Netflix is getting huge, but can it get great? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/arts/television/netflix-ryan-murphy.html <comment><USER2> I need a cheap streaming service which has a huge catalog of movies and shows from other producers and distributors that doesn't keep vanishing regularly. Netflix seems to be less and less of this as time passes, and is relying way too much on original content (which is mostly great) to attract new subscribers and retain them. I don't think this party can last very long. With every content producer or distributor starting or wanting to start their own streaming service, the customer experience becomes very painful from two counts — high price and not knowing where to find a specific piece of content.

As much as I hate huge companies and consolidation of companies, this is one area where some consolidation could make it better for customers. I'm not sure if this is the right hope to have though.

<comment><USER3> Hell, I don't even need a cheap service.

Take my money! I just want to be able to watch stuff.

"Let's watch X"

"Darn it. It's not on Netflix"

"Not on Hulu"

"Not on Google Video either"

"Try VidAngel"

"No, they got shut down by Disney"

"Oh, doesn't Disney have a service?"

"Not yet."

"Oh look it's on Amazon video!"

"Oh, but we have Vizio Smartcast. Can't get it from the phone to the TV because Vizio uses Google and Amazon has some sort of blood feud."

"F--- it, not worth the hassle. We're pirating this."

<comment><USER2> Right. When I said "cheap", I was actually referring to something reasonably priced, compared to subscribing to several services individually. Unfortunately, the industry seems bent on proving time and again that pirating content is still the easiest, most user friendly (and not user hostile), most device friendly (supporting almost all devices) way to get to content.

<comment><USER4> Music industry size is 47.5 billion a year and streaming services cost 10$ a month [0]. The movie and TV industry size is 287 billion a year [1]. Paying the same subscription price proportional to the industry size would be 60$ a month. Netflix + hulu plus + amazon prime come in under 30$ a month which leaves you with 30$ to rent the movies/shows that are not covered in those plans.

It sounds like you just don't like how much it costs to support high quality television/movies. Granted, one 60$ a month service that offered everything would be more convenient.

[0]: [https://www.statista.com/topics/1639/music/](https://www.statista.com/topics/1639/music/)

[1]: [https://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/](https://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/)

<comment><USER5> Except if your taste is not right smack in the mainstream, those services have a terrible selection _even combined_.

I went to JustWatch and even pretended to be an American, just to make it easier on them.

First option, _The Exterminating Angel_. It's a classic, part of the list of 1000 best films by the NYT, and less than 60 years old. Nope, not even one service has it.

Second choice, _Lore_ ; still foreign, but it's a film from 2012, made already in the streaming era! Apparently I got to subscribe to "Fandor", so the price is now $40/month.

Third, let's give them an easy win: _Missing_ , made in the US and owned by Universal! Yet another service, so called "Starz", for $9/month more.

Fourth, an American classic, they _have_ to have _Raging Bull_... and no. Now it's something called "MaxGo", which from what I can tell costs another $10/m.

These were literally 4 of the 5 first movies I searched for, and we're already at your $60/month, and still missing one! It's not reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is all over the place.

NBC and HBO are both networks. And so is Netflix. And Showtime, and AMC.

The main difference is that Netflix broadcasts all over the world using the Internet, while NBC and HBO have limited reach outside of the US using cable and/or OTA signals (and over the Internet too!).

House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Big Bang Theory, Gray's Anatomy. These are all just original shows of their respective networks.

In Hollywood an Original Show just means that it was shown exclusively in one place first.

<comment><USER7> In the US 'television network' and 'network television' have specific meanings and HBO and Netflix are neither networks nor 'network tv'.

<comment><USER6> It's a conflated term. There is the one you're working with, which is specifically about the technological method of distribution, and then there is the other meaning, which is used for content creation and licensing (and awards).

It is the second meaning which the author seems to imply and that I'm using here.

For example, the Emmy's (and the Hollywood Reporter, for example) consider NBC, ABC, HBO, Netflix, and Amazon to all be networks on equal footing.

<comment><USER7> It's not just about the technological method of distribution, it's about the structure of the entity, how it's regulated, etc. It's a pretty standard term and while it can have other meanings and the meaning can shift (as the strict original meaning becomes more, uh, meaningless), it seems weird to complain about that usage being somehow 'all over the place'. It means something most newspaper readers understand.

<comment><USER8> Who reads newspapers these days?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought this article was just some highbrow whining.

I'm personally rooting for Netflix. I'm really enjoying the content. I thought Bright was a pretty entertaining throw-away action flick. And I love Stranger Things as well as Ozarks. Hell, I even watched the first ep of Queer Eye the other night... I love being able to watch at my convenience, and not be bombarded with ads. I also love that they're not subjected to the same restrictions as the big US networks in terms of their content, just like HBO isn't.

I'm excited that they're investing so much in their content pipeline.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought this was an interesting read regarding a number of different points/ideas.

Netflix is like the upside down of TV is an interesting idea.

Netflix takes things people already like and doubles down on them, and that's the whole business model.

So, then, the main question the author ends up with: "Can Netflix ever do anything truly original in the way HBO does?"

TLDR: It's hard to be groundbreaking when your whole purpose is to take people where they've already been.

<comment><USER10> yeah I guess a Korean movie about a girl and her genetically engineered super pig is retrodding well worn ground.

<comment><USER11> Did Netflix produce Okja? I think they just bought the rights.

<comment><USER12> Netflix isn't listed as a production company for Okja.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3967856/companycredits?ref_=ttfc...](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3967856/companycredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_4)

They are for Bright.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5519340/companycredits?ref_=ttfc...](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5519340/companycredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If it wants to beat cable all it has to do is not be awful.

<comment><USER14> One of the biggest parts that makes cable awful are the ads, so they don't even have to avoid being mildly awful.

<comment><USER15> Watching crappy shows that doesn't have ads doesn't sound appealing to me. Not that that is what Netflix, but is sounds like your argument is.

<comment><USER16> Do you think this is a common opinion? Consider that popular network TV is popular, and that successful means appealing to the widest audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To be honest, a lot of the content that they are delivering right now, is not very good quality.

Recently, 20 new series were delivered, and I think that only 1 or 2 are good. The rest, are not even worthy of your time.

And the ratings that they use are atrocious. For example, a series is given a 4.5 star rating, but when you watch it, you ask yourself, who rated this?

<comment><USER18> Netflix series that come to mind as "I enjoyed and believe a reasonable number of people would describe as 'good'":

* House of Cards * Orange is the New Black * Narcos * Stranger Things * A Series of Unfortunate Events * Mindhunter * Altered Carbon * Daredevil * Jessica Jones * Luke Cage * The Defenders * Master of None * GLOW * Wet Hot American Summer * Bojack Horseman * Castlevania * Chef's Table * Abstract * Voltron: Legendary Defender * Trollhunters

Maybe I misunderstood your thesis, but the 1-2 remark seems ungenerous...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if network pressure has something to do with the shift as well. A huge part of Netflix streaming is people watching series/old content in the background. I have definitely been guilty of putting the office or always sunny on in the background and letting it ride while I do casual work.

From a networking perspective that is a terrible scenario vs. users actively engaging with a single new episode of some netflix series.

<comment><USER16> I'm curious how you know that, is there a study/dataset somewhere that I missed? That would be awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If Netflix becomes only independent content, then won't they just be HBO? And if so, will they still command their current market valuation?

</comment><comment><USER21> The post seems to make its point by dismissing just about everything. Bright is "just another Will Smith movie" and Stranger Things is "pistache by design." Game of Thrones is probably just another fantasy-book-to-TV translation and The Wire is probably yet another crime drama.

Through that lens, is anything going to impress you?

<comment><USER22> I agree with your main point, but Bright was just the kind of expensive awful I'd hope Netflix would avoid.

<comment><USER23> Why should they avoid? I sort of liked it. And also about 86% of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers out of about 17,620 did. Not every movie has to be liked by the elite movie reviewers or editors in media news media. Some of the movies just works for folks. I'd say keep them coming. I'm only paying a fixed price and I can always choose what I want.

<comment><USER24> I felt like I was getting beaten over the head with the metaphors.

<comment><USER25> If I dismissed every movie or show with left-progressive propaganda I would have nothing to watch.

<comment><USER22> You'd still have COPS and Blue Bloods...

<comment><USER25> Which are not at all like Bright.

<comment><USER22> _If I dismissed every movie or show with left-progressive propaganda I would have nothing to watch._

Had no relation to Bright either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While Netflix content can be discussed, their client is flat out bad. Try to watch something on a not so great network is painful. Image quality sucks, impossible to skip/replay few seconds without minutes of buffering. Turning on closed caption? Yeah, that's no video for 3 minutes. In another hand, same network and same device, Amazon Prime Video client is great, gets the best image quality out of my network, allows me for a 10 seconds replay without issue, I can switch captions on and off quickly. Also X-ray is a great feature.

</comment><comment> blubb-fish Netflix produces superb and important documentaries - it is great already!

</comment><comment><USER27> Netflix has already peaked.

