit by looking at current trends. I

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > things made of atoms ... are being replaced by things made of bits

Bits are made of atoms. Computing requires work in the Newtonian sense. So things aren't becoming free, they're becoming orders-of-magnitude cheaper. Big difference: in the former case money is worthless and society is unavoidably egalitarian. In the latter, one person can still be a million times richer than another.

</comment><comment><USER13> His comparisons of computer files to public goods are meaningless. Think of a web service. It is the same as any other type of service, physical or virtual. It does a job. It costs money to maintain. It charges money to users. Competitors can create competing services. No where in here is the web service a public good.

<comment><USER14> I don't like the comparison either. Because the problem with conventional economics and digital goods isn't the "public good" thing, it's the marginal cost of production.

It costs nothing to produce one more unit of a digital good (or add one more customer to a digital service). Prices in economics are affected by supply, and supply is limited by the marginal cost of production. If there's no marginal cost, then there's no limits on supply, and price tends to zero.

Startup economics agrees with this. If the cost of acquiring a customer via paid advertising is $9.99 and the lifetime value of a customer is $10, then the smart thing to do is to spend every single dollar you can raise on paid advertising (I exaggerate slightly). The value we place on the actual production of that service for each new customer is zero.

This completely messes up traditional economic models.

<comment><USER15> > It costs nothing to produce one more unit of a digital good (or add one more > customer to a digital service).

Having sold digital goods for years, I can attest that this is not true. For example, customers have questions, which consumes one's time. They do returns. Fraud costs. Accounting costs. Taxes on transactions. Bandwidth costs. Hosting costs. Transaction fees from your merchant service account. Etc.

<comment><USER14> I rolled all of that up into the cost of customer acquisition. The operating costs (bandwidth, hosting, customer service, fraud insurance) are tiny when spread across the entire customer base.

I guess it would be more accurate to refer to the cost of producing one more month of service rather than one more customer. Even then there are costs, but they're tiny compared to the costs of providing a physical service.

Contrast the costs of running Netflix now vs Netflix when it was distributing DVD's in the post (or the costs that Blockbuster had). Adding one more customer to Netflix costs so little now that it's effectively zero, compared to the direct costs of sending out DVD's in the old days.

<comment><USER15> Just running someone's credit card costs you 3%. This is why gas stations offer discounts for cash.

Ever notice that online companies hide from their customers? As in, no phone number, no email address, no way to contact support, they just direct you to a FAQ. This is because customer service is very expensive to provide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Computer programs, like life itself, can be decomposed into two types of components:

Loops which repeat with small variations. Rube Goldberg like processes which happen once."

What in the? Any serious analysis could not possibly result from such guffaw- inducing oversimplifications.

<comment><USER17> Serious analysis can result from even more drastic simplifications.

An analysis only requires as much detail as is necessary for its purposes.

The same way that you don't go into registers when you try to teach functions, or binary representation of numbers if you teach people to use a calculator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article is based on a set of false assumptions, and is obviously written by someone ignorant of the history of economics.

> _" Economic theory, like the physics on which it is based, is in essence an > extended exercise in perturbation theory. Solvable and simplified > frictionless markets are populated by rational agents which are then all > subjected to perturbations in an effort to recover economic realism. Thus > while it is false that economists believe idealized models to be exactly > accurate as outsiders contend, it is fair to say that they implicitly assume > deviations from the ideal are manageably small."_

When Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations", he had no such theory of frictionless markets populated by rational actors."The Wealth of Nations" was written based on what Smith observed in the world around him, not some thought experiment, and most of the examples in the book were based on real markets and policies, such as the corn laws. Smith had in fact written another book which made it clear that he believed humans were complex moral and emotional beings.

Throughout the history of economics, many (if not most) of the notable contributions were made by people addressing the situations they found themselves in, such as Bastiat responding to protectionism he saw in the French national assembly.

> _" Even die-hard proponents of market capitalism will cede that this public > sector represents "market failure" where price and value become > disconnected. Why should one elect to pay for an army when he will equally > benefit from free riding on the payments of others? Thus in a traditional > market economy, payment must be secured by threat of force in the form of > compulsory taxes."_

This is another example of the author's complete misapprehension of economics. I have never heard any economist argue that all externalities should be compensated or penalized, because everything has externalities. Many have come to different conclusions based on the abundance of externalities; there are Marxists who believe the government must control everything to properly allocate resources, and there are anarcho-capitalists who believe that externalities should either be paid for voluntarily (perhaps after social pressures) or not at all.

I could go on to list many of the rest of the egregious errors in this post, but wouldn't want to further tax your patience.

<comment><USER19> It's an informative example of social signalling masquerading as analysis. There's a TED-ish evangelical enthusiasm for drawing analogies between ideas that aren't really analogous, an appeal to authority (science[tm]), some drastic oversimplifications of complex ideas, and a zinger at the end.

But unless you believe that technology is an evolving lifeform that has its own parasitic political agenda - always possible, but hard to support without evidence - the problems of capitalism and technology are about opportunity distribution, not about whether software runs in a loop.

There's no invisible silicon hand at work. It's still all about some people making decisions, and about other people who are excluded from that process.

<comment><USER20> I agree it definitely has that quality. However the analysis also 'feels' right to me, the proposed model fits elegantly. My money is on him being correct in many ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> well i liked it!

<comment><USER22> I liked it as well but you have to expect a bunch of blowback in comments when you're posting material that's basically "software is eating the world".</comment></comment>


Vivek Wadwha Speaks at Columbia (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2011/03/vivek-wadwha-speaks-columbia.html

<comment><USER2> "Silicon Valley is so accepting of failure that they came up for a fancy word for it which dignifies it. And that's called pivoting." (0:51 in the second part.)

Brilliant.

<comment><USER3> "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." -Woody Allen</comment></comment>


The Optimal Team Size is Five - <AUTHOR> http://www.noop.nl/2009/04/the-optimal-team-size-is-five.html <comment><USER2> From the article:

 _Five is also my lucky number. It is my default answer to any question that I am unable to answer without more information. Five is my personal 42._</comment>


Who is Using Node.js And Why? Yammer, Bocoup, Proxlet and Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/08/14/who-is-using-node-js-and-why-yammer-bocoup-proxlet-and-yahoo/?ref=1

<comment><USER2> _node is evented and non-blocking it is very good at handling concurrent requests, so a proxy built on Node will perform much better than one built on say Ruby._ -Jim Patterson, director of platform at Yammer

It is unfortunate that the "director of platform at Yammer" does not understand what Ruby is. Ruby is a programming language and Node.js is a system written in Javascript. It is useless to compare Node.js to Ruby. There is a similar system to Node.js in Ruby, it's called Event Machine. The official Node.js about page states "Node is similar in design to and influenced by systems like Ruby's Event Machine or Python's Twisted."

<comment><USER3> Jim has written large amounts of Ruby code at Yammer (and Javascript, for that matter). I'm pretty sure he knows the difference.

<comment><USER2> If that's true he must have been misquoted because there is no way anyone who writes Ruby code, will compare Ruby to Node.js

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original article is so naive, it's no wonder he got a lot of negative feedback.

"The code that makes up node.js is carried out by the V8 javascript engine. This engine (read: the component that processes javascript so that it can be understood by your operating system) [...]"

No need for insults, but should one take advice on programming languages and frameworks from someone explaining them in such terms? He assumes you don't know what a virtual machine is or how programs get executed (or how they interact with the OS), yet he tries to convince people with the benefits of decoupling threads from connections.

I wonder who's the audience for this. And I fear it's people who read articles at such a level and then think they are capable of making technical decisions. Kind of like Gartner, I guess.

<comment><USER5> Who or what is Gartner? Do you mean this company <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gartner> ?

<comment><USER6> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> GitHub uses node.js to serve up the Zip and Tarball downloads (nodeload), as well as to power Hubot ([http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2011/04/hubot- gith...](http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2011/04/hubot-githubs- valiant-campfire-bot-expands-his-capabilities.html))

<comment><USER8> Here's a blog post on Nodeload if you're interested in details: <https://github.com/blog/900-nodeload2-downloads-reloaded>

<comment><USER9> Don't you guys also use node for secure image proxying (camo)?

