Ask HN: How to reverse my entertainment app's demoralizing downward trend - <AUTHOR>

http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Dashboard_-_Google_Analytics-20110514-133827.png
See above the usage trend for my iPhone entertainment app. Traffic has slowly but surly slowed and shrinked over the past year, and nothing I've tried has been able to put a dent in this trend.
For the past two years, my ability to pay for my (admittedly way overpriced) college has been largely dependent on this app. Summer break having just started, I want to see if I can find a new strategy for this app.
Does the HN community have any tips or advice for me?
PS: the app is http://ilaughapp.com/ <comment><USER2> I'd say you may want to look into a celebrity endorsement or partnership with the likes of someone such as Jimmy Fallon who has a strong tech following (e.g. he and his writers create fun worldwide trending Twitter topics each week) and also is a comedian who can bring the type of brand recognition to your app that might set it apart form others and introduce it to folks who may never find it otherwise. Admittedly, he already has his own "Late Night" app <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/late-night/id399052778?mt=8>) but there are plenty of big name comedians who are likely looking to get into the social/mobile space and you could provide them an avenue to do so.

</comment><comment><USER3> Did you make any changes around the date that you hit your peak? Did a competitor app come out around that time? The cause of the decline could provide a clue of what (if anything) you're doing wrong.

If you have data/contact info of individual users, you can try to email all the users that are no longer using the app asking them why they stopped.

In summary- figure out the cause of the decline, then make the necessary changes in response.

</comment><comment><USER4> It might be worth posting to <http://startupguild.net>

</comment><comment><USER5> Just throwing this out there: add topicality. Geokit stuff to provide regional jokes, maybe even location based, like, they're near a McDonalds, display Steve Martin's McDonalds joke.</comment>


Ask HN: Who here runs his own podcast? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Would love to start one someday. That's more reason why I started Podcast Gang ([https://podcastgang.com](https://podcastgang.com))</comment>


Ask HN: What's a modern equivalent of QBASIC? - <AUTHOR> I loved QBASIC as a kid. The ability to write a few lines of code and get something as simple as a word on the screen, flashing in a variety of colours was like magic. What's a modern equivalent of that that kids could play with and get excited about coding (I'm not talking about drag and drop platforms like Scratch) <comment><USER3> Python with PyGame !

I think that Python language when used with PyGame is even more fun for beginning programmers than QBasic was. With PyGame you can get some pretty nifty graphics working quickly and also sound, music, etc. It is easy to write simple games with it too. For more older students it is easy to experiment with various physics problems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Logged in just to answer this.

It is QB64 or FreeBASIC or GAMBAS if you're coding for Raspberry Pi and Linux. Not Python. Not Javascript. Not Ruby.

If you're looking to transition from scratch to actually shipping apps, give Stencyl a try for free. Stencyl allows you to ship HTML5 and Flash apps (it's general purpose enough)and games <ith its free version.

Don't let your kids get stuck with the command line with Python.

See -

www.QB64.net

www.freebasic.net

gambas.sourceforge.net

See also monkeycoder.co.nz for yet another modern BASIC dialect.

You can get BlitzPlus and Blitz3D here -[https://blitzresearch.itch.io/](https://blitzresearch.itch.io/)

And you can get Blitzmax (which also runs on Linux) here- [https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php?topic=7.0](https://www.syntaxbomb.com/index.php?topic=7.0)

</comment><comment><USER5> Not _modern_ but there's the GW-Basic clone[0] (x-platform, actively developed). Also, the docs[1] are incredible:

[0] [http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/](http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/)

[1] [http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/doc/](http://robhagemans.github.io/pcbasic/doc/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Try Pico-8!

[http://krzysztofjankowski.com/blog/pico-8-fantasy- console.ht...](http://krzysztofjankowski.com/blog/pico-8-fantasy-console.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Javascript isn't a bad bet. It's a complicated language for beginners (in comparison to BASICs) but you could teach a subset. `alert('hello');` is a nice start of course. You can just write your program in notepad, save with .html extension and you are done.

<comment><USER8> If current software language trends were dystopian then JavaScript would be the McDonald's of languages. Fast but terrible for you.

<comment><USER9> But no matter how much you hate it, you always come back

<comment><USER7> Then you regret it as you endure extreme pain in the colon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Back in the day, after learning QBASIC I got hold of a copy of Dark Basic somewhere -- roughly a proprietary basic language for windows with bindings for input, sound, graphics and so on. Apparently these days it is open source: [https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro- open-...](https://www.thegamecreators.com/product/dark-basic-pro-open-source)

After learning about arrays I got very excited and cobbled together a space- invaders game in Dark Basic with particle effects where all simulation data was stored in one giant table. Pretty amusing in retrospect. Arrays sure beat having to hand-name each variable in code. Dark Basic was great. Also a good playground for doing little 2D physics games / simulations. It was a lot of fun to do this at the same time as learning highschool trig/physics as you can actually use this knowledge to build something.

After that I went down the C/C++/OpenGL/DirectX spiral and didn't produce anything playable/useful for years (engine development, hah).

After that I went down the early Java-era path and was able to start making playable application again (memory management + a standard library - oh my).

edit: these days i write/maintain python applications. i tried python + pygame for game development a few years ago. honestly python doesnt seem like a great language for game development. e.g. how do you actually ship an application? all the py2exe style approaches to packaging/bundling are essentially hacks. pygame didn't seem like such a performant/easy framework for input/sound/graphics etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> You will get few kids excited about programs that run on a character screen nowadays, so any starting program will require quite a bit of boilerplate that sets up an interesting environment.

Swift Playgrounds on iOS has that, and allows you to inspect some (most? All?) of the source of that boilerplate code.

I wish it ran on Mac OS, because it currently is too limited for 'real' work.

The 'lessons' are nice, though. For example, there is a playground using ARKit now)

</comment><comment><USER12> One option is to use one of the emulators[1] for 80s home computers. For example, while too late to the scene, Spectrum 128K had easy to manipulate audio and graphics via BASIC. Side A of the Horizons tape < [http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009230](http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0009230) > that came with the original Spectrum was a great intro to hardware.

There is also ZX Spectrum Next < [https://www.specnext.com/shop/](https://www.specnext.com/shop/) > which brings all the immediate mode goodness in a modern package.

[1]: E.g., [http://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/](http://fuse- emulator.sourceforge.net/)

</comment><comment><USER13> We've run several workshops for kids with our online Python IDE + GUI builder for web apps ([https://anvil.works](https://anvil.works)). So far, it's been great every time.

We avoid boilerplate, so they can get text and images on the screen with their first line of code. And because what they build is a real web app, they can just send the link to their friends/parents to show them what they built.

I think that's the magic recipe for kids - short time to first result, and make sure they can show others once they've done it. (Conveniently, this also works on adults...)

I'm happy to share our workshop teaching materials if you're interested - <USER2> drop me an email.