For some reason people think of them as the new hot thing, but the reality is they have been around for longer than Google. With competition in the streaming video market only getting hotter, I can't see them going anywhere but down. Any one of Amazon Video, Hulu, Disney, or HBO could unseat them.

The growth expectations implicit in their 200+ P/E ratio seem way out of sync with their actual potential. If I owned Netflix stock I'd be selling it all now.

<comment><USER28> Are you intentionally ignoring the critically acclaimed pipeline of shows/movies Netflix has produced, or are you just ignorant to their actual success.

They aren't _just_ a platform for content producers. They are producers of content. Competitors need to outprice them, our perform them, and outproduce them.

<comment><USER29> The problem is that companies like Disney have already out-produced them. Disney has _decades_ of quality material ready to go

<comment><USER22> For very narrow values of quality, sure. I also hope to hell that the fragmentation or content distribution doesn't continue unabated. Someone else posted the phrase earlier today, "Death by a thousand cuts," and they're right.

Hulu. Netflix. Amazon. CBS. Disney. FX. YouTube Red. Crunchyroll. And on and on.

It's only vaguely workable when compared to the totslly unworkable price of American cable tv.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon takes away access to purchased Christmas movie during Christmas - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2013/12/15/amazon-takes-away-access-to-pu.html <comment><USER2> That's why I personally feel that companies shouldn't be allowed to use the word "buy" for this kind of thing. It should say "license media" or something like that. I also feel there should be some kind of legal requirement for companies to provide continued access for at least 10 to 15 years (or barring that, require the company to provide a way the unlock the item permanently).

I hate DRM. My personal rule of thumb is: if you can't resell it, then you didn't really ever own it.

<comment><USER3> This is why I've bought almost all my music digitally for the past six years, yet have never "bought" a movie that wasn't on a disc or a book that wasn't made of dead trees.

For some reason, content providers became amenable last decade to letting people buy digital music without a leash attached to it, but still have yet to come to the same enlightenment on other media. I don't understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is only one fix - storage is cheap, so everything I've should get ripped to a DRM free format stored locally (and backed up), where nothing can ever 'take it back'. If it's not a rental, then nothing should prevent my access to that content. Definitely not the wishes of the content provider - their rights to control that copy ended at the first sale. Want to shut down some online service? Want to go bankrupt and cease operations? Not valid reasons for me to lose my content.

I've got music on vinyl from my grandfather. Even if copyright goes/stays de facto eternal, I see no reason why I shouldn't pass on all to my grandchildren all the music, books and movies that I ever bought, even if I got them as nonphysical files.

<comment><USER5> Except with technologies like Cinavia watermarking now intruding, DRM free rips may not actually be DRM free. That may keep your grandchildren from viewing some of your content.

<comment><USER4> Watermarking is not DRM - any playing software that 'respects' watermarking (or, say, region locking) and lets it interfere with content playback is simply defective.

That's why it's cruicial to have proper libre software tools for media decoding. If someone wants to implement defective-by-design features that don't do what the user wishes, then we must have the ability to destroy such features on our computing devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A year or two ago I got a Vudu capable device and poked around in their video rental and "purchasing" options. Same thing. In the fine print they retain the right to suspend access to any "purchased" content for, essentially, any reason or any length of time.

Unlike some others, I do blame Amazon for this. Amazon knows what the average person thinks the word "buy" (instead of rent) means, and then acts distinctly counter to that understanding. It's a bad-faith action.

<comment><USER7> You are buying a (revocable) licence to the media.

I think it's ridiculous but the 'rent' vs 'buy' discussion is pure semantics.

<comment><USER8> I don't understand why you are dismissing it as "pure semantics." Semantics is the fundamental meaning of words. If you advertise "buy", but the license is is more akin to "rent", then that's lying. If you lie to someone, they won't be very amused if you say "well, 'truth' and 'falsehood' is just pure semantics."

You wouldn't say that you are "buying a revokable license to live in an apartment" when you sign a lease. You would say that you are renting. Why does it suddenly become buying if it's a digital good?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not that surprising to me personally, but a shitty situation.

The only reason it isn't surprising is that I briefly worked for a company that was creating a digital media service (Technicolor's MGO service, after they acquired the remaining chumby employees), and I remember hearing about how this sort of situation could occur as part of the technical planning and I was just flabbergasted that EULA/TOS or not these media companies would 'sell' a digital movie to a consumer and then ex-post-facto limit their ability to watch it based on various contracts. This example seems especially egregious considering the seasonal aspect of the movie.

While Amazon is certainly complicit here, I think the article is a bit too hard on them as basically the current system is you play by these rules (set by collusion of the media companies) or you get no access to content.

</comment><comment><USER10> Disney, as usual, is the idiotic one in this case. Amazon admitted fault and gave a large credit. The OP should just torrent the movie if it really was interfering with his plans (although ignoring Disney is a better choice). While my kids (5 & 7) are content to use Netflix and Amazon most of the time[1], they know a full download is only a quick search away. To them there's no real difference except a slight inconvenience.

Explaining why Netflix only shows certain shows depending on proxy status (quick colored icons in Chrome), and why sometimes they'll force a show in Spanish or Portuguese and not English, and why other times they force subtitles -- it comes off as insane.

1: My main gripe with Netflix is the lack of parental controls. I'd love to be able to stupid kids show. I'd prefer them watching 16+ rated movies with good plot than some of the junk that's churned out for "kids". That and the fact that rendering quality/control is sub-par.

</comment><comment><USER11> Doctorow makes a big deal about contracts and so forth, so as to blame Amazon. But that's like blaming Oscar Meyer for the fact that bologna isn't made out of free-range heritage-breed pork: eventually the consumer will learn what's actually in the package. Of course contracts between companies play a role, but from the consumer perspective _this_ is what you "own" when you purchase DRM'ed media. All DRM'ed media will be taken, eventually. Don't buy it unless you're comfortable with that fact.

<comment><USER12> The exact verbiage on Amazon's website is "Buy movie in HD 1-Click® $$$.$$". Its easy to lecture to the hackernews crowd on the evils of DRM, but do you really think the average consumer understands what they are getting into? Even on the "learn more" pages there is no indication that your content can be stripped from you if a license expires. Using your analogy, I just brought home a pack of bologna and wanted to make a sandwich, but my box was empty on Saturday because the pork farmers said their product can only be consumed on weekdays. If that happens I am 100% going to blame Oscar Meyer AND the pork farmers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this really for a "purchase"? Seems to me it's pretty fundamentally fraudulent to offer for purchase something without the authority to sell it.

This means that, at any time, any movie you "purchased" can be removed from your library indefinitely, without credit.

This completely changes how I feel about buying movies at Amazon, and makes me feel justified in switching to torrent. Until now I haven't had a problem paying for content, however if the rights of a purchase have been eroded this much, my mind is changed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Software As Service slowly eroding its credibility as something reliable and being there for you whatever happens. As it happend with twitter and developers who had access to Twitter API, just like with Gmail disabling access to facebook's 'find your friends feature'.

It seems that SAS companies treat their end user as a cannon fodder and enlist them as bystanders who have consigned to suffer through everyone of their whims. What is eroding is trust people in SAS, which can be bad in variety of ways.

But then when you have your data on someone else's server it is not yours to have anymore, nevermind legal rights - which are very expensive and difficult to defend.

my 2c

<comment><USER15> To be fair, using consumers as fodder happens in other situations that aren't SaS. Consider the content fights of DirecTV. The problem comes down to how intellectual property has become defined as a license instead of outright ownership. Digital rights have been significantly eroded over the past decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They'll need to fix this, the content industry.

The deals about the contracts are one thing but the reason they are removed creates demand by exclusives. What kind of demand are you creating for someone that already owns it? Other than a demand for their money back?

Amazon needs to work out a deal with the content industry on this, so owning a movie doesn't apply to streaming false demand creation. Purchasers get to keep streaming when streaming rights aren't owned for a time.

<comment><USER17> Why do "they" need to fix it? They seem to be doing quite well (sellers of digitally restricted media) and there's been no mainstream outcry.

I try to buy DRM-free where possible, but most of my friends don't care or don't know any better.

<comment><USER18> Because their current practice can only be described as fraud.

Despite what the fine print says (which I'm sure explains they're allowed to do this), most people are under the impression that they are _buying_ a product, much like you would in the store.

To someone who believes they have bought/purchased something, it's like discovering that one day Amazon or Disney snuck into your home to steal your DVDs so they can re-sell them to you again next christmas. But then you read the fine print in the contract and realise that clause 14.2 (a) stated that they're allowed to do this.

The fix is for them to state "you will have access to this video for a period of 12 months" or similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nobody rents a house and then go around using the word "own" and "buy" when describing their access to the house.

There is a difference btw "buying" and "renting" and most people know the difference.Renting is usually accompanied with reoccurring payments while buying usually entails a one time payment and i think the fundamental disconnect is here.

These kinds of confusion will go away when people start using proper terms to describe possession of entities they exchange money for,that PS4 you got by exchanging money for,you dont "own" it,you "rented" it from sony and as a renter,you are to use it only as they allow you to.