<comment><USER8> Ah right: <https://github.com/atmos/camo>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> W3Counter uses node.js for a real-time site usage dashboard

<http://www.w3counter.com/stats/demo/1>

</comment><comment><USER11> This article surprised me. Is the state of node.js actually not really that far along?

It seems like the examples in the article (and even in this thread) are all basically proxies or chatbots. Are there better examples of successful applications of node.js?

<comment><USER12> When you visit search.yahoo.com, some lazy-loaded JavaScript resources are served from a Node.js server.

That server uses YUI server-side to calculate JS module dependencies for that page's autocomplete feature. Since the response is very cacheable, and resolving dependencies doesn't happen on the client anymore, this technique improves loading time for that feature by 40%.

It also delivers less code for modern browsers. Feature tests from the browser are sent in the request, which server-side YUI considers for eliminating code only needed by older browsers.

<comment><USER11> This sounds like a really interesting application.

Any idea what the break down is like on the loading time savings?

In other words, what portion of the loading time savings is attributable to download time vs parsing time vs execution time vs other things?

<comment><USER12> This technique changes:

\- Downloading and parsing metadata about modules YUI can load (eliminated)

\- Calculating what files to download based on the metadata (moved to the server)

These tasks are usually started by the script loader inside of YUI's seed file, which is a small script that provides the loading API in the browser.

Instead of doing these two steps, the seed simply asks the server for what's needed and gets it back, near-instantly: it's likely in your browser cache, or a Yahoo! CDN edge cache primed from another visitor.

Most savings come from a combination of less code downloaded and cachability of the result. Slower browsers (old IE, mobile phones) also benefit from less execution time, because they are particularly slow at doing the loading themselves -- IE 6 users enjoy 60% faster feature startup after the switch to server-side loading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I believe one of them said they used Node.js before version 1.0... and Node isn't even on version 1.0... so not sure what he means to say.

</comment><comment><USER14> Opzi uses Node.js to run our real-time endpoint and live notifications system, been working well so far. Running server + client side JS seems to be one of the niftier aspects of working with Node.js.

</comment><comment><USER15> Node.js is great, but Node.coffeescript is better ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> We are using node.js to safely execute code for our jquery air and HTML5 & CSS3 course on codeschool.com

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the aspect i like from nodejs function callback, future, callback, future... do i need to say more?</comment>


Merchandising and star wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2707&p=2707

<comment><USER2> Intereseting read. As someone who grew up pestering my parents for Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, etc. it's hard for me to even envision an era where the predominant toys on the shelves everywhere were not movie/tv related.

A friend of mine said just yesterday, "Christmas was good; I now own one or two of every Frozen related product in existence" (he has three girls under the age of 10).

So I guess the trend continues...</comment>


Dead Sea dates grown from 2000-year-old seeds - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/dead-sea-dates-grown-2000-year-old-seeds <comment><USER2> The half life of DNA is reported to be 521 years in bone [0]. I'm shocked that there hasn't been a lot of accumulated deleterious mutation or damage here.

I know plants typically have a high ploidity (multiple chromosome copies - humans only have a factor of 2, whereas bananas have 4 or higher [1]). Is that how this works?

[0] [https://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half- life-1.1...](https://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploidy#](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploidy#)

<comment><USER3> Maybe, although this wasn't bone, and I think other conditions can lead to better preservation. They have been able to extract useful info from samples that are ~1M years old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you imagine the implications if someone can find a seed from that birth control plant(1) the roman's ate to extinction?

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

<comment><USER5> Extinction is forever. We should not understimate the weight of this fact.

Would be like finding a californian dwarf elephant again.

<comment><USER6> ...except that's the point of the OP - this date is no longer extinct.

<comment><USER5> Phoenix dactilifera never went extinct (and the origin of this date is still questionable IMHO).

<comment><USER6> This variety was gone, for 2000 years. The origin date was pretty firmly established. 'IMHO' is worth much less than a measurement, which indicated from 2200 to 1800 years.

<comment><USER5> "IMHO" there are a lot of well known problems with carbone datation. You can read about it in scientific journals and make your own opinion.

Any measurement can have errors of methodology, and a wrong measurement does not have any value. Don't worship numbers just because they seem fancy or fit with a narrative. They are just that, a number.

Without a genetical analysis we can not know if a plant variety is lost, or just forgotten, or a clone of a extant variety buried ten years ago. Show me the analysis before to start talking abour old ruins, caravans and lost cities.

<comment><USER6> So theres uncertainty in dating, and its only 1000 years extinct? This is more FUD.

<comment><USER5> Keep thinking about the problem and you will eventualy find the big, huge, ginormous, elephant in the room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You will never see, "DOS booted from 2000-year-old floppy". That is some amazing staying power and a great outcome. I wonder what else we can bring back.

<comment><USER8> there is a tradeoff here though: that floppy can be erased and rewritten easily. dna not so much.

<comment><USER9> DNA rewrites itself all the time... we just cant change it at will, much, yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> previous HN discussion on the actual paper - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22262855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22262855)

</comment><comment><USER11> There are other species of plants whose seeds can germinate after a ridiculously long time. Nelumbo nucifera, for example. Still, it is remarkeable.

<comment><USER12> Though not extinction, widespread use of birth control could be argued to have been a contributing factor in the fall of Rome.

<comment><USER13> Or, a territory too large to actually defend, rampant corrution and barbarian hordes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel skeptical about this assertion, probably there is a much simpler non magical explanation.

I didn't find the article but... first of all, I have a problem with an object being soaked in fertilizer, watered, and _then_ dated after an external porous shell clinging from the new roots.

Just does not feel like rigth science.

Would be like measuring how old are the matherials in an flemish painting after covering it with a new a layer of modern acrilic. Too much new error factors and contaminants influencing the results over the table.

Why they didn't just removed a small posterior chunk of the seed and then put it apart before to germinate the rest?

Second: What about doing a standard genetical analysis?. Are this larger seeds genetically close to the modern larger varieties that Israel has being introduced into the market in the last five years?

</comment><comment><USER14> > _The successful seeds were all several centimeters long, 30% larger than > modern date seeds, suggesting dates that were significantly larger than > modern varieties._

Is that really what it suggests? I'm under the impression the flesh:seed ratio of a fruit tends to go up when a fruit is domesticated over long periods of time. Wild bananas have huge seeds but the seeds in domesticated bananas are almost not there.

<comment><USER15> You make that sound like merely an observed behaviour, but isn't that because that's what we're selecting for? We eat banana flesh, not banana seeds, so we're cultivating varieties that are fleshier (among other desirable properties, such as productivity, and taste of the flesh of course).

<comment><USER16> But isn't that what he said? To put it in your words: we eat dates, not date seeds, so we're cultivating varieties that are fleshier. Less seed, more date.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps I misread, but to me 'tends to go up' makes it sound like an observed incidental effect, rather than a deliberate action.

Essentially I was saying 'sure, there's a correlation, isn't there also causation, aren't we the cause?' (which isn't the way around that's usually said!)

<comment><USER17> I think everyone misread, including me.

Everyone thought he was saying "are you sure it suggests that? It seems an odd to me because flesh grows over time, so it is a really bizarre conclusion if true!"

But OP didn't mean that. Instead this is what OP meant:

">> The successful seeds were all several centimeters long, 30% larger than modern date seeds, suggesting dates that were significantly larger than modern varieties.

"Actually, maybe it's not that the flesh was larger - but rather, the seed was! The flesh could have remained the same size."

OP then justified why he thought this was just as plausible, by mentioning wild bananas (Google image search "wild banana seed") as an example of large, ugly seeds in a same-sized plant.

<comment><USER17> i.e. the seeds could have been cultivated to be smaller over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wonderful nature, won't stop to impress us. Amazing how seeds can last that long!

</comment><comment><USER10> Why only plant's seeds have the ability to survive for so long? Why not mammals?

<comment><USER19> Mammal "seeds" (gametes or zygotes) never evolved to be outside the body for any period of time.

In theory you could probably do this with a 2,000-year-old platypus egg that had been preserved in amber. But otherwise mammals just tend to have really short shelf lives for these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Other old seeds: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed#Carbon- da...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed#Carbon-dated)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was hoping to find how it tasted like.

<comment><USER22> My guess: like a date.

<comment><USER23> I wonder what its format was like.

My guess: ISO-8601.