</comment><comment><USER14> For windows: Autoit in the last 10 years it has really become a powerful language or if you really want basic I think MS brought it back as Small Basic [http://smallbasic.com/](http://smallbasic.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Python, Rebol (sure, it's fairly stale, but that's not really relevant to the question), any of the maintained Logo derivatives...

What we lack, now, is a computer that boots up into one of those options and comes with a nice programming guide for it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it's python.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. Only that Python has more to offer one you've mastered the basics beyond print, if and looping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> QB64 is a modern extended BASIC programming language that retains QB4.5/Qbasic compatibility and compiles native binaries for Windows, Linux and macOS. qb64.org qb64.net

</comment><comment><USER19> In theory, why not ruby? (ruby-lang.org)

But in practice, from seeing what gets my son excited:

1\. Windows Script Host

2\. Html

3\. If you are ready to do some drag-and-drop: Unity3d.com - it is free for trial and there are online tutorials on youtube etc, and you create a game, which is exciting.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've actually just popped on here this morning to ask a similar question!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15371973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15371973)

</comment><comment><USER21> Smalltalk (pharo etc.)? E.g. Squeak has/had some special widgets for small kids. IIRC they also used it to teach programming to kids.

If they're older, I would probably go with javascript. The browser is the new terminal.

</comment><comment><USER22> if you're on Windows or Mac, you can give red-lang[0] a try, on linux there are no GUI-bindings as of yet, but i've heard it works with WINE.

[http://www.red-lang.org/](http://www.red-lang.org/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Great question... Probably processing.org

</comment><comment><USER24> Many have suggested Python, but why not VBA? It is sitting in your PC already assuming you use Windows.

</comment><comment><USER25> FreeBASIC</comment>


Ubiquiti Networks Labeled a "fraud" by Citron Research - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/short-seller-andrew-left-calls-ubiquiti-his-next-big-fraud.html <comment><AUTHOR> Link to research> [http://www.citronresearch.com/citron-exposes-ubiquiti- networ...](http://www.citronresearch.com/citron-exposes-ubiquiti-networks/)</comment>


Detailed Cross-Section of the Kowloon Walled City (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2014/10/28/detailed-cross-section-of-the-kowloon-walled-city-created-by-japanese-researchers/ <comment><USER2> I was very interested in this structure a few years ago, but was disappointed that there's a few recorded images of it and one very grainy documentary [1] about it.

If anyone has any more material on the Kowloon Walled City it would be appreciated!

1: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w)

<comment><USER3> I read a book called "Chasing the Dragon"[1] that dealt with a female missionary's attempts to bring Christianity to the people there.

It seemed to me to paint an accurate picture of what life in the city was like.

As a side note, I think this is the first thing I've seen on Amazon with a full 5 stars and more than just a few reviews.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Dragon-Struggle-Against- Darkne...](http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Dragon-Struggle-Against- Darkness/dp/0800797035)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are some really good photos:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare- insig...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight- Kowloon-Walled-City.html)

I think its actually a park now. I overheard someone say that Chunking Mansions is the new Kowloon Walled city, ha ha.

<comment><USER5> _The New Kowloon_ is a nice colloquialism for ghetto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been fascinated by this place since I first learned about it 10-15 years ago.

Though I've heard many of the stories of lawlessness have been romanticized.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was made by Japanese researchers. I wonder if it inspired the compact 20-m2 apartments you find in Japan today.

</comment><comment><USER7> This me think of China Mieville's descriptions of New Crozubon in his book _Perdido Street Station_.

</comment><comment> iso-8859-1 Why not just link the image directly: [https://archive.li/LAI0C/27841a7626515fac1405e6b6f06c78794a6...](https://archive.li/LAI0C/27841a7626515fac1405e6b6f06c78794a62bca8.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Because the whole writeup and topic are fascinating

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This has been posted many times. Also, this page in particular came out in 2014, please update the title accordingly.</comment>


Secret Documents from Russia's Election Trolls Leak - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-secret-documents-from-russias-election-trolls-leak?ref=home <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: A bunch of purported IRA docs ended up on an online auction; Daily Beast went and talked to some of the Americans listed and confirmed the documented interactions with the Russians.

The docs indicated that the IRA was targeting Reddit and Tumblr, previously undisclosed.</comment>


'They Get Fired All the Time. And They Have No Idea Why' - <AUTHOR> https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1gq9tqwk8z108/They-Get-Fired-All-the-Time-And-They-Have-No-Idea-Why <comment><USER2> >One day the young man's manager called her in a panic. The manager had asked him if he would like to complete a task that needed doing, and the young man simply said, "No."

>Later, when asked why, the young man said he'd been working on another project on a deadline and didn't think he should take on extra work. Scheiner explained to the manager that he needed to be more specific and directly tell the employee that he wanted him to set aside what he was currently working on and start on the new task.

I gotta say, I'm surprised that this needed to be explained to the manager. If someone asks a worker whether they want to do something and the worker say "no", the manager's instinct is to panic and escalate before trying to clarify anything?

I guess it's a good example for the article - it's easy to empathize with the person whose manager got confused, and easy to understand how dealing with those kinds of situations on a daily basis ends in the workers quitting or getting fired.

 _Everyone_ feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as a society expect the 'abnormal' people to be the ones who bear the consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises. It doesn't seem fair, especially since the 'abnormal' people are expected to bear their discomfort in silence, but that's life for you.

<comment><USER3> > Everyone feels uncomfortable when a conversation goes off-script, but we as > a society expect the 'abnormal' people to be the ones who bear the > consequences of that discomfort whenever it arises.

There's a little more going on in the example, I think.

It's a common social technique among adults with authority to frame requests as a question-- "Could you please....?" or "Would you like to....?". This is gentler and shows a degree of deference and courtesy from the person with authority to the other person.

A blunt "no" effectively comes across as a rejection of that olive branch-- I think that's where the initial internal panic comes from. If you don't understand the employee's autism-- even after working out the problem in this case is a prioritization issue-- it creates a bit of an ongoing question about the employee and their willingness to be a cooperative member of the team.

<comment><USER4> > It's a common social technique among adults with authority to frame requests > as a question

Is that somehow locale specific? I've never had people ask me to do something like that until I had interactions with US-based folks.

Personally I find it very odd to phrase it like that and it basically achieves the complete opposite of that intent (so I've to actively ignore it and read it as the actual assignment that it was meant as).

<comment><USER5> The US has a lot of weird norms in the corporate office culture.

It's a result of a protracted period of tucking more and more of the emotion of an interaction into the background context to avoid offense, conflict, or resentment. A lot of this is early Corporate Culture engineering.

A good beginners example is the phrase, "per my last email." That's the one you'll see most, but variants such as "per the last meeting" and "per our previous conversation" are included.

This phrase seems innocuous enough, but it's an expression of deep frustration with a tinge of insult at it's target. It's essentially saying, "You haven't been paying attention or you're an idiot. Either way, you are wasting my time."