The fact that you rented it with a one time upfront payment does not mean you bought/purchased it.These tech journalists will do people a favor if they start explaining this distinction to people.

ps: not hating on sony or PS4,just used them as an example,it could be anything especially if its in digital form.

<comment><USER20> Not really relevant to the main discussion, but directly counter to your comment "Nobody rents a house and then go around using the word "own" and "buy" when describing their access to the house.":

In the UK, we have a situation which appears strange to most people when they first come across it: the vast majority of flats (apartments) are 'sold' on a leasehold basis. An individual or company may own the freehold (the building and the ground below), whilst the 'owners' of the individual flats have 99-year or 150-year leases.

The freeholder collects annual ground rent (maybe 200-300 GBP per year per flat) and is reimbursed for costs of managing the building (e.g. for building insurance, repainting common areas etc.).

I may 'own a flat' but in reality my right to occupy it has an expiry date. (I realise you referred to 'house' rather than 'flat'.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've worked in online video. This isn't Amazon's fault, this is standard contractual language all the studios put in.

All content is windowed and when something goes out of window, the video service cannot distribute it, even to customers who previously purchased it. The way around this is to notify the customers when content is going out of window and encourage them to download the content ahead of time. The video service can still serve licenses to unlock the DRM for the content, but cannot distribute the content itself. So if the customer has a digital backup of the file, they can still watch it even if it's DRM'd.

It sucks. It really, really sucks. It's a hold-over of language written when everyone thought digital video meant files not streams and there's not much any online video service can do. Maybe Apple, Amazon or Walmart are big enough to reverse this trend, but any other smaller service will have trouble.

<comment><USER22> As long as Amazon willingly allows the "buyer" to believe a falsehood, then yes, they share in the blame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here are two relevant passages from their EULA/TOS. The TL;DR: download your content to avoid getting fucked.

e. Availability of Purchased Digital Content . Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may become unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions and for other reasons, and Amazon will not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming. You may download and store your own copy of Purchased Digital Content on a Compatible Device authorized for such download so that you can view that Purchased Digital Content if it becomes unavailable for further download or streaming from the Service.

f. Downloading and Risk of Loss. If you plan to download Digital Content that you purchase or rent, we encourage you to do so promptly after your purchase or rental. If you are unable to complete a download after having reviewed our online help resources, please contact Amazon customer service. Once you purchase or rent Digital Content and we make the Digital Content available to you, you are responsible for completing the download, if you choose to download, and for all risk of loss of the Digital Content after download.

source: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200026970)

</comment><comment><USER24> Cory Doctorow always is posting about Disney. It is usually slavishly, fawningly positive and inconsistent with his public politics. But still no lesson seems to be learned here.

<comment><USER25> As Anita Sarkeesian observes, it is possible to enjoy something while also being critical of it's problematic aspects.

<comment><USER26> More to the point, who wants to explain to their kids that they aren't allowed to watch Disney movies because of their dad's "public politics" (as right as those politics may be)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Actually Disney removed access, Amazon is just the bearer of the unfortunate news.

<comment><USER28> Amazon allowed Disney to remove access. You'll never see a company telling Amazon to recall physical goods it mailed out to people (without compensation no less).

<comment><USER29> Thats because Apple and other physical goods companies don't have a rider in their contracts with Amazon stating they can somehow force Amazon's customers to return their physical purchases. The contract they have with Disney allows Disney to do just that if they please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder what's fundamentally different about music and movies that led to DRM-free albums but didn't lead there for online movie distribution. I still have a couple dozen songs on a backup drive somewhere that I outright purchased in the early 2000s that can no longer be played as the "Buy.com Music" servers no longer exist to authenticate their PlaysForSure DRM.

<comment><USER30> It could be that there was so many different ways to listen to music: PC, iPod, non-iPod MP3 player, car stereo, burnt to CD. The DRM on music felt crippling.

There is not as many ways that people watch movies, though.

Still, if this type of revocation becomes a lot more common (the movie studios wouldn't do this for just one movie ever) then the same might eventually happen with movies. Once people feel crippled enough by the DRM, there will be push-back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If the author experienced this personally. he should probably have paid more attention to what Corey Doctorow has been saying in recent years.

<comment><USER32> You did notice the byline, right? I think this guy takes Doctorows work pretty seriously.

<comment><USER31> Sorry, but only a craphound would expect a complaint made on "Boing Boing" to be taken seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> You would think they'd have learned after that 1984 fiasco a couple of years ago - taking content away does not a happy customer make.

<comment><USER10> Eh, they get to solidly blame Disney, and they issued a "generous credit". Violating Disney's copyright on a commercial scale could possibly result in criminal actions. I doubt anyone at Amazon wants to risk a felony to keep some customers happy.

<comment><USER34> But - Amazon shouldn't be offering to let you "buy" it if those are Disney's terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A couple weekends ago we tried to watch a movie on the Microsoft Zune service (hey, we have an Xbox). It didn't work. After half an hour of futzing around we watched a DVD instead.

I won't buy an e-book unless I know I can somehow get the content DRM-free. If Amazon ever makes it seriously hard to de-DRM its books, they've lost a customer (and I buy a _lot_ of books).

<comment><USER36> The Zune video service has be retired, Xbox video has replaced it.

<comment><USER35> I think that's what I meant. Still didn't work :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> In the modern fascist plutocracy, the only effect you will ever have on the behaviour of corporations is through where you spend your money. The beast can only be starved, not tamed.

</comment><comment><USER38> Didn't Amazon recently (in the past year or so) remove the ability to download a copy of the video you _bought_ to any device, not only to Kindles?

<comment><USER28> They didn't remove it, but they made it darned hard to find. You have to install the Amazon Unbox app, which is truly terrible and outdated, update some licensing components in Windows Media Player through Internet Explorer, then it'll download a DRM-locked WMV of a movie you "purchased". You can do this a limited number of times per purchase.

<comment><USER39> I purchase media often now with the advent of Steam - but people wonder why other people pirate? It's these bullshit lock in mechanisms. Why bother paying when you can just click a button and have it in HD on your hard drive to play whenever and wherever you like?

Note that I don't condone piracy, but I understand where these guys are coming from. I used to pirate when I was 14, but now I just buy things on Steam because it's soooooo much easier to just tap the Buy button and have it just work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Well. I think it's time I stop checking legit outlets before going to piracy.

So much hassle. So much bullshit.</comment>


Postgres 9.5 feature rundown - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2015/12/27/postgres-9-5-feature-rundown/ <comment><USER2> Full list of "What's new in PostgreSQL 9.5" \- [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_...](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.5)

A lot of goodies around JSONB additions. In 9.4, there wasn't much support for updates to JSONB values, but now there will be some support for document-esque operations:

\- jsonb || jsonb (concatenate / overwrite) : combine 2 jsonb objects and if there's overlap, values are replaced at the highest level

\- jsonb - text / int (remove key / array element) : remove key or an array element

\- jsonb #- text[] / int (remove key / array element in path) : remove key/array at path \- jsonb_set function : update value at path

<comment><USER3> I have some concerns that overwriting keys at the highest level is always the correct behavior for "concatenating" JSONb documents. If you want to merge two keys, rather than overwrite one, you'll need to handle that at the application level.

<comment><USER4> Performing operations in the app is always an option, but it's often faster/simpler to do it in the DB, if it supports what you need. This feature is just one of these potential nice-to-haves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll just add my voice to the chorus praising PostgreSQL. It's handled everything I've ever asked it to, and cheerfully.

I'm a bit sad that at my current job our problem set is much better suited for a distributed key-value store; I miss postgres, but it really is the wrong tool for this particular problem.

</comment><comment><USER6> What kind of job market exists for people whose deepest area of knowledge is Postgres?

Edit: I'm thinking of more DBA type work and assisting with/contributing to drivers/wrappers.

<comment><USER3> I've primarily been a Postgres DBA for the last decade or so, and have never had trouble finding work. As Postgres grows in popularity, people who know what they're doing with it are in increasing demand.

EDIT: I'm currently looking.

<comment><USER7> Start marketing yourself as "data engineering" and your prospects will widen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say that jsonb_set is far too interesting to not get mentioned here.

</comment><comment><USER9> Since this is RC1 and stable version will be released pretty soon, when do you think Amazon RDS will support 9.5 (currently it supports 9.4.1)? Amazon didn't publish anything about that as far as I know, so this is more of a question about historical trends.

<comment><USER10> Rds will likely never support a .0 release, as .1 tends to be a quick bug release, and will probably try to get new versions out faster than it took 9.4.

<comment><USER9> So what kind of timeframe would you expect (after 9.5.0)? 3-6 months?

<comment><USER10> 9.4.1 took 3 months after 9.4, assuming postgres releases the same, id guess on the lower range of 3-6 months

<comment><USER11> It's usually quicker - 9.4.1 was the "latest" .1 release for a long while. Roughly a month is quite common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it out?

"There's a few updates to JSONB. The one I'm most excited about is making JSONB output in psql read much more legibly."