<comment><USER24> Why, it's using Roman numerals of course ;)

<comment><USER25> ab urbe condita MMDCCLXXIII</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What would you say to a teenager joining a startup? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Dude, what is the point of your question? Are you indicating that this is a foolish thing to do as the teenager will burn out before her 18th birthday, or are you saying what a fantastic opportunity it is for a extremely smart teenager with world at her feet?

Point is, everyone is different and without knowing who the teenager is, this question is, well kinda, stupid.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean what sort of adivce would you give him ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd tell them to quit humble bragging on HN.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd say, "Welcome aboard, young man!"

Btw, I'm still a teenager, and that's what I wish startups would say to me when I apply to them :p

P.S. I build things with HTML, CSS, Javascript and Rails, so if anyone's interested please feel free to shoot me an email :D

</comment><comment><USER5> Bravo</comment>


Needed: Avoid Overwhelming Followers' Streams (e.g., Twitter) - <AUTHOR> http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/05/8-ways-to-avoid-overwhelming-your-followers-twitter-stream/ <comment><USER2> Missing from the list: Don't play that stupid spymaster game.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/29/spy-vs-spy-the- spymaste...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/29/spy-vs-spy-the-spymaster- backlash-begins-and-twitter-needs-to-fix-it/)</comment>


Software Engineer Starts Unlikely Business: A Weekly Newspaper - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/nyregion/new-newspaper-prompts-war-of-weeklies-in-new-jersey-suburb.html <comment><USER3> Within social media I've found the greatest impedance to conversation with people of different opinions is that we stand in alternate landscapes of "facts". I cannot see the information that they see, which shapes their opinions. Each of our "timelines" are unique, and so each of our landscapes are unique.

Print media provides a common landscape. And that landscape forms the basis from which meaningful conversation between different opinions can grow.

<comment><USER4> My small city is going through a minor scandal right now with the city council accused of giving preferential treatment to a developer while the neighbors around the proposed development are strongly against the work being done. Pretty common small city stuff, NIMBY, yadda yadda. We do have a local newspaper, and at every city council meeting the pro and con factions go to war either for or against the paper. The paper prints basic facts, which either side interprets as they will, and one side claiming the paper is biased towards the other side. Now half the city doesn't trust our newspaper.

Even one common source of facts can be skewed by personal opinion. The only thing the newspaper changes about the discussion is whose side of the argument the editor is on.

<comment><USER5> Just printing facts isn't unbiased -- starting with the selection of which facts to print. Facts alone also lack context. You might factually state "radiation from Fukushima has been detected in the US". That sounds quite alarming! So you need to add some context like "This is because detection tech is very advanced. The levels are very low and pose no cause for concern." But then someone will criticise you for downplaying things.

So the newspaper could very well be biased and skewed, just in how they present or don't present certain facts, which context they provide, etc.

<comment> charles-salvia I agree. A lot of the complaints about "fake news" and everything aren't so much directed at actual _false_ information being reported - but rather the selection or emphasis of certain facts over others.

An obvious example was Fox News vs. CNN during the weeks leading up to the election. Neither company outright _lied_ about anything (for the most part), but both published headlines emphasizing an entirely different set of facts. Fox News was constantly blasting headlines about the FBI investigating Hillary's email, while CNN was constantly blasting headlines about Trump's sexual misconduct allegations, etc. Neither were really _lying_ in any sense - but they both painted completely different pictures designed to elicit differing opinions/reactions from their readers.

Of course, if you want _real_ fake news - that exists as well and always has before it became a buzz word. The National Enquirer has been publishing fake news for decades, and nobody cares.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

It is a sin how little effort is put into local news. It is far easier for large corporations to re-package the same national news into different markets, than it is to do good journalism at the local level.

Your local news affiliate on ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX mostly just repackages stories from other affiliates, or run something easy to cover stories like a house fire or inclement weather. This local coverage is MANDATED by the FCC to benefit local communities.

Want to know what you city council voted on this week? What bills your state senate has passed? What non-profits have done to benifit your community? Good luck. It is unlikely that they will cover it.

<comment><USER7> > Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

I'm not sure Montclair is the best place to build a replicable model. It's a nice town, but it's also a pretty unique bubble (even compared to the rest of New Jersey). It might be a good place to incubate an idea, but any lessons learned there probably won't apply to most places across the country.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about that. As a fellow NJer, I agree on your assessment of Montclair, but this story is about a couple who got in touch with the community and wants to share knowledge in that community to help it grow. I don't see how that doesn't apply elsewhere, or how they're wrong in approach. Actually, I even believe the part about not in it for the money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Local news is the most relevant news there is, in anyone's life, anywhere!

Our focus on national and international news takes up too much of an unnecessary time and energy. On top of that, we spend ridiculously more time reading about what far away politicians have to say, or do.

Glad to see people from technology sector investing time and money in strengthening the local communities.

<comment><USER10> It sounds like you are privileged with the ability to ignore the policies that far-away politicians enact because they don't affect you. Not everyone is as lucky as you are.

<comment><USER11> I understand were you are coming from with a comment like that, but I would argue that the large majority of people read about and get emotionally invested in news stories that have no impact on their lives. Take, for example, the stories of refugees being taken in by European countries, and those of Donald Trump's view of healthcare. It's nearly physically impossible to be affected by those two things. We can think of plenty of such 'pairs' of stories that people get interested in which it's impossible to be affected by both. And beyond what marginal information you get to inform your voting preferences via those stories, it is pretty pointless to get invested in them.

<comment><USER12> I live in Hannover, Germany. I am physically impacted by both stories:

For obvious reasons by the refugee one;

And also by Trump's bullshitting with healthcare due to having multiple friends in the USA whose lives are directly and acutely endangered by him and his murderous troupe, which in turn impacts my ability to meet them again.

<comment><USER13> Its not the impact itself, but with activism people can influence local outcomes much better than national and much much better than international outcomes. Almost any one can go to City council meeting and let their presence know, and with enough patience can get audience of the council both in public and private forum. To do that at National and International level the costs involved are high and there is no denying you have fund your trips to DC/NY/London/Geneva/The Hauge etc.

That is the point, big fish in small pond vs small fish in an ocean metaphor.

<comment><USER12> Sure, i can do little to impact back, however the post i was replying to was claiming it would be impossible for me to be impacted by both. Yet i undeniably am. Also, being informed means i can at least provide my friends with appropiate emotional support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Local journalism should be able to do better than they are in the changing publication landscape. It's niche by definition: while I can get national news from a wide number of sources, and global news from an almost uncountable number, there are only a handful of providers of local news. It tends to require "boots on the ground". It can also be practically relevant in day-to- day life, more so than the more abstract issues of wider relevance.

What I don't need from my local and regional news provider is coverage of national and global issues; yet they keep reporting on them, probably because newspapers of yore were often the only provider of news for many people. That hasn't been true for a while.

</comment><comment><USER15> Their subscriber income will be tiny according to their target of 6000 subs at $12 PA.

Their outgoings include 7 journalists and printing and distribution costs (currently they are giving away 15000 copies free every week, which they plan to reduce to 5000 per week).

I really want endeavours like this to be successful and would love to understand how they plan to make this a sustainable (non loss making) business. The traditional model is classifieds & local ads, but that's not been working for a while now.

<comment><USER8> I was toying around with a similar idea, but figured a local newspaper should provide local services -- hyper data-gathering at the local level. Like I'd love to see a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of where my [specific] property taxes are going, so I can be more informed when voting locally. Make it a special feature, and charge $5 per sub. Gets their $72k to $84k (say half your subs can't refuse @ $5) easy. (assuming i can trade one of those journalists for a data scientist)

I also think "local ads" needs a whole new approach, for a variety of reasons. You have local business associations shooting themselves in the foot every time a fellow business is not somehow advertised in any other member store.

Also, syndicate [free-ish] articles from bloggers who can help your community better itself. Also, extend into the schools - get a HS writer to report the sports there to pick up more subs.

OK, I'm not covering all the expenses yet, but that's just a few ideas...

<comment><USER16> I'm a journalist turned developer and I had a similar idea a while back. I feel local news orgs are missing a trick because aggregation is something journalists can do very well due to the nature of their job (pulling info from disparate sources, fact-checking etc). With so many sources of general data and info you can easily provide value by giving it local and regional context.

Btw - this a throwaway account. Having trouble logging in with my username carlmungz.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And that's how a big corporation (USA Today) dropped a niche and someone had the vision and the guts to take the gauntlet.