Imperative requests framed as optional questions is kinda a part of that. A constant stream of imperatives from your manager begins to feel like you're being "ordered around" and you're not "appreciated." So a manager will often ask you giving you the appearance of choice even though you both know you do not because the context of their authority makes it so.

For a very long time, this worked. It was definitely manipulative, if not borderline brainwashing. Baby Boomer's misguided advice to younger generations about loyalty to employers is a result of this.

For Gen X and on, it's mostly an empty husk of norms that are either meaningless or just the accepted way to insult someone without losing your job. "You're an idiot" will cost you your job but "Per my last email" carries the same message and doesn't cost you your job. Asking me politely to do a task is just how you assign tasks now, no one thinks it means you actually respect or care the assignee.

I can definitely see how this layer would cause issues with people on the spectrum. It causes enough problems for neurotypicals.

<comment><USER6> Wait until you get a load of UK speech patterns:

Amazing driving > I've nearly died with you at the wheel

Great game > We lost 1-8, I hate my team, they stink so badly

We'll meet up later > I'm not going out for anything but a WW3

Not to worry > I've cataloged this offense and will never forget it

It's a bit wet > a tsunami has recently occured

An email only ending in: Thanks > I hope you die

It's fine > It is so bad that I have actually lost verbal control of myself in public

Perfect > It's all ruined

Not bad > It's total shite

Not bad, actually > I am the happiest I have been in a decade

It could be worse > The Blitz is actively occuring at this moment, all hope is lost

Come round anytime > I never want to see you again

Oh no, my fault > What are you doing you clumsy oaf

When you have a tick > You are already late

It'll be fine > I expect things to catch on fire shortly making things, somehow, worse

Well, that's brave > you are criminally insane

Quite good > underwhelming

Oh by the way...> So, to the point of this interaction finally

I just have a few minor comments > a complete re-write is required

<comment><USER7> And don't forget this other mainstay of British understatement:

I am just going outside and may be some time > I'm committing suicide, don't wait up for me

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: "People with Asperger's syndrome, the term still commonly used for one of the most well-known forms of autism spectrum disorder, bring serious advantages to the financial markets: extreme focus, a facility with numbers, a willingness to consider unpopular opinions, a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and justice. But, like other autistic employees, they often feel alienated from their managers, colleagues, and clients. Sometimes they simply get fired."

I wonder if these people were always fired, or has something in the business changed that made immoderate instances of these traits a liability? Tech has changed in the last decade, to where I don't think someone "on the spectrum," could survive very long in a west coast company without being preyed upon by people who trade on other attributes.

Using Pfeffer's triad of "Performance, Credentials, Relationships," businesses seem to evolve to where success becomes weighted to the latter two instead of purely on performance. Arbitrage, startups, and other asymmetric, high risk plays could seem to benefit from high performing people on the spectrum, where people in later stage businesses that have more linear growth or stability benefit from the latter two.

To me, the trouble with the most functional edge of the "spectum," view as presented is it seems to both normalize groupthink and some of the more shameful characteristics of political operators, and pathologizes clear reasoning and principle.

I get that expecting others to be accountable to my or any other general ethical rules is to choose suffering, but the tendency to pseudo-medicalize people as "on the spectrum," who lose politically feels ominous.

<comment><USER9> I've struggled with social interactions my whole life. Even now, at 45, they never feel natural or comfortable, and I dread them - but I figured long ago that if I'm smart enough to solve differential equations, program in assembler and speak Japanese, I'm also smart enough to figure out social interactions. So I just watch what other people do, and then do that. It always feels forced and artificial, but either nobody notices or they humor me.

<comment><USER10> You're going up against people who have considerable brain processing power (not even CPU power, more like GPU power -- 99% of it below the threshold of consciousness) hardwired from birth to decipher social cues and generate appropriate responses, and are far more practiced at such than you. This isn't something you can just "get the hang of". You will always be n00b-tier amongst neurotypicals, who are playing quite a different game. They can integrate facial microexpressions, micro-gestures, subtle changes in body posture and tone of voice of a room full of people and synchronize their own behavior and voice to shape the group dynamic while you're still figuring out whether a particular person's laugh was one of scorn or approval. That's why it feels forced and fake -- you're involving active processing from your CPU in a loop that for most is damn near reflexive. And yes -- they notice, but it probably doesn't pass their "geez, look at that weirdo" threshold, so you're good. And an original thought or two will endear you to them.

The good news is you have considerable brain circuitry freed up to apply to things that interest you -- like assembly programming and learning Japanese. Suitably trained, this circuitry can be quite powerful. And you can even spot patterns in people's social behavior that others may miss. Because allistics are hardwired for sociality, their consciousness itself is shaped by social cues to a much greater extent. Increased resistance to the effects of things like advertising is damn near a superpower in its own right in today's world.

That said, _being_ Japanese would be extraordinarily difficult for the likes of you. If you thought Western society was tough, wait till you try participating in a society where social harmony and group consensus are _the_ bedrock of the entire friggin' nation. I do not envy Japanese people on the spectrum even a wee tiny bit.

<comment><USER11> I beg to disagree. About Japanese society and cooping strategies, that is.

I let myself to generalize a bit and say that most of the people on the spectrum feels well in more or less rigid, closed set of social rules. The more logical the better. In reality, a lot of awkwardness comes from the fact that daily human to human behavioral protocol is very open. Anything may happen and it feels overwhelming just to think about all the possibilities a conversation may leads to.

Japanese society is normalized to the point that the citizens may feel upset just by the fact that they are in certain situation and there is no how-to around. People are following social rules everywhere. Japanese society is strictly formalized and everyone is expected to behave properly in given situation. You go to restaurant and you don't have to wonder how much should you tip to the waiter. You don't tip. Simple as that - that's the rule. They've made a lot practical improvements to make the daily struggle as easy as possible. They are always avoiding conflict. When someone step on someone's shoe in metro they say "sorry" (both of them!) and go on. There is no ambiguity in your daily life.

More of it. Being socially awkward is perfectly acceptable or at least tolerated. I am talking about bigger cities, of course. You can walk the streets of Shibuya in a diving suit and no one would say a word. You can refrain from talking to people, too.

They are, almost naively, honest and even Tokyo - 38M people, 13M in the city - is so safe, that you can leave your bag to reserve a table in the crowded fast food and go to the counter to make an order. No one will take it. No one will abuse you and you don't have a reason to feel vulnerable.

If there's a rule, so it is. People are obeying the law and keeping to the rules. This is extremely safe environment for people on the spectrum.

One thing that is usually omitted in any analysis is the weather. Seems non important. But if we consider that ASD is commonly accompanied by depression and/or anxiety I'm willing to weight a weather as a factor. The thing is that winter is almost non existent in Tokyo and to the south. But, what is more important, there is sunny all year long. All year long you have something in the air that will brighten up your day. Just imagine that - plum trees are blooming in February. November and full sun so you can wear t-shirt and hoodie? Go ahead, at least in Tokyo. Much easier to keep in good shape then, say, in London when most days are gloomy.