This is good, but there's a link to other much more useful JSONB functions: [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9....](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.5#JSONB- modifying_operators_and_functions)

<comment><USER13> Almost. RC1 is out. The blog post said 9.5 will be out next year (January?) [http://www.postgresql.org/](http://www.postgresql.org/)

<comment><USER14> Barring release blockers discovered in RC1, yes, early January.

[http://www.postgresql.org/message- email@example.com...](http://www.postgresql.org/message- firstname.lastname@example.com)</comment></comment></comment>


The New York Times Paywall Is Working Better Than Anyone Had Guessed - <AUTHOR> http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-12-20-the-new-york-times-paywall-is-working-better-than-anyone-had-guessed/ <comment><USER3> Regarding what any of this means for other content paywalls, note this section from Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present (<http://towcenter.org/research/post-industrial-journalism/>):

 _"Finally, a note about why we will not be concentrating very much on the fate of the New York Times. A remarkable amount of what has been written about the fortunes of American journalism over the past decade has centered on the question of what will happen to the Times. We believe this focus has been distracting._

 _"In the last generation, the Times has gone from being a great daily paper, in competition with several other such papers, to being a cultural institution of unique and global importance, even as those papers—the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, among others—have shrunk their coverage and their ambitions. This puts the Times in a category of one. Any sentence that begins "Let's take the New York Times as an example ..." is thus liable to explain or describe little about the rest of the landscape._

 _"The Times newsroom is a source of much interesting experimentation—data visualizations, novel partnerships, integration of blogs—and we have talked to many of our friends and colleagues there in an effort to learn from their experiences and make recommendations for other news organizations. However, because the Times is in a category of one, the choices its management can make, and the outcomes of those choices, are not illustrative or predictive for most other news organizations, large or small, old or new. We will therefore spend comparatively little time discussing its fate. While the Times serves as an inspiration for news organizations everywhere, it is less useful as a model or bellwether for other institutions."_

<comment><USER4> I think that's a really valid point and fair observation but perhaps too simplified. Put another way, had the Times _failed_ at creating a successful paywall then all others could be assumed to be doomed to failure. Now that the Times has proven it's successful, can others borrow some or all of their approach? The answer is partially in your quote above I suspect. Just whacking up a paywall is likely not the answer. However, using your deep resources (relative to other sites and bloggers) to create a superior experience can create a sustainable business. Just as the Internet threatened their traditional business it also dramatically increased their reach in other ways.

<comment><USER5> I think people are doing it a disservice by calling it a paywall. There is no wall. Bypassing it is trivial. What it is is an effective donation drive the likes of Wikipedia: You go to the site, you get the content for free, and you get a notice that says "hey, somebody has got to pay for this stuff you're reading, how 'bout you pay your share?"

An _actual_ paywall would be a lot less likely to work, because when people get to a paywall, they can't see what they're supposed to be buying, so they just go away and never come back. By contrast, this "works" because it gives people what they want unconditionally and then having accepted it without paying, guilts them into making a donation. Nonprofits have been running on this model forever.

But the real question is whether it's actually "working" -- the conversion rate to paid subscribers is evidently around 2%. That's pretty bad. And then they call it a success because it makes up 50% of their revenue instead of 20% as was traditionally true, but is that because subscriptions are up or because print advertising has been falling for so long? They only quote the most recent rate of change rather than the long-term numbers, and there may be one of these going on: [<http://xkcd.com/605/>]. When you first open a new revenue model, you can pretty well expect the first couple of years to have a higher growth rate than the ensuing years. Once everyone is subscribed who wants to subscribe, you have a hard time achieving any more subscription growth. And if subscriptions stop growing faster than advertising is falling, they're right back into the death spiral of cutting costs to save money which reduces readership which loses revenue which induces cost cutting.

<comment><USER6> The porous New York Times paywall works because it effectively segments the market. [1]

The first segment consists of customers with a higher willingness to pay that aren't aware of the paywall workarounds or enjoy accessing the Times without futzing around. Who are these readers? Readers with high disposable income, older readers, and heavy readers.

The second segment consists of customers with a lower willingness to pay, who have identified the workarounds, and are willing to deal with the additional steps involved in bypassing the paywall. Who are these readers? Readers with lower disposable income, younger readers, and light readers.

The result of this segmentation is that the New York Times has been able to attract a significant number of online paying subscribers (segment 1), without decimating its overall readership figures (segment 1 + 2). By maintaining its overall readership figures, the New York Times has been able to preserve its online advertising revenue.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>

[1] Since the product is nearly the same for both segments, aside from the steps involved in bypassing the paywall, you might consider this as an example of price discrimination.

<comment><USER7> I never identified any workaround. In fact, I never even identified this paywall. I just have my browser set to throw away cookies on exit, except for a small whitelist of sites I want to stay logged in to (Opera can keep per- site preferences, but even before I found out about that feature, I preferred not to keep my cookies around forever). Assuming that's the "workaround", it appears that I have never read more than 10 NY Times articles per browser session, since they started doing this.

I also keep a rather extensive blocklist of URL-patterns I don't need my browser to load, ever. It took quite a while before I noticed (on a friend's computer, about 1.5y ago) that YouTube makes you watch ads before a video. I actually have no idea how that particular URL-pattern got into the blocklist, since I honestly hadn't seen those ads before. I _suppose_ I was messing around with the webdev tool one day, noticed some resources that seemed unnecessary, I disabled them, videos continued to work fine, and forgot about it.

I realize this places me securely in the second segment, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was a recent NY Times story I took a look at. I didn't read it, only scrolled through it, but I was impressed at how immersive the experience was. It had full screen animated backgrounds that scrolled in, with beautiful white titles overlaying. It reminded me vaguely of a graphic novel, I wish I could find it again. It was something about mountains and snow, possibly some kind of rescue story.

<comment><USER9> This is the one you want: [http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow- fall/#/?part=tunne...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow- fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek)

<comment><USER10> That is an extremely shiny article, but I dare say it actually pulls it off quite well. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The paywall is extremely simple to bypass using Google as the referrer (just Google _site:article URL_ and click over from it). They do the Google thing to avoid a potential cloaking penalty which would get them de-indexed altogether.

So the interesting part of all of this is that people choose not to bypass it and pay. The reminder that they need to pay alone seems to be working.

<comment><USER12> Wall Street Journal does the same. My guess is that it's intentional - <USER2> don't want to necessarily block you from reason their content, just convince those who can to pay.

<comment><USER13> It's intentional, but not because of that. In order to be indexed, they have to show the content to google. It is against googles TOS to show them content and not display it to visitors referred by their index.

<comment><USER14> This is incorrect, there is special allowance for paywalled media to serve the content to googlebot but not necessarily all Google referrals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article, and many other similar to it, completely miss the point. (Or perhaps, beg the question we are all waiting for an answer to).

I don't know if anyone ever debated the notion that paywalls will produce revenue, and it's great that the NYT earns more from its paywall than many industry analysts expected.

But the fact is, even at the revenue levels that it may produce in upcoming years, it still costs more to produce that content than people are willing to pay for it. This is the big hold-up with journalism. Even if people will spend a billion dollars a year purchasing your newspaper, if it costs you two billion dollars to produce it you're screwed.

<comment><USER16> Not to take the focus off of your point, but the phrase "beg the question" caught my eye due to reading about it recently. I recommend the section below. Cheers

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question#Modern_usage)

<comment><USER17> The thing is that "begs the question" has such nice ring to it even when used incorrectly.

I'd say most people mean "the question remains..", "...fails to answer the initial question" or "...leaves the question X unanswered" when they say "...begs the question". Unfortunately, none of these more correct phrase have the same flourish. What to do...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The fun part is that the paywall is extremely porous. There has never been a case that I could not access a nytimes content because of the paywall. Sadly their pricing is above what I would consider good value for money so I am not a converted subscriber yet.

I am glad that this is working model/experiment. To not alienate much of the eyeballs while putting effort to make the paying subscribers experience better.

<comment><USER19> So, I subscribed for a couple years, but cancelled six months ago when I left the country for a sojourn in Europe. I am returning to the States next week and I fully intend to re-subscribe to the Times.

I'm curious what price you would be willing to pay for access to all of the Times content.

Personally, I find that 15 USD a month is a fair price for an abundance of news that seems high quality (perhaps I've been duped?). There's all the multimedia, the arts section, the magazine, and, of course the news (both world and US).

Do you not enjoy as many sections as I do? Or do you share my interests but find 15 USD too steep a price for the content?

I also wonder, does means affect your choice? I recognize that the value of money is sometimes inversely related to how much you have.

<comment><USER20> I'm not interested in reading all of that the Times.

$15 per month is too much for a bunch of content that I'm mostly not interested in.

In theory I'm paying £200 per year for Wall Street Journal; £270 for Financial Times (standard, not premium); £117 for the Economist - well, these three are nearly $1,000 per year. Add in a UK daily paper (because that's where I live); and Private Eye, and something like Monocle and the costs are easily over $1,000 per year.