Local news are (probably) the last niche for journalism. People care about what's happening nearby - and unless you have a local newspaper, you'll miss that news or they can pass as fake ones.

The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper credit line/funded account with the printer. In digital "printing" cost is not zero, but scales better with higher audiences - which is not the case for _local_ news unless you have "local" news from a big population cluster (which is probably served by bigCo's like Hearst, Knight Ridder, Berkshire Hathaway, etc..)

<comment><USER18> >The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper credit line/funded account with the printer.

On the other hand, with digital you have to spend money to advertise and market to your audience, otherwise it disappears. With print, you own the "platform" because you pay for the paper, ink, and shipping.

<comment><USER17> I agree distribution costs both for print/digital are non negligible (let's face advertising and SEO are forms of distribution in the online world).

But I am not sure digital should be the default way to go for journalism. Local or not.

In digital there are also personnel cost for setting up and maintaining infrastructure costs, and refreshing the front page every X minutes (no, it's not made automatically).

Even if you publish on a third party site (like Facebook) you still have to pay lump sum people to publish, promote, SEO, and A/B test landing pages...

... Is it worth for a 30-50K people audience? probably not unless you are thinking on the long run or you're making "evergreen" content...

... But this audience might be enough for a small newspaper printed in paper... even if the content is not "revived" every year/4 years by search engines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you are interested in printing your own newspaper check out [http://www.newspaperclub.com/](http://www.newspaperclub.com/)

I received their samples in preparation for sending out graphic design and photography promos and the quality is great.

<comment><USER20> Can second. Received samples last week. Pricing is OK but gets particularly attractive above 1000 copies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> One thing this article and the comments haven't discussed yet is how much the viability of local newspapers depends on the local real estate market. Take a look at your local newspaper if you have one, and I bet it's chock full of real estate ads. (Where I live, the Palo Alto Daily Post certainly is, as is the competing Weekly; example here: [1]). And it makes sense: the most relevant ads for a local population are matters of local interest, and for expensive houses, the ROI for ad-spend can easily make sense.

So I expect that a big factor in whether quality local newspapers can survive is the strength of the local housing market, (measured through e.g. median house price and yearly volume). As a practical matter, this means that only in relatively affluent places is local news financially feasible, (although the housing market isn't the only reason why that's the case). It also means that more people searching for property online may present a challenge for local news.

[1] [http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw....](http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw.section1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm very happy this exists, but I feel like it's time for the underdog media to give up on money-making, and just register the paper as non-profit.

It seems like this developer isn't looking to make a profit anyways, and that move helps ensure he or a future owner has more barriers to changing their minds.

Not all valuable endeavors yield a profit-making opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a resident of a neighboring town to Montclair, I couldn't be more excited to see a new local newspaper trying to keep the residents more informed. Needless to say, I spent the $12 to subscribe. If this goes well, I hope to see more papers of this nature popping up in my town and others in the area!

<comment><USER24> As a resident, Im so happy to see something so local and exciting on HN!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think local newspapers are better placed to survive than national ones. Round here they send photographers to every community event and people love seeing themselves/relatives/friends/enemies in print. Also district court proceedings esp involving drunks can make for great unintended comedy.

Presumably this paper is aiming to be mostly funded by advertising because their subscription target is only €72K p.a. and they have a staff of 7.

<comment><USER22> I wish you were right, but for the past 20 or so years, national media has been less decimated.

<comment><USER25> That surprises me, I'd thought the drop in circulations was less severe at the local level.

<comment><USER22> I wish,but the news is just a another example of increasing monopolization in America. Economies of scale are a powerful tool against a shrinking market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> With so much noise online, there's definately a strong argument to be made for local newspapers like this, great job guys!

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting. I work in Montclair a couple of days a week. It probably is the type of town that could support this, but it's still kind of peculiar. The Montclair Times HQ was shut down - it's now a dialysis center. There is a blog of sorts as the article mentions, Baristanet, that covers local news in Montclair, although I have no clue how many people read it.

I would imagine that most people in Montclair read the NYTimes - perhaps it would make sense for the NYTimes to 'up' it's local coverage game in the tri state area.

</comment><comment><USER28> > A subscription costs $12 a year, and he is aiming to sign up 6,000 > subscribers.

That's nothing. Barely pays for basic business expenses. The potential in a market that size isn't even that great and there is also the cost to acquire those subscribers. And 6000 readers doesn't allow you to make any money from advertising at least not w/o taking advantage of the type of advertisers who don't understand media buying and aren't overpaying.

</comment><comment><USER29> This looks like an amazing initiative - and shows an entrepreneurial spirit! As a side note, it's interesting, how many software engineers consider alternative careers for themselves?

<comment><USER30> Lots. I am considering starting a small-scale residential real estate development company and am actively in the process of starting a brewery, for instance.

There are other software developers that I know doing both.

<comment><USER31> I'm currently enrolled at Washington State studying wine making as a possible second career.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is there a currently updated database of local papers by region? I honestly have no idea how many local news papers are available to my area. I know of at least four from having seen them at the market, but no place online to check for more. I am finding dozens of historical dbs but none current.

Edit: [http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/](http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I miss the morning paper, and I miss the pre-dawn sky.

</comment><comment><USER34> > the animosity the Trump administration has directed at the news media has > injected new vigor into a beleaguered industry.

I'm no fan of Trump, but leave it to the NYT to frame its industry as a victim. As though decades of increasingly partisan coverage had nothing to do with the industry's problems.

<comment><USER35> Trump's interactions with the media, and NYT in particular, is far worse than previous administrations.

Newspapers have been having (some self inflicted) trouble for a long time, but what Trump is doing is something new and very dangerous.

<comment><USER36> How would you recommend Trump respond to the media when they publish things like this "dossier" back in January before the inauguration that alleged things like Trump traveling to Russia to rent an old hotel room Obama stayed in so he could hire Russian prostitutes to perform a "golden showers" show in front of him -- a "dossier" (makes it sound more legitimate right) which has since been debunked as a 4chan prank on the intelligence community:

[1] CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump- intellig...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence- report-russia/index.html)

[2] BuzzFeed with source of "dossier" [https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports- allege-t...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump- has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.uvn9vAjp1#.wpDMAn3l9)

[3] 4chan talking about Rick Wilson + dossier back in november [https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329](https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329)

Now, NYT themselves did not run this story. But the vast majority of "main stream media" runs stories with a narrative - or as Trump himself put it - <USER2> "tone". They insist that Trump must be wrapped in controversy, and every article I come across from NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo all insist on including a negative tone; or at the very least, emphasizing facts that make Trump seem negligent, stupid, arrogant or malevolent. In my opinion, it's them who have forfeited ethics. Tell me, how exactly is Trump doing something "new and very dangerous"? How should he respond to constant negativity? Even he himself is not asking for positive propaganda - he just wants neutral, honest media reporting. He has told CNN in a press conference that he'd be their greatest fan if they would report honestly.

<comment><USER37> First of all, the dossier was put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and wasn't just some 4chan prank.

How do you suggest the NYT, CNN, WaPo react to actions that seem to come from a place of incompetence or malevolence? When Trump rolls out an unconstitutional EO that seemed barely vetted by the Attorney General's office, how should the NYT paint that in such a way that Trump is depicted as competent?

When Trump and Spicer repeat falsehoods that anyone with a pair of eyes can refute (inauguration crowd size) or that has zero evidence behind it whatsoever (3-5 million illegal votes, Obama wiretapping Trump), how should the WaPo react to these lies?

When the president's campaign is under investigation by the FBI for potential collusion with a foreign government, and Rep. Schiff says there is 'more than circumstantial evidence', how should CNN report this?

It's laughable and a little bit sad that people think that Trump is more honest than the MSM.

<comment><USER38> US Code 1182 (f)

Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182)

<comment><USER37> Sure, the president has the authority to impose restrictions on immigration, but not by imposing a religious test, which would violate the establishment clause.

<comment><USER38> I agree but there is no religious test. The countries on the list are from Obama's State Dept recommendations due to terror threats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does every NY Times article mention President Trump?

<comment><USER40> Nope. (A casual glance through their front page finds several articles that do not.)

<comment><USER41> I think that was rhetorical.