Of course no country's perfect. What I've said above is the norm, but there are always some exceptions. Big cities are loud and bright. Sensory issues may be problematic. Some rules are less logical that it seems. Japanese language is not direct and sometimes people are expected to notice when should they react.

I do agree that Japan is not country for everyone but as long as ASD goes I'd rather say it is better suited for people on the spectrum that we may suspect. Especially for foreigners as we are naturally allowed to make mistakes.

<comment><USER10> Yes, Japanese society is bound by rules. But the rules are many, complex, and often obscure, and ordinary Japanese are expected to _infer_ many of them. What's worse, one of the biggest overarching rules is "it is better to preserve social harmony and/or not risk embarrassment than to engage in honest discussion". Which means compared to Westerners, Japanese people rarely talk about their true feelings. Which means the feelings of everyone around you, the very basis of your social status which itself determines which book of rules you apply, must _also_ be inferred.

This makes ordinary life a considerable struggle for socially deficient people. The much greater difficulty finding your social bearings in Japanese society and successfully putting on an appropriate performance may itself explain why otaku and hikikomori are such a huge phenomenon in Japan. In fact the 80s, when fans met at cons and such, they would always address each other in the most formal terms possible -- with the polite pronoun "otaku" \-- to avoid offense, because it was difficult to see where the dividing lines were to _stop_ being so formal. But this behavior was _still_ considered weird and idiosyncratic enough among mainstream Japanese to give them the distinct name of "otaku".

Japan is lovely, but being Japanese is hard.

<comment><USER12> >What's worse, one of the biggest overarching rules is "it is better to preserve social harmony and/or not risk embarrassment than to engage in honest discussion". Which means compared to Westerners, Japanese people rarely talk about their true feelings.

Which is where the Japanese concept of honne and tatemae come from:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm glad the article takes time to explain the negatives as well. My SO works with kids on the spectrum. For every kid that has their city's entire transit system memorized, there are another 10 who will be unable to function for the rest of the day if their classmates do not exit the classroom for recess in the expected order.

The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception. For the vast majority it is an extreme struggle, for both the child and their family.

<comment><USER14> > The 'financial-math-numbers-wizard' is absolutely the very rare exception

One of the points in the article is exactly the opposite of this observation...that ASD is far more common than most people believe it to be. The difference is that the vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the negatives of their condition. Your SO deals with those who can't pass and have the more pronounced form of the condition. There's a selection bias by the simple fact that they end up in her class that creates that 10::1 you describe even though the 1 will be much more common in the overall population.

I can see that pushing the savant angle of the condition can be counterproductive, especially to those whose form of ASD often prevents them from being functional. But so is the "it's rare" narrative that leads people who can pass to struggle with not understanding themselves. As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal from the outside.

<comment><USER13> > vast majority of those with autism can pass and silently struggle with the > negatives of their condition

This is not true. The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job. Most of those are jobs requiring the absolute minimal skillsets.

> As the article points out, nearly 2% of people have some form of ASD. For > that to be the case, the vast majority of them have to appear mostly normal > from the outside.

It may sadden you to know the staggering amount of adults with ASD that have essentially been removed from society. They do not appear normal, and as a consequence they do not appear in society at all.

<comment><USER14> > The article says only 16% can hold a fulltime job

That's 16% of those _diagnosed_ with ASD. For one, the vast majority of the current workforce came of age before the DSM reclassified autism as a spectrum disorder. So many of those with milder symptoms who sought out therapy as kids could easily go undiagnosed. I know this personally as someone diagnosed as an adult who grew up as a child of a psychologist and was sent to multiple therapists. I'm perfectly capable of maintaining a career and wouldn't have even thought to seek out a diagnosis as an adult had I not had a conversation with my mom about the reclassification.

Having worked in tech, I can tell you there's a huge group of undiagnosed ASD workers like me who are quite able to hold down a job and excel but still exhibit milder symptoms of the disorder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> FYI: This is an article about people who exist on the autism spectrum, as described by someone who is a parent of a daughter with autism and moves to investigate how autism functions in the workplace- mostly focused on finance. The writer themselves does not appear to have autism and is mostly interested in describing the phenomenon from first-hand accounts mixed with known public figures and pop culture depictions.

<comment><USER16> Any resources you'd suggest for someone whose daughter might be on the spectrum?

Edit: Thank you for the replies, they are very helpful.

<comment><USER15> I would generally suggest the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)'s resources page since I don't know specifically what you're looking for.

As a side note, and I assume you already know this but I'd like for it to be stated often enough such that it is widepsreadly known: Depending on the age of your daughter, I understand it is significantly important that she be diagnosed officially or ruled out of autism as early as reasonable. If she has autism, an official diagnosis is one of the only ways to recieve appropriate educational/occupational support as she goes through public/private schooling and higher education which would greatly improve chances of being able to comply with societal standards for productive membership.

<comment><USER13> Correct. And all research points towards the earlier she gets support the better. Early meaning by 18 months or so.

<comment><USER17> There are also a lot of resources for therapy for young children if they are diagnosed early.

In California, you can start receiving state funded therapy at 18 months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> At uni I spent two years as the president of the computer science student society. I can assure you 80% of the members could be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, going from mild to serious. Coordinating and leading in such an environment requires a different approach. Any manager running a small to medium software business/startup/scale up that does not feel comfortable dealing with aspys will not be a good match.

<comment><USER19> The article mentions how a very small fraction of adults have jobs, and who are diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum. I wonder how accurate that number is, or how far on the spectrum the individuals in that study are. It seems like a lot of great tech minds have some form of autism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hmmm... I was just obsessed over solving a futures algorithm. (In which I haven't been paid for.) Became anxiousness when I was away from the computer. Slept only 5 hours until it was solved. I wouldn't have had to stress so hard, if a good project brief from the client, but regardless. I was more interested in the solving the problem, than the economic benefits. I write stock/options in the evening for fun.

I'm moderately introverted. But don't do poorly in social situations / or awkward. However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own firm.

I wouldn't say that I have Asperger's, but I might have mild tendencies? Labels really don't matter as it is more important to know one's strengths and weakness. That's the key I take away from the article.

But I can relate to some of this.

I work with other programmers who might think they have Asperger, but in actuality I think they are just probably dochce bags. :)

<comment><USER21> > _However dealing with clients, has really prevented me from starting my own > firm._

Some people have a natural talent for that, but for most of us this is a difficult skill that has to be learned. I doubt this is related to any disorder.

I've been dealing with clients as a freelancer and when I owned a small web dev shop. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but at least I feel a lot more confident than when I was in my 20s.

I think the most challenging aspect is being able to know how and when to move between different "buckets" of communication styles and adapt your language. For example, it's common for clients to not tell you when they aren't understanding something and you have to react to that.