So, I gently write to newspapers and ask them to include tipjars on articles (so they know how much people actually value good writing); and I leave ads turned on but ask for single-article payment systems to allow me to view ad- free articles; and I hope that something gets done to implement micro-payments because it'd be awesome.

PS: Why are newspaper websites so awful?

(<http://www.independent.co.uk/>)

(<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/>)

EDIT: Here's my complaints screenshoted.

(<http://imgur.com/a/V00kO>)

<comment><USER19> My orginal parent post claims that a month of NYTimes content isn't as valuable as/worth 15 USD.

Are you saying the NYTimes is not a good value or that, it's simply not a product you seek because you're already amply satisfied by WSJ, FT, the Economist, etc.?

It just seems weird to me to call something too expensive when the real reason is that you've already purchased it, just from someone else.

Unless you think the cost to journalistic quality ratio of the aforementioned papers and magazines is superior to the NYT?

<comment><USER20> If I want all of it it's worth $15 per month.

I don't want all of it. I want a couple of articles a week. Those articles are worth $0.50 at most to me; but probably much less. (I have no idea how much they'd get for ads for my view for any articles I want to read).

I mention those other journals because there is so much good journalism that buying all of it for a whole year is not practical for most people. People will pick and chose. At the moment they chose to include one paper for a year and exclude other papers for that year. But it'd be better if they could just pick and chose and pay for any individual article they wanted to read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I work for a niche newspaper that also employs a paywall - in short, it works great for us. Used correctly, the concept works well for anyone who _produces_ compelling content rather than simply regurgitating the content of others.

Looking forward, Google's attempt at replacing paywalls seems compelling and definitely a step in the right direction(I'd like to give away all of our content for free), but it needs to be refined. There is no guarantee the surveys will deliver accurate results.

<comment><USER22> Are you doing the same kind of thing the NYT is — 10 articles a month free, or unlimited if you're referred by a popular site? Or do you have a different strategy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> While the porous nature of the paywall makes it pretty brilliant, I'm having a hard time actually hitting it at all.

See if you can reproduce this. Go to nytimes.com and just start clicking on different stories. After about 10 I got a little popup saying "This is your last free article of the month", but the next few articles still displayed with no problem, with the exception of a single full-page click-through ad at one point. Have clicked on about 50 articles now with no impediment. Pretty curious. Does it only count clicks coming from external sources? If so, why does it tell me that I'm on my "last free article" after clicking around for a bit?

Running Firefox on Linux, with no funny business except Ghostery, which I have configured to let ads through.

<comment><USER24> > I'm having a hard time actually hitting it at all.

> Ghostery

So I take it you don't know what Ghostery does? That's why you're not bumping into it.

<comment><USER25> I use Ghostery and still hit the paywall. I don't recall ever setting anything regarding any nyt domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What's remarkable is the solution to the paywall is "cmd-L, cmd-C, cmd- shift-N, cmd-V, enter". This will get you through the paywall 100% of the time. Replace cmd with ctrl on a PC. I want a T-shirt that says this. I've tried to teach some less-tech-literate friends but they just can't remember the commands. They don't understand that just pasting the link into incognito mode in chrome or firefox will give them the content, so they pay.

<comment><USER27> What's wrong with paying for a service you like using? It sounds like you're upset that they aren't trying hard enough to steal content.

<comment><USER28> I agree, Michael. The best way to solve the privacy issues we face is to show businesses we'll pay for services or content we like. We may be picky, but we'll pay.

Disclaimer, but hopefully not a disqualifying one: I'll be launching a paid subscription service next fall.

<comment><USER29> How do I pay without providing my True Name? Unless anonymous digital payment becomes commonplace and widely understood, paywalls are one of the biggest threats to privacy. At least with the dead tree edition, they didn't know exactly which articles most interested any subscriber.

<comment><USER28> I can't answer for anonymity- to me that's a separate question. I'm referring to the spreading of information that I've trusted one seller with. For instance, I'll give the NYT my true name and email, but I don't want them to give that information to real-estate developers in FL because they've profiled me to be an old fart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> because the content is good and original - not like most of the other dailies / content farms out there... as a subscriber - love it!

</comment><comment><USER31> Wait.... this article makes no sense. So subscription revenues are going up, and subscription revenue as a percentage of total revenue is going up. That's great. But why is this an indication of success of the paywall? Seriously...

<comment><USER32> I don't understand your confusion. The only legit way around the pay wall (the pay) is to subscribe to the Times. Since the pay wall more people are subscribing to the online and dead tree versions of the paper. These extra subscribers pay money, which is more revenue for the Times.

Paywall limits access to people who pay (subscribers) => more people pay => Times gets more revenue. What's not to understand?

<comment><USER31> You can make a (stretch) claim at correlation just like you did, sure. But correlation (stretch or otherwise) is not the same as causation.

<comment><USER32> True, but unless Im mistaken there is an online only subscription, the sole purpose of which is admission past the Paywall. If nothing else, every dime generated from that is related to Times decision to sell an online product.

Additionally, in print media, subscriber revenue surpassing advertiser revenue is _huge_ and not something that would be likely to happen without a successful digital product for a couple reasons.

Beyond that, yes, there's nothing here but correlation. However I think there is enough in the first two paragraphs to make a case.

<comment><USER31> As a former publishing professional, no - there isn't. If the article were to differentiate between online subscription revenue and print subscription revenue, and were to control for other factors that ALSO drive switch to subscription, then you could make the case that the paywall is "working."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> You have to take into account the enormous amount of money the NYT is spending to advertise their paid online service. I've seen countless ads on television and other types of media. Anyone can build a subscriber base with that kind of ad blitz.

The question is, how long will these subscriptions take to pay for themselves, and will paid users stick around that long?

<comment><USER34> > _Anyone can build a subscriber base with that kind of ad blitz._

Advertising isn't that simple; if it were, it'd be a lot different.

<comment><USER33> Isn't that simple, as simple as _what_? Part of what you pay for in a large ad campaign is for people to attend to all of the complexities.

Spending tens of millions of dollars airing the high-quality commercials that the NYT had commissioned? I doubt what they did was simple, but it was damn sure expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm one of the happy subscribers. I prefer the mobile site, even on a Mac, because I find it easier to read and navigate.

On my Nexus 7, I use Firefox instead of Chrome because (1) I can use stylize to make it white text on black background, and (2) it has a built-in reader that makes the articles easy to read.

</comment><comment><USER36> A paywall can work for the same reason iTunes works. Most people aren't thieves and are willing to pay for quality things. In short, make something good and charge for it. That business model has worked for a long time and will continue to work for a long time.

The biggest "problem" is that it will be harder to build as many giant media companies around general news distribution. On the other hand, a bunch of smaller players will have a chance to flourish. A lot like modern digital music.

</comment><comment><USER37> Proof that paywalls are bullshit: "the company is expected to make more money from subscriptions than from advertising — the first time that's happened."

In other words, they're charging so much, and the cost of digital distribution is so low, that they're making a ton of money from this paywall. They shouldn't be. Advertising should be the bigger source of revenue. It's like the government running at a massive surplus - time for a tax cut.

<comment><USER38> Where does this opinion come from? You wouldn't get in a taxi and say "you're making more money from customers than advertisers, stop overcharging me", what makes you think that with digital publishing advertising _ought_ to bring in the most revenue?

<comment><USER37> This is an article glorifying one exception in a sea of rules. This article gives the false impression that a paywall is a good idea for news sites, (and perhaps some will extend this to any kind of site, pointing to the success of the NYT).

The NYT can rely on its name: we all know it's good, and its been around forever. Their target audience is the educated middle-upper-class. Many will pay, and they'll make money.

But very few existing news organizations could successfully implement a paywall, and zero _new_ organizations could. The only really successful business model on the internet has been "freemium", and free, but ad-based: Google, Facebook, etc. So this one exception occurs; great. But I'm saying lets not all get excited and start suggesting that next tech startup launch with a paywall. "But the NYT did it successfully" will be their last words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If that is working, then it is because they did a great job in content creation, not because of some fancy business strategy.

I was trying to subscribe to NYT months ago because a wonderful piece they did and I thought I should offer my share of respect. Unfortunately I tried with Paypal many times for about one hour and still couldn't get the payment through. Then I gave up.

</comment><comment><USER40> Goes to show that content is king and people will pay for content they want or think they need.

</comment><comment><USER41> Wondering out loud..so, when are we going to have a micro-payment standard? i.e. I want to read content on any content provider without having to jump through cumbersome hoops?

I wonder if Rupert Murdoch has been approached by Facebook or anyone..?

</comment><comment><USER42> They should consider that charity considering how much of a joke it is to get around. I know that sounds a little snide but as a programmer I cringe at it.

</comment><comment><USER43> How has it worked for WSJ?

</comment><comment><USER34> It's an interesting reflection on the Hacker News community that a not- insignificant portion of these comments are about circumventing the paywall. (I count 13 of 53 as I write this.) There are a number of conclusions to draw from that, some of them thin, some of them interesting, some of them depressing.