<comment><USER40> Indeed. But it was also ridiculous. So I went with the equally ridiculous, overly wan, and dry response.

<comment><USER41> Kill 'em with kindness.

On a more serious note, I don't see Trump's mentions in the article to be unwarranted at all. On the contrary, they're very appropriate given his divisive rhetoric about the news media, and I believe that the author was very measured and reserved with his reporting.

It is not like he went out of his way to take a jab at him. The references were all on topic and informative.

Nothing really to complain about here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Who's Hiring? An app for easily searching the monthly thread - <AUTHOR> http://projects.willacton.com/whoishiring/

<comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by [http://hnhiring.me](http://hnhiring.me), I decided to take a day and create a project using HN's Firebase API. I also used it as an exercise in applying Google's Material design UX.

The app can query all available data dating back to 2011, and is live updated while a thread is going.

In the search input, you can type in a regular expression to narrow your results. e.g.: javascript|ruby

Or, getting more advanced:

      (?=.*javascript)(?=.*remote|portland)

Source code can be found here: [https://github.com/Lokeh/whoishiring](https://github.com/Lokeh/whoishiring)

Currently I'm trying to decide on a good solution for showing the search input on phones and smaller screens.

Let me know what you think!

</comment><comment><USER2> Am I the only one who finds this kind of interface obnoxious? You have to keep manually triggering the page expansion (rather than multiple pages or automatic expansion) and then when you hit a random point (clicking More after the Relato listing), it recompresses back to the original page without explanation.

<comment><USER3> > obnoxious

Please don't be harsh when responding to someone's work that they've shared. You have a substantive point, but I'm sure you could express it more neutrally. That would be valuable; it doesn't seem fair for the only comment on a Show HN to be a dismissive one.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any detriments to getting a security clearance? - <AUTHOR>

I am about to start a summer internship and my employer wants me to get a security clearance. Are there any reasons why I should not get one? <comment><USER2> Do you enjoy filling out forms?

Depending on what level clearance you are talking about, you will be asked to document a lot of your past professional and personal history. You will need to provide references for your character and your past jobs, and finding people who are cooperative may be trickier than you think.

Do you like to travel?

You may need to provide advance notice if you travel outside of the country.

Do you enjoy polygraphs?

I've manage to sidestep this one myself, but I'm told that lie detector tests are not fun.

On the plus side, having a clearance opens a lot of well-paying stable job opportunities.

<comment><USER3> Forms are definitely killer. OP - to save yourself some effort, start collecting the addresses of where you've lived and employer info for the past 5-7 years. This is somewhat of a pain if you lived in dorms at school and move back home every summer and into a new dorm in the fall. You'll also need references to verify each bit of this info ("Did rathalos work at X from dates Y to Z"), and I think a few character references ("Is rathalos of sound moral character?", "Do they use drugs?", etc).

On the plus side, you can duplicate references, so if you had a constant roommate just put them down.

Polygraphs won't apply to what's presumably a basic security clearance. There's a large cost to clearances and they won't get maximum clearance for an intern.

Depending on how long it takes to get your clearance, you may only have an interim clearance during your internship. This is probably for the employer to cover themselves if you encountered any sensitive information. It's highly unlikely you will be working with sensitive information, unless you go back to intern with them in the future.

One benefit of security clearances is that it is transferable, and is good for 2 years after you leave the job (without having to reapply). So you could intern, get a clearance, intern somewhere else next year, and then get a job after graduation that requires a clearance. If you're interested in certain aerospace or defense companies, this is a plus for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Depending on the country, and they type of clearance?

I got one years ago, but civil (government). I found it odd I was asked about my grandparents' occupations. No harm came.

Large companies, particularly those in finance, also ask for clearance which they also call security clearance. That's mainly ensuring a clean track record. One big area that I've seen people mess up is 'Directorships'. Having once registered a company, and keeping that company running, is a directorship, even if the company is idle. It takes a lot of unwinding with HR and audit when these things that are often only sometimes checked, or an international check is not run. Do declare directorships; as long as there is no conflict of interest there's noting to worry about, and if there is a conflict of interest, get it in the open because you could be accused of criminal liability.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are, but they're outweighed by the benefits of having the clearance. Some I can recall are:

\- Requirement to disclose any travel plans outside of US.

\- Forbidden to have dual citizenship.

\- Requirement to disclose relationships (even non-professional) with foreign nationals.

</comment><comment><USER6> The biggest PITA associated with US government security clearances is their tendency to call your family and associates to make sure you're not a communist or terrorist.

I suppose that's necessary, but it's embarrassing. Calling your friends ahead of time to give them a heads-up would be something I'd think about doing.

Clearances cost a lot of money, but you never have to pay the money or even know how much it is. It's a license to get exclusive well-paying jobs.</comment>


Pick experiences over relationships - <AUTHOR> http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/pick-experiences-over-relationships.htm

<comment><USER2> This is a very tough decision, one which I am currently going through at the moment. Experiences are great, but giving up on the chance of a good relationship is hard. Experiences may be more predictable / controllable, but sometimes the less predictable experience can lead you places you never thought you would end up.</comment>


Ask HN: If you had unlimited money for 30 minutes, what would you do? - <AUTHOR> For the sake of this question assume:<p>- you don't have time to prepare and you only have access to a laptop w/ an internet connection.<p>- the money is in dollars so if you somehow spend $1000 trillion you'll likely crash the world economy b/c of inflation.<p>- all the money is coming from a magical bank that will disappear when the 30 minutes are up.<p>- you can't access it in cash.<p>- everyone (banks, stores, brokers, etc) will accept the magical bank (shout out to Stripe for writing that integration) but the normal limits for those platforms apply (read more below on this).<p>- you are allowed to utilize your existing personal connections.<p>FAQ:<p>- Can I transfer money to a different bank account? Yes. The magical bank does let you do this. But, keep in mind that most banks have daily transfer limits so you can't be transferring billions! Keep this in mind as well when you think about buying a lot of stocks. Keep limits of services you'd utilize in mind and if you break the limit, your answer is nullified!<p>- Can't I just buy a bunch of property? Well, that's IF you find a way to lock down a bunch of properties in 30 minutes. Usually those deals can take days to close and you only have the money for 30 minutes. <comment><USER2> I think this post, and that people responded "seriously" to it, is a pretty good sign people are starting to lose their shit.

I'm not saying you should disobey the shelter-in-place/etc orders, but _this_ is a bit much.

You're asking the sort of question practically every kid in primary school has asked or been asked, but you're making it "more real" because you can't just buy a house in 30 minutes.

For a follow up will you ask what everyone's favourite food is, and then respond and tell them why it's bad for them? Or perhaps ask what everyone's favourite colour is and then psychoanalyse the responses?

HN isn't reddit.. or a school yard.

<comment><USER3> It might be some creative brainstorming for someone trying to disrupt payment processing.

If not, I agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hard to say. On the one hand, part of me thinks it'd be best to spend it on marketing, since you could get a lot of attention for future projects if you could lock in say, a few decades worth of ad space on major publications and social networking sites.

Also:

* Obviously buy a ton of stock and crypto.

* Use it as an incentive for people to follow you on social media, join your site/SaaS service, etc. We've all seem those folks claiming to offer $1000 to whoever follows them on Twitter, a legit version with a few hundred thousand dollars per person would rake in followers like crazy.

* Transfer as much of it to other people as possible, on the assumption at least a few of them will pay at least some of it back.

* Put money in various online gambling sites, since hey, whatever I actually make in winnings is my cash.

* Go on a general spending spree, since 30 minutes is still plenty of time to buy whatever random consumer good or piece of entertainment media you'd ever want.

* Pay people to work on things I want done on an 'all money up front' basis. If they turn out to be scammers, that's not my problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would buy Berkshire Hathaway for whatever price they ask, being sure to tell them we need the money in escrow and a commitment within 30 minutes.

Then I'd spend the rest of my life figuring out what to do with Berkshire Hathaway.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unless you are doing a zell pay or similar thing which transfers money from person to person instantly, there is nothing much you can do. Zell pay has daily limit of 2000.

If you want to transfer money to another account, it would take more than 30 mins for the transfer to happen. Buying stocks needs 2/3 days for the settlement or 2/3 days for the transfer to the brokerage account.

Even if you bought something with debit card it takes longer than 30 mins to settle that transaction.