It becomes easier as you get to know a client and he gets to know you better over time, but those first meetings are always difficult, at least for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Autism is called a disorder, but I think that that's a pretty negative term for it. People with autism may be a minority, and that makes the condition abnormal, but in itself autism isn't a bad thing; it's how they relate to the world that make autism "bad." Instead autism is merely different.

I think we can treat autism like any other subject. For example, some children start reading earlier than others, and other than extreme cases we don't say that they have a reading disorder. We simply recognize that some people have more difficulty than others learning to read. Can we do the same with social skills? Simply have a dedicated class with structured learning, and recognize that not everyone learns social cues at the same rate?

<comment><USER23> I'm worried that the (fairly) recent change to the DSM to lump the various forms of autism under the terminology of "autism spectrum disorder" will ultimately lead to more confusion by people as to what autism can be about.

Which is why in the article it was mentioned that many who are "high functioning individuals with autism" hang on to the term "Asperger's" (despite some trolls re-renderings of it) - as it was and is a label that, perhaps incorrectly, has been applied to that particular subset of autism spectrum disorders.

At the same time, we don't want to say that those in that sub-group only have issues with social skills and cues; the issues that such people face are much broader than just that particular area.

Also, we don't want the term "autism" applied only to those who are in that set either.

That is perhaps what the terminology change was about - the idea that by inserting the word "spectrum" into the diagnosis, and removing the individual terms, that people would see it more as a continuum diagnosis, much like Asperger saw it. However, people will likely tend to focus on the first word "Autism" and come to a different conclusion - maybe. Which is again why, I suspect, people have hung on to the "Asperger's" label for their particular subset.

Maybe there's not a good answer or solution for the definition(s)...

<comment><USER24> We're also refining our understanding of autism as well.

When we refer to the "autism spectrum", most people think of it like two points on a scale. From 0 to 100. You are 30% autistic. Or you're 75% autistic.

That is not the case.

It's why we say "If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism".

Autism more refers to a certain group of developmental delays and processing issues. Being "on the spectrum" means you exhibit one or more of these traits. You can be a high-functioning person with autism who has sensory processing issues. But you can be completely verbal, pick up on social cues, etc.

Or you can miss social cues, have no problem with sensory processing.

Or you can miss cues _and_ have sensory issues.

Autism is complicated. And we're just now really digging into it and discovering what it means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > People with Asperger's syndrome... bring serious advantages to the financial > markets: ... a strong sense of logic, and an intense belief in fairness and > justice.

If that were true they would never accept work in the finance sector. Or would resign in disgust soon after being hired.

<comment><USER26> Even if it were true I'm confused about how it's an advantage. Maybe it leads them to seek out financial foul-play more enthusiastically and thus more often profit when they find it and short it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> We had someone go completely mental at a manager on Slack the other day with the whole team on the same channel. Respect to the manager he simply kept say the equivalent of "I understand where your coming from and it wasn't my intention to upset you" even though the guy kept saying terrible things about the manager. I will aim to be that calm if aggressively accused in future, especially as you end up coming out of it looking better and feeling more relaxed that the alternative.

<comment><USER28> The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a private conversation, ideally face-to-face but by videoconference otherwise if someone is remote.

That's bad form on both people's part to have that kind of argument in a public forum.

<comment><USER29> > The second it starts going off the rails it needs to be switched over to a > private conversation

Can be just as bad, theres an exec where I work who has taken a disliking to me and I'd much rather when he goes off on one it takes place in Google docs comments where other people can see it and see what he's like than in a private Slack convo where only I see it.

<comment><USER28> I was saying to de-escalate in private, not escalate in private. This exec you're dealing with sounds terrible, and depending on how often you have to deal with him, might be worth finding a new job over.

<comment><USER27> Yup, I would just ask him outright how you can improve your working relationship. Being direct with people like that often might not work in the moment but saying things like "I don't think we understand where each other are coming from" could get him thinking. It's unlikely to work however so look to the job market while things are good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wow.... this strikes me as a really insensitive clickbait headline.

I've had the privilege of managing SW Engineers who've confided in me their diagnosis of Aspergers or Autism.

Over time, I've generally helped Engineers understand that doing "deep work" is a characteristic of the craft and not an _illness_.

Most Psychology books and Academics have been back peddling on the definition of Autism in recent years.

</comment><comment><USER31> Please enlighten me. I want to be educated. According to me our mind is very fluid. We can teach it to behave a certain way. I do not believe that someone is awkward socially or cannot get caught in mania etc just because they are the way they are. All of this is learned behavior according to me. Why is it that most of these people are in the US? It seems to me because the environment makes people act this way. I do not think that this is because of genetics. If we mediate then we can look at the mind as an observer and change most if not all of our behavior. When someone gets a diagnosis for say ADHD. Then they exhibit those symptoms even more because they reinforce that behavior.

put these people in a situation that the only way to survive is to socialize, i am pretty sure they will be very charming because we are capable of doing a lot if our survival is at stake.

Here i am not talking about people with mental illness. Those i understand. Please help me understand this

<comment><USER32> What you're claiming is that every mind, absent of mental illness, can behave exactly the same way given the same set of conditions. To start with, I'd like to see any proof that you have saying this is true. As far as I know, we don't know the brain well enough to say that is true, but also as far as I know we know enough about the brain to say that is likely _not_ true. If you know otherwise, feel free to link some sources.

The second thing I see wrong here is that you say "I'm not talking about mental illness" but you're talking about ADHD which is a mental illness [1] as is austism [2].

Brains are fluid, yes. Up to a certain point. At a certain age, brain plasticity slows down and changing behaviors becomes harder. This is why kids can learn so fast, but adults have a harder time. Other behaviors are subject to environment yes, but are still difficult to change. If I talked to a stranger and was then mugged by that stranger, I am going to be less likely to talk to strangers in the future. There is a whole field of science dedicated to overcoming these kinds of learned behaviors, and it is very difficult and time consuming. It is very difficult to unlearn behaviors we have already learned.

But ultimately, "if our survival is at stake" isn't the situation most people find themselves in. If I am socially awkward, I'm not likely to die because of it. I might be uncomfortable, but survival is not at stake. 100 years ago we would tie the dominant hand of left-handed people behind their back and force them to write with their right hand. Did it work? Sure. Was it necessary for survival? Not a bit. Did it cause more problems than it solved? You bet it did.

[1] [https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health- conditions/ADH...](https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health- conditions/ADHD)

[2] [https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health- conditions/aut...](https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health- conditions/autism)

<comment><USER31> I am just proposing a different point of view and i am not claiming what i am saying is right. I am here to learn and what you say makes sense. Your point about adults learn slow is it because that't what the popular opinion is and that is the reason they tell themselves, "oh, i am a grown up so i am going to learn slowly"?