I pay $20/month to read the _Times_ in bed on my iPad. I mean, it's five trips to Starbucks/Peet's/whatever, guys. The majority of you are programmers clearing high-five or even six figures for, in the grand scheme of things, easy work (not exactly breaking rocks, are we?). Don't forget, those of us who even know how to edit cookies or alter referrers are a small minority; the _Times_ doesn't care if _you_ bypass it because they know _you_ will no matter what.

<comment><USER44> "I pay $20/month to read the Times in bed on my iPad. I mean, it's five trips to Starbucks"

If I have ever read a comment that summed up HN perfectly, that was it.

<comment><USER34> It's the most applicable comparison I could drum up. You could also say it's one typical lunch for two people.

It only keyed in my memory because I watch people pay $4 for coffee _every work day_ but balk at something that's $80/month, or even $20/month (in this case). Perspective is strange.

<comment><USER44> I don't mean to sound snarky, I just thought it was a wonderful summary of the stereotypical HN reader - reading a paid Times subscription on an iPad and comparing the value to Starbucks coffee.

<comment><USER34> Definitely not comparing value. Comparing cost.

<comment><USER45> The same thing. I believe he was pointing at the "well-off white male / hipster" smell of it all, not implying that they underappreciated the NYT.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Homo Economicus a Psychopath? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2014/12/15/is-homo-economicus-a-psychopath/ <comment><USER2> "Homo economicus, is a creature of coldly calculated selfishness, dispassionately maximizing its best interests even if that comes at the expense of others."

For the second time today, I get to point out that in economics is neutral about "best interests" and is metaphorically happy to accommodate people whom consider happiness or other such "soft" things as part of their personal value function. If your definition of "homo economicus" is a psycopath... well, _you 're_ the one who stuck a psychopath there, so ultimately this is a circular argument in which one asserts that economics is based on the idea of a psychopath that you put there in the first place. Not exactly a surprising result there.

There is absolutely no contradiction between "most people act in what they believe to be their best interests" and "most people take care of their family", because obviously most people consider "taking care of their family" to be in their "best interests".

Homo Economicus is still a fictional being, but it's not because "not everyone is a psychopath", it's because not everyone is perfectly rational all the time, and humans do have some weaknesses on the rationality front. It was (and really is) a good _approximation_ because on the whole, people _do_ act amusingly rationally in a surprising array of situations. (I say "amusing" because they will often act perfectly rationally in some circumstance, then cite as their reason some astonishing bullshit reason. Nevertheless, their actions are often quite rational.)

It's still supposed to be " _Homo_ Economicus" and not " _Robo_ Economicus" or " _Vulcan_ Economicus".

<comment><USER3> Most people do not take care of their family because they think it's in their best interests. They often take care of their family for myriad reasons--e.g. a moral call to selflessness, sociocultural norms, a sense of familial duty, love, etc. The language of "best interests" really doesn't fit here.

Taking care of an ailing parent is in no way connected to maximizing one's returns on anything (except maybe fulfilling a sense of what you "ought" to do).

<comment><USER4> You're missing his point. "Interests" is a technical term in economics which means something different from the common usage. In short, it means things you consciously seek for their own value. Love, being moral, fulfilling duties; all of these are interests in the sense economists use the term.

NB: Economists largely study specifically monetary interest because it's something they can measure. A number of criticisms can be made about this, but there isn't a good alternative.

<comment><USER5> > "Interests" is a technical term in economics which means something different > from the common usage. In short, it means things you consciously seek for > their own value. Love, being moral, fulfilling duties; all of these are > interests in the sense economists use the term.

So what is the "utility" (sorry, I couldn't resist) of this term? It seems to be a tautology - what _else_ could people pursue besides their "interests"? It seems circular - by definition anything people consciously do is an "interest", because humans are rational, because they pursue their interests...

<comment><USER6> The core significance "rational interests" is that they are _consistent_. For example, if you like A more than B and B more than C, you should like A more than C. The important part is the internal consistency, not the actual preferences. You could aim at nothing more than helping your fellow man and behave perfectly rationally, as long as you're consistent about it.

It's not a perfect model because people's preferences are not necessarily totally ordered, and people are not always consistent, and preferences change in interesting but sometimes inconsistent (and often predictable) ways. But it's pretty good.

I think it's a great way to think about things because it makes no judgements about what your actual goals are. After all, people have different preferences and interests, and that's fine. More importantly, this also means you could reuse the same ideas perfectly happily for corporations, organizations, societies or event AIs and still draw interesting conclusions. It also lets us create systems that can successfully cater to agents with wildly different interests and get them all to cooperate willingly—that's one of the most important features of our market system and capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A better question might be "Is Homo Economicus a Strawman?"

To which the answer is: yes, it is. Classical economics does not actually assert that _individual_ humans behave in a purely rational and fully-informed manner.

A more accurate premise is that _groups_ of humans tend _on average_ to act at least somewhat _as if_ they were rationally well-informed. We have tools to determine what "rational" behavior might look like and that turns out to have predictive power as applied to human behavior because responding appropriately to incentives is _one_ of the inputs that (in some contexts) shape how people act.

This idea that economists are stupidly assuming all people are rational is a myth. People who want to attack "neoclassical economics" should find some other pretext for doing so.

As an entirely separate matter, economists all the way back to Adam Smith have known that humans have "fellow feeling" \- how other people feel is one input to our own utility functions. The idea suggested in OP that rational behavior must be _entirely_ greedy with no regard for others is also not an inherent part of classical economics. If that premise is used in some strategy calculation, it's rebuttable.

To say "people aren't perfectly greedy, so economics is broken" is a bit like assuming in a physics model that bee wings don't flex, proving they can't fly given that assumption and thereby concluding not that the assumption turned out to be inaccurate in this context but rather that physics itself is broken.

<comment><USER8> > A better question might be "Is Homo Economicus a Strawman?"

> To which the answer is: yes, it is. Classical economics does not actually > assert that individual humans behave in a purely rational and fully-informed > manner.

(Actually, classical economics does, in the sense that markets follow a price- demand curve rather than a wiggle as seen experimentally.)

Worst yet, though: it's sheer lunacy. In the words of Steve Keen:

> Consider, for example, your regular visit to a supermarket. The typical > supermarket has between 10,000 and 50,000 items, but let's segment them into > just 100 different groups. How many different shopping trolleys could you > fill if you limited your decision to simply whether to buy or not buy one > item from each group? You would be able to fill two to the power of one > hundred shopping trolleys with different combinations of these goods: that's > 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 trolleys in total, or in words > over 1,000 million trillion trillion shopping trolleys. If you could work > out the utility you gained from each trolley at a rate of 10 trillion > trolleys per second, it would take you 100 billion years to locate the > optimal one. Obviously you don't do that when you go shopping.

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homo_economicus](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homo_economicus)

<comment><USER9> This is like claiming that physicists are "wrong" because they spend time thinking about a frictionless vacuum[0].

> (Actually, classical economics does, in the sense that markets follow a > price-demand curve rather than a wiggle as seen experimentally.)

That's the difference between the limitations of an idealized model and the limitations of experimental process. That doesn't mean that either one is "wrong", any more than it would in the physical sciences.

> Obviously you don't do that when you go shopping.

Correct - classical economics describes the behavior of rational actors with perfect and symmetric information. In this case, there are significant, non- zero costs to obtaining perfect information. That doesn't mean that the principles behind classical economics are false, were those assumptions to hold. And it doesn't mean that the model is useless even absent those assumptions.

Just as physicists can reason about frictionless vacuums and use that to inform their understandings of the real world (with friction and air), economists can reason about perfectly rational actors with perfect and symmetric information, and use that to inform their understandings of the real world (with possibly irrational actors and asymmetric and/or imperfect information).

[0] [https://xkcd.com/669/](https://xkcd.com/669/)

<comment><USER10> > _" classical economics describes the behavior of rational actors with > perfect and symmetric information."_

Where does it describe the problems this way? Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" is not a theoretical exercise in a moral and emotional vacuum, but an explanation of how development and prosperity come to be in the real world.[1] There are some examples laid out by classical economists which make the assumptions that you describe, but those assumptions were not key tenets of the classical school. Men like Ricardo and Bastiat spent their time addressing the real world, with all its corn laws, broken windows, and import tariffs; instead of the physicist's "friction-less vacuum".

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My biggest gripe about the concept of Homo Economicus is the huge ideological component that often gets ignored. The article mentions it, but doesn't focus on it.

An ideal HE behaves rationally, yes, but that doesn't tell the whole picture; being rational is about discussing with oneself all the possible behaviours, choosing the one that gives him the outcome closest to his desires. But also, and this is very important, it seems like the only thing an HE cares about is his own benefit, especially his own monetary benefit. So he has friends only because "who you know" is valuable and can help him get more money; he doesn't care about poor people because their misery doesn't affect him; the welfare of society in general is not relevant unless he can benefit from it; etc. Many people, including me, find all this very troubling, since this is the kind of people that makes this world far worse than it could be. And yes, I would say that it's clearly psychopathic behaviour.