I would just visit a branch and get a cashier's check. Most bang for the buck and there's no limit.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perform a Scrooge McDuck impersonation! [https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/things-you-didnt- kno...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/things-you-didnt-know-about- scrooge-mcduck)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd donate all of it.

5 minutes to search through the best bang for my buck, then drop 100 million to the top dozen or so until my time was up.

</comment><comment><USER9> \- Transfer to each of my accounts up to the daily limits.

\- Buy a bunch of silver and gold coins.

\- Call a big scrapyard and buy as much copper as possible.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a bit curious that most (only 5 so far) answers mention things like daily limits to each of your own bank accounts, when the question specifically stated you are allowed to utilize your existing personal connections (friends and coworkers).

Why would you not tell as many friends and family as possible about transferring the max daily limit to all of their accounts? Several ways to spin / think about this:

\- "Can you send me back some of that money later?"

\- Most friends/coworkers who are decent people will probably send you back half of it. For those that don't:

\- They are probably really in need, in which case you did a good deed helping them out, or;

\- They are bad people. Cheap price to pay (actually, free to you) to see their real side.

Depending on how many people respond to your mass sms/IMs quickly enough, you can probably send the daily limit to anywhere from 100 to 500 people. This is probably more impactful than giving yourself X amount of money.

And then if you have time left, there's donations to charity which you can typically use credit cards / bank transfers for (instantly usually?). Donate maximum limit to every charity you can think of. Maybe you'll even contribute to the development of a COVID vaccine?

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd send daily limit amount to each citizen in the country, as a one time bonus

<comment><USER8> How?

<comment><USER11> Direct debits on all valid ibans! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_debit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_debit)

That's the fastest, almost not regulated way to go, because the system itself allows for longer claim times. That will allow you to go through easier

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Buy stock.

<comment><USER8> Buy crypto.</comment></comment>


EU opens antitrust probe against Google - <AUTHOR> http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2010/02/committed-to-competing-fairly.html

<comment><AUTHOR> According to this post from Google, it looks like they are framing it as a bunch of complaints from companies that are proxies for Microsoft. This is an interesting angle to play...</comment>


How we made $100K trading CryptoKitties - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/how-we-made-100k-trading-cryptokitties-2d69aebe715b <comment><USER2> The title should probably reflect the Hackernoon title and say "trading" instead of "arbitraging". According to the article, although the arbitrage was also profitable, most of the money came from buying particular CryptoKitties early in the craze as an investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, done

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How I made $100 million playing powerball.

"How I lost my life savings on irresponsible gambling."

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure that CryptoKitties are only successful because they are one of the few ways for criminals to directly deposit crypto currencies in larger quantities without using mixers to launder ransom payments from crypto viruses.

<comment><USER5> Interesting.

Could the same type of activity happen with say a service like Earn.com?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ready for people to start using this digital collectible nonsense strategy on rarebits.io

In the case of Crypto All-Stars, the original website was deleted through a hostile takeover. But you can't truly delete anything like that on the blockchain

</comment><comment><USER7> I CAN'T DECIDE IF THIS IS REAL OR AN AMAZING WORK OF SCI-FI FICTION.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha I couldn't believe it as it was happening either

<comment><USER7> So you're telling me that people are actually gambling money on fake cats online? Is this what we've come to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's hope Oleg sold that ETH to solidify his profits.</comment>


Show HN: ConflictFormatter – Format diff3-style merge conflicts - <AUTHOR> https://philippotto.github.io/ConflictFormatter/ <comment><USER2> Making the switch to diff3 revolutionized working with conflicts for me. This is a cool tool thanks for making and posting it.</comment>


Assume You're Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://verbadam.com/assume-youre-wrong

<comment><USER2> This is great advice. Just today I had a similar issue. I wrote some code a long time ago, and a new coworker who started about a month ago comes up to me and proposes an alternate solution. He asked why we didn't do it this way instead of the way we were doing it now. In his mind, his solution made perfect sense.

I knew I was right, and I knew my solution was the best solution, because I'd spent months thinking of all the possible ways to solve the problem, and this was the best of them all.

But the point is that he asked, and the point is that I had to revisit that decision. I considered what he said, and I explained my rationale for going with my solution. By the time I was done, he was nodding along and saying "Yeah, that makes perfect sense."

I think it's okay to be right and to know you're right, but if someone questions you, or if a test fails, or if conversions go down, you should be willing to stop and re-examine your assumptions, and if necessary, explain them again.

I'm very glad my coworker brought his ideas to me, because it validates that my solution was, in fact, correct. And if my solution hadn't been the best choice, he would have brought a better solution. So in the end, it's a win- win...

Assuming you're wrong at first blush is almost always the right move. It lets you consider alternate solutions, and hopefully rebuild your defense of your current solution. If it still holds up, you're good. If not, your new assumption is right (that you're wrong).

I think I have a headache now.

I also have a similar rule, but from a slightly different perspective. I credit it as one of the reasons for me being as successful at my company as I am.

When someone comes to me and says there is a problem with the app, I assume it's my fault. I assume it's a code problem. I rule out any responsibility on my part (or that of my team) before I go back to the complainer and ask them for more information. I never, ever, ever say "it works for me."

Remember: people don't complain about things that work. Even if it's their fault, even if they screwed something up, even if it's not your code that's broken, something isn't working for __them __. If it 's not working for _them_ , then it's up to you to figure out why. It may be that your instructions were unclear, or maybe it's a client-side issue (like an ad-blocker) that you can't reproduce. Or maybe your customer really is a moron.

But before I ever go back to someone and tell them I'm good, I make sure all my ducks are in a row. The last thing I want is to belittle someone else's problem because I think I'm awesome.</comment>


"AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming during customer's free trial period" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/cue/status/612824775220555776 <comment><USER2> Eddy Cue clarified that artists will not be paid at the streaming rate they are paid during users paid memberships. They will be paid at a different rate that isn't being disclosed: [http://recode.net/2015/06/21/apple-says-it-will- pay-taylor-s...](http://recode.net/2015/06/21/apple-says-it-will-pay-taylor- swift-for-free-streams-after-all/)

Also: "Cue says Apple will keep the existing royalty rates it has already hammered out with the three major music labels for subscribers."

<comment><USER3> That's during the free trial period. The higher rates remain once people are paid subscribers.

<comment><USER2> Right. But the trial could be significantly lower. They're not saying.

It's worth nothing that by "higher rates" we are talking about a hundredth of a cent per stream.

<comment><USER4> Yep. And it appears that the Artists, like the music industry, really don't get that things have changed.

Hey, I'm old school. I can identify with them. I like to buy my music. I don't get subscriptions where if I stop playing I can't listen to anything.... but I find myself listening to podcasts-- 2 hour long podcast of EDM. My favorite one has several _YEARS_ of podcasts and despite skipping months at a time I'm still over a year behind. I'm not paying them anything[1], they're not paying the artists anything (it's meant for promotion more than anything else.)

I did buy an album once.

So, even though my habits are different the industry has changed.

Apple is progressive. The whole point of the free trial is to get people addicted to the service. In the long run Taylor Swift will make more money from a free trial than if Apple offered the service without a free trial-- because more people will sign up and ultimately end up with royalties going to Taylor.

I think it's hilarious that Apple is (as ever, of course) portrayed as the bogeyman for trying to market a service that will make the artists more money.

Just like they are constantly derided for taking %30 of revenue (which is a huge improvement over the often %95 and worse terms that you had to accept before the iPhone came out).

Things have changed. I'll try this service and see if it changes my habits. If Tayler didn't make out from it in 6 months then go ahead, complain away and have some data to back it up.

But making a big to do about it now is kinda silly. Like people being mad that Apple gave them a free U2 album. Sure they handled it clunky and If they do it again I'm sure they will be better. But OH! Apple gave me free music! #FirstWorldProblems

[1] near as I can tell, it's a record label that puts out the podcast and I think it's their artists they're putting in it.

<comment><USER5> > In the long run Taylor Swift will make more money from a free trial than if > Apple offered the service without a free trial-- because more people will > sign up and ultimately end up with royalties going to Taylor.

Someone did the math and came to a different conclusion: [https://www.baekdal.com/opinion/taylor-swift-is-right- about-...](https://www.baekdal.com/opinion/taylor-swift-is-right-about-apple- music) . Assuming Apple Music generates $ 10 billion in revenue per year, artists never make up the cost while Apple saves $1.6 billion the first year of Apple Music.