[https://medium.com/@chacon/mit-scientists-prove-adults- learn...](https://medium.com/@chacon/mit-scientists-prove-adults-learn- language-to-fluency-nearly-as-well-as-children-1de888d1d45f)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Related to this is one of my favorite articles: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring- for-your-introvert/302696/). A year ago, my wife and I ran into a friend of hers who seemed hard to get to know better. On a hunch, I pulled up this article, and she scrolled through it and was like "yup, yup, yup, yup". She hadn't been able to articulate that for herself.

A related book is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking). The title kind of says it all.

<comment><USER34> My understanding is that most people with ASD are in fact not "natural" introverts, perversely enough. That is to say, were it not for their poor social skills, they would be extroverts.

<comment><USER35> Rings true for me, I've worked hard to socialize and try to talk to a stranger everyday for at least 30 minutes. It's painless now, and I'm loving where I've come along my journey. It's been hard, but really well worth it.

It all started with me working in a call center 7 years ago...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Statistics I uncovered were deeply disturbing — fewer than 16 percent of > adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were employed full-time, for > example.

Autism has changed its definition though. Adults with autism are often diagnosed under the old criteria and are extreme, often barely verbal. Now that Asperger's (and a couple of other milder types) are rolled into autism (stuff that older people didn't bother diagnosing - functional people didn't need diagnoses back before every kid with a diagnosed got funded) you'd expect better outcomes because it's not just the extreme non-functional ones getting diagnosed.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's the normal people that need treatment, not the abnormal ones.

</comment><comment><USER38> Love the way people seem to believe they have to walk on eggshells when someone is 'on the spectrum'. I wonder what is done if a person on the spectrum is accused of some form of sexual assault or reasonably offensive language. Do they get a pass because of that behavior?

<comment><USER39> I've never, in my life, seen or heard an individual with Aspergers getting a free pass on sexual assault.

James Damore was fired from Google for his offensive language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The web page got really slow. I suspect it got viral and can't handle the traffic.

</comment><comment><USER40> I can easily imagine a future where people on the spectrum are more than half of the workforce of some companies.

Simply because it's generally easier and more efficient for Aspies to work with other Aspies.

And I think that might open a whole new range of problems...

</comment><comment><USER41> Vulcans in the world of Ferengis.</comment>


How Mathematicians Used a Pump-Action Shotgun to Estimate Pi - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/how-mathematicians-used-a-pump-action-shotgun-to-estimate-pi-c1eb776193ef

<comment><USER2> This is not the standard Montecarlo example, the interesting part of the article is that they use a non-uniform distribution so they use some of the points to estimate the distribution.</comment>


Psystar Mac clone story gets stranger - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1690

<comment><USER2> To me it sounds like this is one dude in a garage who thought it would be a good idea to sell hackintoshes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also this when you click on their store: "Thank you for visiting Psystar. We're sorry but the store is temporarily down due to the fact that we are currently unable to process any credit card transactions."

This vapourware?

<comment><USER4> Could this be someone testing the market? Set up a site, fill it with content and get the press releases out there....

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think they know this isn't a product or a strategy that can last, so the biz is a temporary clapboard structure hoping to keep costs down and sell as many boxes as they can before they fold and take the money someplace else.

</comment><comment><USER6> If I was someone gullible enough to buy something from them in the last couple days I would be rushing to call my credit card company right about...NOW.

</comment><comment><USER7> you get what you pay for...</comment>


Free book on Bayesian machine learning by David Barber - <AUTHOR> http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/textbook/090310.pdf

<comment><USER2> Just a couple of notes 1) The linked version is out of date here the most current version as of Nov 2011 <http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/textbook/211111.pdf>

2) @reader5000 It's legit he links to it from his homepage [http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=...](http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Textbook)

</comment><comment><USER3> Having taken some courses from David and others at UCL recently, I'm a big fan of this.

The Bayesian modelling perspective I think is very useful if you're interested in machine learning as more than just a collection of clever algorithms and optimisation techniques to throw at a problem and see what sticks. (Not that this isn't useful sometimes...)

It provided a lot of motivation and unifying intuition for me anyway. The elegance of having a nice statistical model doesn't come for free though, there are some tricky computational issues associated with inference in many Bayesian models. The book covers them in some depth and seems quite a useful reference into the state of the art as well as a nice introduction to the area.

<comment><USER4> W/r/t computing gnarly integrals, interested parties might appreciate pymc, a python package that implements markov chain monte carlo methods to estimate them

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a related note, there are tons of gems like this out there, and there are a handful of awesome sub-reddits dedicated to keeping lists of them:

<http://csbooks.reddit.com>

<http://physicsbooks.reddit.com>

<http://mathbooks.reddit.com>

<http://econbooks.reddit.com>

<http://eebooks.reddit.com/>

etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> The latest version of the book can be found at the author's page:- [1] [http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=...](http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Textbook) [2] Direct link: <http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Barber/textbook/211111.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER7> Assuming this is legitimately released (seems to be), authors who write and release these books for free are heroes for those of us not currently undergrads at Stanford etc.

<comment><USER8> It is, I've taken this class and David Barber is releasing this for free. That's the best thing I can say about that class, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure, that because of TeX and stuff, it's popular among lots of people to publish their free (or non-free) e-books as PDFs. Still, because of small screen reading devices, it would be great if they could publish an epub also. Or source. Or anything convertible to epub/mobi.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is one of the best resources for learning about Bayesian ML methods if you need a gentle introduction. The only other book I found which was similarly clear and well thought-out is Christopher Bishop's "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning".

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure I would call 600 pages of heavy math a "gentle introduction".

<comment><USER12> Sorry to differ , but Barber's book is certainly gentler then Bishop. But Bishop book is amazing , full of amazing insights !</comment></comment></comment>


Handling 1M Requests per Minute with Go (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://marcio.io/2015/07/handling-1-million-requests-per-minute-with-golang/ <comment><USER2> It's strange that they seem to think this is an amazing amount of scaling and then go on to reveal that it's actually with 20 servers. And it's not like their solution is novel.

<comment><USER3> 833 requests per second per server (though it's not likely that the load is perfectly distributed like that).

I'm ... not very impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why didn't he keep the first single-channel solution and just listen on the channel from multiple go routines? I don't see the advantage that a tiered approach gets you over that.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I fail to understand the purpose of the dispatcher thingy aswell. This also can run out of memory as he keeps spawning routines indefinately with each request in the dispatcher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I appreciate thoughtful posts like this. Instead of the typical "Go is just better" style of article with specious data, this one talks about pitfalls around Go. All developers need to realize that there are tradeoffs with any implementation and this blog does a great job illustrating that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like they just had a misunderstanding of how range worked. And now they have complicated code.

<comment><USER8> What was the misunderstanding? I'm a Go noob and curious of what they did incorrectly.