Some economists that present, either tacitly or openly, the HE as a positive ideal, try to hop over this troubling issue by using the ill-defined term "utility", saying that an HE is someone who maximizes the perceived utility; and then they proceed to basically define the behaviour of the HE as economically-oriented, making the whole "utility" concept useless.

Contrast with this Marxist slogan: _From each according to his ability, to each according to his need_. One can be perfectly rational and follow it; it's just about using reason to fulfill a completely different goal. So being rational is about means to attain a goal, while being an HE also includes the goal of hoarding money and not caring about what happens to other people.

<comment><USER2> You've touched on the strawman about HE, but you've misidentified the source. It is the Marxists that want you to believe the psychopath claim, in their desire to stereotype capitalism as blind greed. Good capitalists that understand economics will perfectly happily include happiness and such in the value functions they use, because it turns out economic theory stops functioning without that assumption; it's built in at the ground floor. By this, I mean, the _math_ stops working, at the deepest and most profound level economics is _built_ on the idea that entities have different value judgments, down at the microeconomics level where economics is actually meaningful.

And note the Marxists then wish to slide in the idea that _they_ ought to get to set your value function, when you aren't looking. (Which is part of the silliness at the core of the whole idea when they think they can set the same valuations for everyone, because, again, the math stops making sense and, what a surprise, indeed systems that truly attempt to function in a fully Marxist manner really do break down in a horrifyingly complete manner, as if they were trying to build an economy on the proposition that 1+1=3.)

The strawman idea comes from the Marxists, who generally don't want you engaging with capitalist theory particularly fairly, since they would lose a big rhetorical weapon if you do.

You can not understand the anger about HE until you understand that Marxists desperately _need_ humans to not behave "slightly irrationally under some circumstances" (the real scenario) but need humans to be _profoundly_ irrational, so they can justify their handing over all sorts of power to the government so they can save everyone from themselves. Of course explaining exactly how the government will transcend being made out of irrational humans is conveniently left unexplained, since that is impossible. But, if humans were really _profoundly_ irrational, we wouldn't be having this argument, because our species would be long dead. People who want to believe that people are _profoundly_ irrational on a massive scale must grapple with the problem that such behaviors lead to death in the real universe, and tend to be evolved out pretty quickly. (This is where the "amusing" comes from in my other post; humans are not _entirely_ rational, but we've been tuned to be _surprisingly_ rational in many ways... our _claimed reasons_ however have not been so tuned.)

So the problem with HE isn't that he's utterly, utterly nonexistent... the problem with HE is that it's a slightly imperfect model, and iterative systems like the economy being what they are, that imperfection can end up magnified in surprising nonlinear ways and have bizarre consequences, in a system that often has nonlinear and bizarre behaviors even if everyone _was_ totally rational. So it important that science is done to determine the ways in which real humans deviate from HE... but these will generally be in relatively small ways, rather than the massive total failures of the model that the Marxists are searching for.

<comment><USER12> > You can not understand the anger about HE until you understand that Marxists > desperately need humans to not behave "slightly irrationally under some > circumstances" (the real scenario) but need humans to be profoundly > irrational, so they can justify their handing over all sorts of power to the > government so they can save everyone from themselves.

You had me until that sentence. I don't think the Marxists need humans to be profoundly _irrational_ , they need humans to be profoundly _exploited_ , and for the exploiters to be rational. That means that you can't appeal to the exploiters to stop, because continuing is in the exploiters' best interest; you can only stop them with force.

I agree with your overall conclusions (that the Marxists were/are the ones pushing the HE strawman). I just think that you're off in your next-to-last paragraph. In fact, I think that the psychopath claim (which you cite in the first paragraph) is in contradiction with your argument in the fourth paragraph.

<comment><USER13> You mean Marxist-Leninists, Marxism in and of itself doesn't require violent revolution.

The real irony is that if governments are rational actors, and power is in their best interest, then the Leninist insistence on the need for proletariat dictatorship as a step to true Communism (where the government isn't needed) is undermined by the rationale that the government won't give up power.

Which is of course what has happened with every state that has tried it. Marxist Communism on a state level has never been reached, merely various forms of socialist dictatorship that claim to be working towards it.

<comment><USER14> > You mean Marxist-Leninists, Marxism in and of itself doesn't require violent > revolution.

Well, maybe not require, but

 _In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat._

Marx/Engels -- Manifesto of the Communist Party

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The answer is yes, in the current form of human economy. A non-psychopathic personality type has approaching zero percent chance of meritocratic reward beyond a certain glass ceiling. There are, of course, exceptions, but they do not make the rule. The rule is that the overwhelming majority of the most "successful" beneficiaries of current and past human economy have all been far more psychopathic personalities than not.

The ironic thing is that it's one of those things that is so blatantly obvious and right in front of people's face that they can't see it; the proverbial forest in spite of all the trees.

</comment><comment><USER16> People misunderstand classical economics, because it is subtle.

The prisoner's dilemma is an interesting game because it is extreme: people are able to lower the total welfare while raising their own.

But classical economics asserts that these situations arise only when there are externalities or market frictions, and only in proportion to how large these are (there are also issues of wealth distribution, but this could be thought of as a friction to perfect taxation).

If there were no market frictions, and people could be taxed according to their innate ability to earn money, then it wouldn't matter whether people aimed to maximize their own utility, or the sum of everyone's utility: they would engage in exactly the same actions.

Altruism vs selfishness only becomes an issue when there are externalities or frictions. E.g. do I choose to pollute a stream, even though I know I won't be punished. Or do I choose to work less than I would otherwise, because some of my income is taxed (if people didn't work less for this reason, we could have a tax system with much more redistribution).

So neoclassical theory isn't nearly so tied to the idea of selfishness as people think. One thing it does do, is make very clear that people are selfish. I could buy a coffee every day, or make a donation that would (on average) save one life in Africa. And yet I chose to buy the coffee anyway. As a believer in classical economics, I have to conclude that I am that selfish.

</comment><comment><USER17> Following Betteridge's Law of Headlines, the answer the article answers is "no", but it is a qualified "no".

Homo Economicus according to the article "is a creature of coldly calculated selfishness, dispassionately maximizing its best interests even if that comes at the expense of others".

The researchers concluded: "We see a person who is intelligent, driven to excel and to dominate other people, and capable of impulse control and of working toward long-term goals. In other words, Homo economicus is the prototypical member of the social and economic elite."

I wish the researchers went further and went back to the biographies of their participants to evaluate whether or not their conclusion fit the participants' social and economic standings.

Nonetheless, this is one of the few better-controlled and quantified studies I've seen about the over-representation of sociopathic and psychopathic traits in leadership. Keep this in mind the next time you work under/alongside them. Many hackers tend to have a meritocratic ideation of how the world _should_ work, but the reality is sociopaths and borderline psychopaths are mostly the ones that rise to the top, and many a hacker is easily taken advantage of until they learn how the world really works (for now, at least).

<comment><USER18> Can you point to some other studies? This is an interesting topic.

<comment><USER17> You will get a deluge by Googling "sociopathy leaders" and "psychopathy leaders". Most are unfortunately not as quantified as I prefer (and I'm not aware of any longitudinal studies at all), but personally I've experienced enough anecdata corroborating the studies to appropriately take action in my daily life. The exceptions in the business world especially are so rare that they prove the rule. The interesting questions to me, that haven't really been explored as far as I can find, come out of asking why as a species we have evolved to generally enshrine this group as leadership.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The terrifying thing about this analysis, if we presume as the author does that it is correct and could be applied to society, is that this small percentage of our society ("the prototypical member of the social and economic elite") holds the power that creates the logic by which most of us must act within. Even if we have more altruistic and communitarian values, our life is not a neutral experiment whereby we can demonstrate these values. The logic of our social sphere seems to hinder the expression of communitarian values even for those of us whom are naturally inclined this way. For me this article exemplifies that which we worry about most - that the logic of Homo Economicus which we can be seen to adhere to is championed by those who run the game rather than those playing it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find strange that the HE's decided not to lie on the tests.

Given that it was a game, and they knew they were being tested, I would have thought that "appearing generous and well-disposed to the testers and other participants" (even if they were not like that in real life) would benefit their self-interest more than "winning fictional money" (and risking looking like a self-centered person). The first benefit is small but takes place in the real world, the other one is bigger but fictional.

I must be missing something. It seems to me that in order to maximize your benefit in such games the _obvious and selfish_ thing to do is appearing infinitely generous.

<comment><USER21> The HE psychopaths identified might be better described as narcissistic, and if so, the easiest way to identify a narcissist might be just to ask him or her: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/20...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2014/08/05/you-only-need-a-one-question-test-to-identify-a- narcissist/) It would follow that a true narcissist wouldn't see self- absorption as something negative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > about 7% of people were consistent HEs, never endowing their partners with > any coin. They discovered that another 9% were quasi-HE (or qHE), giving > their partners money a small proportion of the time. About a quarter of > people consistently gave them a hefty chunk of change. These people were > called Consistent Cooperators or CCs. And everyone else was in the middle, > so the researchers called them Ordinary People (or ORDs)

According to another notation out there...