<comment><USER6> Thomas Baekdal's calculation model[1] is fundamentally flawed to conclude with " _artists never make up the cost_ ".

Apple may be right or wrong with their optimistic projections but people need to at least _understand_ the business proposition they are offering. The concept of "making up the cost" has nothing to do with recovering the 3 free months _from Apple_ as if it was a closed economic system. The idea is that the musician recovers the 3 free months from _the entire music industry_ because Apple will have a wider audience and a bigger platform.

flawed model: get $0 for 3 months and never get it back whether the future Apple payments total $1 billion, $10 trillion, or infinity.

Apple's model: get $0 for 3 months but you (potentially) come ahead because we pay higher royalty AND we have the potential to convert a bigger % of 800 million iTunes accounts to paid streaming subscribers which will exceed Spotify's 20 million subscribers.

In other words, the artist is supposed to make business comparisons based on:

\-- lost $$ for not being on Apple's platform and only providing music to Tidal & Spotify

\-- more $$ from customers switching away from Spotify

\-- more $$ from new streaming customers that would never have paid for Spotify but _would_ subscribe to Apple Music because the app is already preloaded on the iPhone and there's less friction

(Each musician was supposed to weigh those bullet points to see if the _big picture_ of skipping 3 months of payment made financial sense. It may or may not.)

As an analogy, it's as if a merchant concludes that accepting credit cards will "never make up the cost" because paying the monthly fees for the VISA/Mastercard mag swipe terminal and the transaction rates of 2% will never be paid back by the VISA/MC corporate entity. That's only true if one has a bizarre concept of thinking of the payment network as a closed system.

However, rational businessmen think _outside of the CC payment system_ and conclude that accepting credit cards is net positive because behavior analysis shows that customers spend more when they can use a credit card instead of cash or checks.

[1] Thomas Baekdal's arithmetic and logic:

      If we assume Apple Music will have $10 billion in revenue per year, we get this:

      First year:
      70% royalty / no free trail = $7 billion to artists
      71.5% royalty / 3 months free = $5.4 billion to artists
      After five years:
      70% royalty / no free trail = $35 billion to artists
      71.5% royalty / 3 months free = $33.9 billion to artists
      After 10 years
      70% royalty / no free trail = $70 billion to artists
      71.5% royalty / 3 months free = $69.7 billion to artists
      So, the artists never make up the cost while Apple saves
      $1.6 billion the first year of Apple Music.*

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First sentence of her letter was "I write this to explain why I'll be holding back my album, 1989, from the new streaming service, Apple Music."

So now, she needs to allow it on Apple Music or she'll look like a jerk. Apple will have this album that no other streaming service has, and they got a ton of press for it.

Probably worked out pretty well for them.

<comment><USER2> If she's smart, she'll still hold out. 1/2 a cent per play won't add up to anywhere near as much as her sales are.

Correction: That estimate was based on the average Spotify rate over the last few years. Apple has now said that the rate will be different during the trial and isn't being made public.

<comment><USER8> Except in her own words: "This is not about me." She is of course, lying. So if she plays hardball with her own album's access, she will be exposed as the liar she is. Streaming revenues matter to only but the top .1% of musicians, so Taylor Swift leading the charge on this was a joke to begin with. It was always about her, and Kanye West, and Drake, and the rest of music's elite. It's like Bill Gates being the public face of abolishing the estate tax. Do you think it's a coincidence that TIDAL, the streaming service that was supposed to revolutionize the business, only had the world's wealthiest artists on stage during its unveiling?

This is about a handful of artists grabbing a little more money, period.

<comment><USER9> And yet it's not OK to question Apple for doing the same? Every decision they make is about gaining more power and money. More influence. More market. All they care about is money, and they don't give two shits about the little guys. Personally, I don't care about T. Swift, but I'm glad she used her fame to combat Apple's power grab.

<comment><USER8> Well, what I've learned by looking at comments and all my downvotes (despite making perfect sense) is that people want Apple to pay musicians more, just 'cuz. Apple makes a lot of money and many artists don't, so, uhhh, like, pay them more please. Oh well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> c-slice Actually not that surprising, Taylor Swift was featured heavily in Apple's promo video (first album art featured), so clearly contracts were in place. TS was Apple's secret weapon and could be a key differentiator from Spotify. (TS has no music on Spotify.) I think TS was in a really good bargaining position. If she had pulled out, it would have been a big loss for Apple Music. Smart Move.

</comment><comment><USER10> The extraordinarily cynical side of me wonders if this is all just a massive co-branding PR exercise to dominate the news cycle with "Taylor Swift", "Apple", "Free Music", "Apple Music." Highly unlikely because it's not the type of underhanded marketing that Apple engages in, but man - All I've been reading about, seeing in my twitter feed, is talk about the 90 Day free Music Trial with Apple coming up.

This has been far, far better marketing exercise than their WWDC keynote.

<comment><USER11> Wow, this analysis just seems right. They sign a deal with TS, get her to be "outraged" then Apple does a 180 and then says it will pay the artists.

TS looks good and Apple gets a shitload of free press for their new music service.

I feel dumber everyday I don't see this stuff happening.

<comment><USER12> You don't really think this is the case, do you?

It's like any conspiracy theory: think about how many people would have to be "in it" to make it work. Then think, what are the chances of _none of them, ever_ letting anything slip. To anyone. Ever.

The chances are almost zero. People talk. The damage - to Swift, to Apple - it's just too large.

Therefore, this is not what you think it is. There is no deeper story here. Apple screwed up, Swift is influential, they probably thought they could get a bit of good PR from changing their minds, and they did. End of story.

<comment><USER13> Occam's Razor, man… the problem with conspiracy theories is that they require everything to work flawlessly and EVERYONE to keep their mouths shut. nonsense.

<comment><USER14> NSA was spying on people for years before it was made public, tens of thousands of people had managed to keep their mouths shut. Collusion is a thing that happens all of the time, and considering the money involved its bound to happen again.

<comment><USER15> No, it wasn't. In fact, many of us were surprised at the outrage of people around here, since we thought it was common knowledge. Even the European Parliament had issued a report back in 2000 about the widespread communications/internet spying. See ECHELON.

See also Mark Klein's denouncement of their AT&T spying, which prompted a lawsuit by the EFF back in 2006, charging them with having created an "illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance".

There had been plenty of leaks over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good for Apple. It's too bad it needed a really high profile artist to come out against it, but I'm glad they could listen and make the right choice.

Taylor Swift has previously not put her music on other streaming services (despite them paying artists during the trial period); I wonder if she'll consider Apple Music for streaming now that they've changed their terms on this point (and if she does, will she also put her music on other streaming services?).

<comment><USER3> I hope everyone realizes that withholding 1989 was about a windowing strategy to maximize overall revenue from iTunes downloads/CD sales. Now they've essentially called her bluff and she'll have to cut that short when her music is still selling like crazy 8 months later.

<comment><USER17> I don't think she was bluffing as she has already withheld her album from Spotify. If the follow up is correct, she can still withhold it as they are not going to pay full royalties. This is attempted damage control for Apple on a Sunday night and it looks ill handled.

<comment><USER3> The story then changes from "Taylor Swift making sure artists are compensated for their work" to "Taylor Swift wants more money". Apple was never going to pay royalty rates based on people that paid $10 a month for the service on people that were paying nothing, asking that they do would make Taylor Swift look poorly.

<comment><USER17> The story changes to Apple is still going to short change artists to promote its service. Taylor Swift will look fine as she has incredible fan loyalty and communicates with her "customers" in a way Apple cannot.

<comment><USER3> Guess you didn't see the reaction to the Tidal unveiling. All those artists have loyal fans as well.

<comment><USER17> I did and it has nothing to do with this. Tidal has so many problems (e.g. streaming rights to Beyoncé) and relations to other artists that the situations are not similar.

<comment><USER3> The situation is absolutely similar because the outrage was about "rich millionaires asking for more money".

<comment><USER17> No one at Tidal said anything about Indy artists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Apple will always make sure Artists are Paid

You mean, except until yesterday where your plans said otherwise ? :)

<comment> SG- Unless they always intended to pay them from the beginning and Taylor Swift (or her managers) jumped to conclusions.