Edit: I read the comments at the end of the article and my question was answered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They're uploading each POST payload to S3 at a rate of up to 1M uploads a minute? They're going to go broke from S3 operational fees. PUT fees are $0.005 per 1k, or $5/minute, or $7200/day

S3 is an absolutely terrible financial choice for systems that need to store a vast number of tiny files.

<comment><USER10> They're batching the requests into larger files on S3. The 1M refers to the number of HTTP requests hitting _their_ server.

<comment><USER9> Can you show me where in the post that is described because I do not see it. All I see is a description of how they moved the UploadToS3 aspect to a job queue, but it's still sending individual files to S3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Last year I wrote a Go service handle JSON posting with payload of ~ 100KB and insert them into MongoDB. It requires trivial amount of work and on a single t2.small server it can handle up to 200K RPM just fine. So this number 1M request on 4x c4.Large mean 250K RPM on a single c4.large. Maybe their payload is too big and writing data to S3 is probably slower than to a MongoDB cluster.

I was so happy at Go performance and since that day I realize just how slow other language is. I found Java is quite comparable to Go as well. I was coming from Ruby/PHP and I didn't realize how fast other languages are until I tried it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Since when did per minute become a thing? 16K/sec is typical for a node app on fairly avg server.

<comment><USER13> 16k r/s is not trivial to get for a non-hello-world app on NodeJS even on a big server, but if you read the article you'd see it's actually about a quarter of that.

... Yeah basically it is an article about using concurrency.

<comment><USER12> I was not obviously commenting on the content but on a trend of coming up with measurements that make for a catchy title.

<comment><USER13> > 16K/sec is typical for a node app on fairly avg server.

This certainly doesn't read like "I'm talking about the title" to me.

Also, in other parts of the thread you take performance questions seriously, further diluting the impression your post was about the title or phrasing.

<comment><USER12> The title is presenting handling 16K/sec as something special my only original point was that the author is using per minute metrics to make numbers look more impressive. It's very possible that I did a very poor job of making that point :). My comment that I am sure Go more performant than node was beign downvoted so that took things in a diff. direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> when i read it "blah blah with Go", i know for sure people is going to discuss about Node =))</comment>


Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/12/netflix-and-alphabet-will-need-to-become-isps-fast/ <comment><USER3> Another strategy to this (not exclusive of other strategies) is to encourage municipal ISPs, or even go further and roll out federal ISP infrastructure ala the federal highway system.

I've always thought that this would be well within the rubric of the USPS. The constitutional mandate for a postal service was drafted at a time when the internet could not have been conceived of. I would argue that the intent of the constitutional mandate was to establish communications and not necessarily paper mail per se. I think if the founders were alive today they would say that ISPs were the sort of thing that was intended. I.e., have the USPS start acting as an ISP, and charging for it like it would mail services.

I'm not saying that private ISPs should go away, just that I'm sick of this government handout to companies that want to have their cake and eat it too. No net neutrality? Fine. But then allow public ISPs--no, actively fund public ISP infrastructure--and allow for unfettered lawsuits against private ISPs for content going over their pipes. Also, take away right of way to private ISPs, and let citizens and municipalities charge arbitrary amounts for anything going over their property.

<comment><USER4> The next step beyond the mail was the telegraph and then the telephone. Those were built out by private companies, but operated under a regulatory regime called "common carrier," which protected the network owner from liability so long as it charged and carried traffic from all parties equally.

These days, that concept is called "net neutrality" in the context of the Internet, and I suppose you may have heard it mentioned in the news recently once or twice. (I think it was a mistake to rename common carrier, but too late I guess.)

Personally, I think that private buildouts are a better way to go than a government-funded network infrastructure. Private industry is better at investment and product development than the government, and any enterprise that generates a profit contributes to the long-term economic sustainability of innovation. A government-run economy becomes starved for capital and innovation slows way down; that is why the Soviet Union lagged U.S. technology and why Cubans still drive 50-year-old cars.

But privately run networks need regulation to deliver the results that citizens want. Railroads needed it, telephone companies needed it, airlines needed it, and yes, ISPs need it. And if that is thwarted, then sure, let municipalities take a swing at it. My town is looking into muni fiber now, and I'm in favor of it because the local service from Comcast is _so bad_ and _so expensive_ and there seems to be no other way to do something about it.

<comment><USER5> I think your point is generally spot on, but I wanted to nitpick at this one:

> airlines needed it

No, they didn't. Regulation of fares, routes and market entry of new airlines kept prices artificially high until airlines were deregulated in the late 70s. Quoting from Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act#Effec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act#Effects)): "A 1996 Government Accountability Office report found that the average fare per passenger mile was about nine percent lower in 1994 than in 1979. Between 1976 and 1990 the paid fare had declined approximately thirty percent in inflation-adjusted terms. Passenger loads have risen, partly because airlines can now transfer larger aircraft to longer, busier routes and replace them with smaller ones on shorter, lower-traffic routes."

<comment><USER6> If you push the fare comparison back to 1972, before the Arab Oil Embargo, rather than 1979, the heart of the Iranian embargo, the fare picture changes markedly.

A jet airliner's takeoff weight is over 50% fuel.

Robert Gorden in _The Rise and Fall of American Growth_ :

 _surprisingly, the period of most rapid decline in the real price of air travel occurred before the first flight of a jet plane. As shown in figure 11–10, the price of air travel relative to other goods and services declined rapidly from 1940 to 1960, declined at a slower rate from 1960 to 1980, and has experienced no decline at all in its relative price between 1980 and 2014. The growth rate of passenger miles traveled has mirrored the rate of change of the relative price except with the opposite sign, because lower prices stimulate the demand for any good or service._

The accompanying figure shows not merely a modest rise, but a sharp spike in airline pirces in 1979.

[https://i.imgur.com/uykLMUa_d.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/uykLMUa_d.jpg)

Among Gordon's economic specialisations is the aviation industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This the end of innovation in online videos: "When companies like Netflix, which today closed with a market cap of almost $158 billion, can't necessarily get enough negotiating power to ensure that consumers have direct access to them, no startup can ever hope to compete. America may believe in its entrepreneurs, but its competition laws have done nothing to keep the terrain open for them. Those implications are just beginning."

Sounds like this is the end of TV and Online video watching as we know it. Oh well, time to start reading books again ~ they'll never be able to take that from us.

<comment><USER8> I just fail to see how Comcast or Verizon are going to be selling you their internet connection if you won't be able to connect to the things you want to connect to (like Netflix, iTunes, YouTube) through them. Especially on higher plans, people buy a lot of bandwidth so that they can stream videos, that's how ISPs up-sell to them. If they start throttling, they'll be selling an empty bucket, and it's not going to be very easy.

To me it seems like this might just revive competition between ISPs, by separating those who do the shady things and those who don't.

I'm curious how this is going to play out, it may not be all bad.

<comment><USER9> You must live in one of the few places in the US where high-speed internet is available through multiple providers.

That is definitely not the norm. Most people won't be able to simply switch to the least nasty provider.