* the 16% HE+qHE's are called "Sociopaths"

* the 60% ORD's care called "Clueless"

* the 25% CC's are called "Losers"

</comment><comment><USER23> This subject was covered recently in "Assholes, A Theory", by Aaron James. This is a serious study of assholes and why they rise to the top in certain types of organizations. It's not a joke. It's worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER24> Cosma Shalizi on this very good:

[http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/bulletin/homo-...](http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/bulletin/homo- reciprocans.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> "Smart, non-manipulative people shun them, perhaps even refuse to mate with them."

Not helpful. All the A-hole jock-types have hot girlfriends and wives.

</comment><comment><USER26> This reminds of a thought I had a few months ago: how have there not been more thought pieces relating Uber-the-business's recent/relentless PR-debacles to Nietzsche's Ubermensch concept? I guess I'll give it a go.

Uber/Travis and his execs seem to demonstrate the belief that they are "overmen" in that they seem to believe that they transcend the rules of society and are destined to shape society and its values rather than the other way around (probably something not too uncommonly shared with HN readers…).

A few fun/funny/serious examples (in no particular order):

1\. They outrightly express resistance to laws-as-is, and regularly threaten to ignore and sometimes do break those regs as necessary to conduct their business / benefit themselves and their consumers.

2\. They hire lobbyists and other high-level political actors to change the laws they don't like and/or influence lawmakers - not atypical for a large company, but they did this earlier than most companies at their stage, with much more specific agendas in place and with a lot more PR surrounding it (the last may or may not have been their doing, hard to say). They have a belief (probably well-founded) that they can use the political process to make the law bend to their will. "Creating New Values" as any good uberman should.

3\. They call their central system "Godmode" which implies that they, the viewers, are like God (a bit of a stretch I know…couldn't resist)

4\. They are proud that using the data in Godmode they can track, predict and identify specifics of other human being's behavior.

5\. The whole "we'll pay our own researchers to smear journalists" thing - another good example of Creating New Values and constructing narratives.

6\. The general feeling that Uber (perhaps correctly) operates against "states" and "sovereigns" and "systems" more than corporate competitors (who even writes about Lyft anymore these days…)

The funny thing is that after thinking this through, all (good?) CEOs of major corporations basically operate like this (and so do many other tech-leaders - it is often associated with libertarian-leaning individuals like P. Thiel, etc.) - the difference is that Uber (1) has a name that calls it out and (2) seems to be especially prone to doing this in public and (3) sometimes appears to relishes their "overlord-iness" a little too much. You can call it being crass or being honest.

In any case, they seem to be getting hip to the system and playing nice which of course can be viewed as just another level of the game, etc. - still, glad to see them do it because I overall think that playing nice is best (especially when you can afford to do it) and with a $40b val. and a couple billion raised, I think they can spare some good behavior, at least for now =)

Note on Uber: I think Uber is a great business and has a significantly net- positive impact on society, and I reserve judgment w/r/t whether TK and the other Uber execs are good or bad people - I can't conclude they are good because they run a good business, and I can't conclude they are bad because they say stupid things in public.

Note on Nietzche: In Thus Spake Zarathrusa, the "uberman" concept is (maybe) considered a positive that humanity should work towards in the absence of belief in God, and I think it can still be understood as such. The fact that history has attributed some very negative actions to the belief in this concept (Hitler, Leopold & Loeb's murder, etc.) is, in my opinion, not definitive but at the same time not entirely insignificant, but I'm also a Christian that believes in capital-M Morality so I'm biased against nihilism in general.

<comment><USER12> > Note on Nietzche: In Thus Spake Zarathrusa, the "uberman" concept is (maybe) > considered a positive that humanity should work towards in the absence of > belief in God, and I think it can still be understood as such.

The problem is that, in the absence of God, there is no absolute morality that is not the result of an arbitrary choice. When the "uberman" arises, he/she creates a new morality, which is needed in the morally nihilistic vacuum that arises due to the absence of God. _But because there is no objective basis for morality in the absence of God, that means that the new morality is the result of the "uberman's" arbitrary choice._ Is that going to be the magic spark that leads us into a golden age? Only if we get very, very lucky in the "uberman's" arbitrary choice.

<comment><USER27> The Übermensch realises that the pre-existing god-based morality was in itelf fully arbitrary, as it was invented by the weak to defend themselves against the predations of the powerful.

There's not really any way to avoid the necessity of making an arbitrary decision about which values to promote and live for, because even to stick with the status quo is an arbitrary decision to live by originally arbitrary values.

<comment><USER28> Good comment. I agree.

There is no way to avoid the necessity of making a value decision. Even if one chooses the "will of god", they still are making an arbitrary choice. (Never mind at this stage in history the vast smorgasbord of "divine wills" to choose from...).

It all comes down to human valuation. Create your own or follow someone else's. Inevitably.

<comment><USER26> Hm, I can't disprove what you are saying outside of my own experience but I'm also not sure you can prove that all value decisions are arbitrary.

Aside from the fact that such conclusion (which I assume is based on logic/rationalism - but you can pretty much sub any other scientific/philosophical concept here) itself appears to be as constructed (aka. arbitrary) as any other value system, I also think that while arbitrariness may be a logical conclusion when viewing experience/existence/etc. in abstraction, I would argue that at the very least, experience/consciousness gives humans some evidence/reason to believe that value decisions are not or may not be arbitrary, and I consider our direct experience/consciousness to be a very significant data set to consider in spite of how non-rigorous it might be. Put another way, through observation I have concluded that while many people do say all value systems are arbitrary, I have yet to see one person who I would say lives their life as if that were actually true - even my most sociopathic friends (dead writers or real people I know haha) appear to have a strong preference for self- preservation or rationalism.

I'm mostly interested in the concept of self-preservation, aka. the assumed value in continuing one's existence in the first place - I would argue that almost everyone I know makes decisions assuming that their life has value, and that such value decision does not feel arbitrary at all even if logically it seems that way - I think this conflict drives a lot of very smart people crazy or at least annoys them, and to me the existence of this conflict is not insignificant.

As I've said before, I started paying attention when was I 14 and I'm 29 now, so my 15 year data set trends strongly as described =) Of course yours or any other persons experience of consciousness may differ greatly, that's the crazy part about it all I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > HE makes up only a small portion of the population.

But enough to control it.

<comment><USER22> The HE's control the CC's by using ORD's as intermediaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it me or this sounds like a portrait of Steve Jobs?

</comment><comment><USER31> I work in an investment bank. Here I see a lot of people with psychopathic tendencies, probably more than in other industries I have worked in, but, what worries we most, is the ones I don't spot. They are there, after all, finance offers them a refuge where their singular behaviour is rewarded.</comment>


Interview with Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/oct/04ft2.htm <comment><USER2> * "If China allows for more contribution by web users, I believe the mistrust surrounding the country will dissolve"*

Give me a friggin break lol</comment>


Why one should know ed - <AUTHOR> http://www.flail.com/humour/ed <comment><USER2> I'm old enough to have used 'ed' in anger, since the first terminal I ever owned couldn't emulate anything but a line printer, and I was indeed at 110 baud. I suppose it's a lot like what being a blind programmer would be like.

You'll probably never need it, but check it out anyway--it's a piece of history.</comment>


Basic NES emulator in common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/samanthadoran/potential-disco <comment><USER2> Oh, I hadn't expected to see this here! I had used this project as a way to get more intimately familiar with lisp, as such, a lot of the code is strange or just plain unidiomatic (with dependency management being a particularly ugly point).</comment>


Ask HN: How do you protect your codebase from being stolen by engineers? - <AUTHOR> Hello all, I want to start hiring engineers to help me with the codebase that I've single-handedly worked on. I'm curious about how you guys protected your code when you did the same? In particular, I'm using interpreted language -- node.js -- so I don't have the luxury of distributing parts of the system as binary :(<p>Thanks for the advice! <comment><USER2> This isn't a problem, but hiring people you don't trust is a problem. Part of that is setting expectations with a contract. Most of that is accepting that it's going to be a risk, no matter what you do (there's no DRM that will protect your code from your own engineers).

I recommend you don't worry too much about this in particular. Have some basic legal protection with a contract, that should prevent another company from forming. Someone running off with your code and dominating your company without a legal entity of their own... would be unexpected.

Also, your code is unlikely to be so particularly novel that the specific implementation is your secret sauce. (Not trying to insult you -- maybe I'm wrong -- but generally the idea of the source as a trade secret, unless we're talking Carmak's inverse sqrt, it's not that big a deal)

</comment><comment><USER3> Spend a hundred bucks and have a lawyer draft a contract for them to sign. You could also see if LegalZoom offers anything like this.</comment>


How Much Safer Should Self-Driving Cars Be? Try 0% - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchturck/2018/07/09/how-much-safer-should-self-driving-cars-be-try-0/#49af02f31a84 <comment><USER2> I will drone strike any autonomous vehicle I find on a human road given the resources and time. Boring company is, therefore, a strong buy.</comment>