<comment><USER18> Actually they did not jump to conclusions, the trial wording about not paying artists was VERY clear when Apple wrote it the first time around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am surprised and impressed with how quickly Apple did this about-face. I am also a little surprised that twitter was the medium they choose to announce it.

<comment><USER20> > I am also a little surprised that twitter was the medium they choose to > announce it.

That way they can be brief and don't have to expand on the nuances of the issue. People would rather hear "We were wrong and we've fixed the problem" rather than: "We planned the service to balance human/monetary factors such as x and y, but due to bad PR we've changed the way we're doing z. We thought it was a good idea originally because...".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Pay artists" has a lot of room for interpretation. What does that mean? (I work at Pandora, so I see this as an overly simple response.)

</comment><comment><USER22> This just confirms to me what a big deal Taylor Swift is.

Can anyone remember a time Apple reversed a business decision, or promised to fix some kind of technical issue, this quickly? (Critical security flaws notwithstanding.) Certainly not when Steve 'Hold Different' Jobs was still alive.[1]

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/apple-responds-over- iphon...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/apple-responds-over- iphone-4-reception-issues-youre-holding-th/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Spotify is truly fucked if Apple is going to pay during the free trial AND pay higher overall royalties. When the negotiations come up again with Spotify, who is already running increasing losses, things will just get worse.

<comment><USER24> I've been a spotify premium subscriber for a number of years now, and been happy with it. Apple music seems interesting, and more competition is good, however there isn't much that makes me want to switch just yet.

While Apple has a lot of things going for it, SaaS hasn't ever been their strong suit. Spotify's entire business is streaming music. Apple's streaming music service is a small fraction.

<comment><USER10> I was a Spotify Premium Subscriber, but then canceled when they didn't have Mylo Xyloto. I'm wondering how many top albums missing it will take before Spotify will restrict certain albums to their Paid Tier only.

Regardless, now Spotify is in the crappy situation of Apple having some top albums they don't have, _and_ Apple offering it for free (to subscribers).

You really don't want to get into a $$$ fight with Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well look at that - good on Apple for correcting course and doing the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm really glad to hear that they changed their minds on this one, though it's sad they needed public shaming to do the right thing. Most people don't really appreciate how hard it is to make money with music, nor the insane amount of time and effort that goes into even a single, professional quality song. This isn't a win for the big name, Taylor Swift type artists, but rather the ones she mentioned in her blog post that are just trying to make ends meet, where every penny and possible source of income counts.

</comment><comment> a-dub So if I were to sign up for this thing, and only listen to one indie artist, would all the royalty money collected from me go to that artist (and related rightsholders), or would it be the same crap we already have where good ol' Taylor Swift gets a huge cut no matter what thanks to her "network effect"?

None of the press around Apple Music seems to even attempt to explain how the royalty pie is actually cut up, and to me at least, that's by far the most interesting part. (And why this space is ripe for disruption)

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish he put ", period." at the end of that Tweet.

<comment> SG- I think it could have used an exclamation point myself!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Apple must have calculated that her influence potential is greater than the value of if the free streaming wasn't paying the artists.

I mean, she has almost 60M followers on twitter - ~20% of the US' total population.

Now Apple can recalculate and pay them barely just enough to have their original projections corrected. The free press is great - and they'll probably even gain from it!

</comment><comment><USER29> It's great that they turned this around so quickly. I guess they realised that having people talking about the service for the music instead of the payment model would be better for them...

</comment><comment><USER30> Am I the only one who thinks that the Taylor Swift / Apple thing was just a PR stunt designed to benefit both parties? Free advertising.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's too bad, larger artists pulling their listings during that period could have given less listened-to artists more promotion.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone has numbers on Apple Music royalties? how do they fare against Spotify, Rdio and the like?

<comment><USER3> They're higher at 71.5% in the US and 73% in the rest of the world.

[http://recode.net/2015/06/15/heres-what-happens-to- your-10-a...](http://recode.net/2015/06/15/heres-what-happens-to- your-10-after-you-pay-for-a-month-of-apple-music/)

<comment><USER33> I'm honestly surprised it's that low. I know the difference is supposed to be that Apple Music accounts will all be 'paying'. But if they're only paying out low-single-digit higher rates than Spotify, I don't see how it's supposed to be meaningfully different than Spotify Premium or Tidal, except that people paying for Spotify/Tidal through iDevices are paying $13/month instead of $10, and $3 is still going to Apple.

And that actually makes the previous stiffing of artists an even more raw deal. I had read elsewhere that the rate was rumored to be closer to 90%, and at that rate it would take about a 10 months of someone subscribing to Apple Music to pay out higher than Spotify Premium, which pays out at roughly 70% (considering 3 unpaid months).

If you make the same comparison with Apple Music at 73% and 3 months free/unpaid trial, Spotify at 70% and 1 month, it would take more than 4 years before Apple paid out more. If you think you'll subscribe to either for more than 4 years and you care about the artists, it might be worth it. But it's going to take a long time.

If that payout number is correct, a conscientious consumer might as well subscribe to Tidal (who pays out at a similar 70% rate), because they'd at least get access to higher-quality tracks and the artists aren't getting payed significantly more or less.

<comment><USER10> The Major Difference is Apple will not be offering an ongoing free tier to compete against their paid tier. That's got to be attractive to people like Taylor.

<comment><USER34> The free tier is supported by advertising..Does this not work well for the artists?

<comment><USER10> The artists hate it - and the return is almost nothing. For example - look at Youtube - you can stream _anything_ you want, including all of Taylor Swifts catalog - zero to no advertising.

I was at a party this weekend with a bunch of 20 somethings here in Singapore - and that's all they used - Nobody even mentioned Spotify - they just logged onto the wireless and added their songs to the queue - it was slick and 100% free (to the user) - and seriously, I don't recall a single ad in 3+ hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cleverly played by Apple and Swift to force Spotify into the bad guy spot.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free" \- What a capitalist.

<comment><USER37> Is everyone's art equally valuable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's what negotiating from the position of strength means.

</comment><comment><USER39> One might say that their previous position was tone deaf

</comment><comment><USER8> I really, really lament Apple caving in on this. The deal they had before was perfectly reasonable - everyone's interests were aligned and both sides brought something to the table. Apple wasn't paying royalties during the trial because it makes perfect sense to have a model that says, "you make money when we make money." Besides, we all know that streaming revenues for everyone except the top .1% of artists are largely irrelevant, especially during a mere three month window.

It's obvious that Taylor Swift was motivated by one thing and one thing only: maximizing her own revenue. That's it...and that's fine. But I cannot stand her disingenuous "won't someone think of the children?!" nonsense. It's like LeBron James publicly pleading for the NBA to share more of its revenue so that the younger players can be better off in retirement, while leaving out the fact that he'll personally take 90% of any incremental revenue. Taylor Swift seemed so concerned about other people, but I sure don't see her offering a pay cut or anything. Instead she successfully guilted Apple into paying because they've got a ton of money. Pathetic.

<comment><USER40> I'm trying to understand why you think it's bad that Taylor Swift tries to maximize her own revenue, but it's fine that Apple does the same, using her likeness and music to do so.

<comment><USER41> This is the question all of the detractors need to ask themselves.

Honestly, when I first heard of the story (word of mouth) I immediately thought she was not understanding how it really worked. I had flashbacks to Metallica resisting streaming because they just didn't understand it. I thought there was no way Apple _actually_ wouldn't pay artists during those three months, so I dismissed it.

Then I realized she was right.

I wouldn't say I'm a Taylor Swift fan (at best, some of her music is fun to listen to with my teenaged niece) but the amount of ire some people have for a pretty person is just astounding. Yes, she's pretty. Yes, she sings about things that tend to be targeted at teens, especially girls. But those points don't change anything.

The letter accurately said, "These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child." I have no idea how many people are behind her persona (I would guess it takes the equivalent of a small town) but I bet some of them had a stake in helping craft the letter. This was a business-to-business correspondence, even if it was written 'as a girl'.

At the worst, she's a logo for a company. At the best, she's actually got a pretty solid sense of business. Either way, she has a right to use her persona to make money.

<comment><USER8> "All detractors"? Evidently I'm the only one :)

<comment><USER41> Heh, I was sort of wrapping all of the negative comments I've seen (HN and otherwise) into a singular reply.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>