<comment><USER10> More than half of US households have multiple wired broadband providers: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/06/50-mi...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider- or-none-at-all/)

This does not include wireless broadband options. Could the competitive situation be better? Absolutely. But it is, in fact, the "norm" to have a choice.

<comment><USER11> That means _nearly half_ have a single (or no) option. Further, for many who have two choices, the decision is between not-actually-very-Fast DSL or a single cable provider.

In Mountain View I had only shitty DSL or shitty cable. Both sucked and cable was very expensive. (This may be different now. My experience was 8 or so years ago.)

I happen to be lucky to have actual high speed Comcast now, with an option for FTTH from Centurylink, plus DSL. Most people's options are not so good.

<comment><USER12> _> for many who have two choices, the decision is between not-actually-very- Fast DSL or a single cable provider_

Very true. In one city where I have a house, the choice is 4 megabit DSL for $60/month, or 300 megabit cable for $101.

Both are considered "broadband" by the FCC because the DSL is "up to" 8 megabits. But they are not equivalent services.

There's also a wireless ISP, but it's $95/month for 5 megabits.

<comment><USER13> The FCC definition of broadband is 25mbps, not 8mbps.

There was a proposal to roll that back, however it didn't succeed.

You'll find that companies like Verizon do not call their slow DSL services "broadband." In Verizon's case they say: "High Speed Internet (DSL) service."

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/fcc-report-keeps-faster- de...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/18/fcc-report-keeps-faster-definition- of-broadband-and-separates-mobile-from-fixed-connections/)

If you look at Verizon's DSL page:

[https://www.verizon.com/info/dsl-services/](https://www.verizon.com/info/dsl- services/)

You'll see they can't call their actual service broadband if it's not up at 25mbps. Instead they throw the "broadband" term around on other things on the page, such as "broadband routers" and they call themselves a "broadband provider" (referring to their FiOS offering).

<comment><USER14> Broadband used to be symmetric (reference to e.g. T1 or E3). Now it is asymmetric. Without mentioning the upload speed, it can be anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since I work for a startup ISP I am _praying_ that AT&T will be dumb enough to prioritize their content over others.

You're going to make TNT fast and Netflix slow? You've got to be kidding. The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. It will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete.

By all means big ISPs, please cripple a huge part of your service that is very important to your customers. I'll be rich in no time (and my customers will be happy).

<comment><USER16> > The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt.

That theory is not supported by history. Netflix will pay, because they can. New video streaming companies will have no chance.

[https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay- com...](https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to- end-slowdown/index.html)

<comment><USER17> It's not either/or. Both things will happen. Netflix will pay and small ISPs will capitalize. These things can (and will) happen concurrently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What we really need is preventing existing ISPs from having a regional monopoly. In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, or someone has to make a technological break through that solves the last mile problem. Also, this is a US specific problem that doesn't exist in places like S.Korea or Japan.

Here's a NPR PlanetMoney episode on it. [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-529-the- last-mile)

<comment><USER19> > In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to > share the cables they own in a building like phone lines,

No can do. We already had that law and it was revoked in the Brand X decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lobbying the government to restore net neutrality is far cheaper than building out an ISP.

Also, 5G is coming by the end of this year with at least two providers (Verizon and T-Mobile) and once that happens, ATT and Comcast won't have as much stranglehold on the ISP market, so NN may not matter anymore.

<comment><USER21> I don't see how 5G changes anything. Wireless providers were exempt from net neutrality even when it was in force and have a long history of tiered usage and throttling.

<comment><USER22> Having wireless providers who are able to provide landline-level speeds means that many markets will go from having one or maybe two real ISP options to having three or four. Competition means that if the benefits of net neutrality are desirable, customers will prefer an ISP (wireless or otherwise) that provides those benefits.

Of course, most actual counterexamples to net neutrality are seen as positives (free Netflix or Hulu with usage not counted towards a data cap) rather than negatives, so it might not work out.

<comment><USER23> I really don't get why people think this is possible. Even with microcells and loads of spectrum, you might be able to get 2gigabit/sec of internet per cell, which would be enough for perhaps a couple hundred streams (not including all the other internet services people require all the time).

Considering most cells right now serve thousands if not tens of thousands of devices, there is simply no way that wireless broadband will ever be able to service that, unless you have hundreds of femtocells, but at that point you might as well just deliver fibre to the home as you'll be a few metres from the premises.

5G really changes nothing of this. Shannon's law dictates this and we are close to topping out on it in terms of radio efficiency.

<comment><USER24> 5G changes things dramatically. 5G deployment will be heavily focused on small cells. That means you can go to higher frequencies, because you don't care as much about propagation, and you've got much more bandwidth available at higher frequencies. So cell size goes down, users per cell goes down, and bandwidth per cell goes up.

That still ends up being massively cheaper than FTTP. Getting fiber into peoples' houses is an incredibly labor-intensive and high-touch process. I just had fiber installed at my house. It took half a day to run fiber down the main road about 1/3 of a mile to my subdivision. Another half day to run it 200 feet down my residential road. Almost a full day to dig under my driveway into my house. And a solid half day to install the CPE. With small cells, you'd basically only have to do the first step. You could've installed a small cell serving hundreds of people in the time it took to retrofit just my house.

<comment><USER19> 5G might end up cheaper than FTTP, but I wouldn't get my hopes up on it being massively cheaper.

Higher frequencies will require either line of sight or very short distances to the small cell. The small cells themselves will incur costs both CAPEX and OPEX.

Basically the only part 5G will replace in a FTTP network is the drop. And that's where the density and the topography is cooperating. Whereas if you install a fiber drop, you'll be set for 20+ years and you won't have to install, maintain and power a small cell forever.

<comment><USER24> You're not just getting rid of the drop, but also the last 100 meters or so through the subdivision. Moreover, the drop and CPE install is 30-40% of the cost of deployment.

Also, fiber is not fire and forget. Just the other day a tree took out the cable to my house. Buried cable has less maintenance, but also much higher initial costs, increasing the cost advantage of wireless for the last 200m.

<comment><USER19> Like I wrote in the grandparent, it's a density thing. How many subscribers have line of sight (or close enough) for the 5G small cell to work? At some point it's going to be more cost effective to do FTTP.

The CPE cost is negligible. You can pick one up for $20. True, the drop will cost you, but it has a far longer lifespan than the small cell. It's not like the small cell, it's installation, permits, engineering, pole rental or tower, power, etc. are free either.

Like I stated earlier, 5G may be cheaper than FTTP. Or it may not. It may not even be available in your area due to insufficient density. Even if 5G is cheaper, it's not going to be _massively_ more cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Netflix seems to be hedging their bets by partnering with T-Mobile, the company aiming to bring 5G wireless to the US. As for Alphabet, I'm submitting this comment via my 1Gbps synchronous Google Fiber internet connection. Google seems to have stalled rollout of Fiber, however.

<comment><USER26> My understanding of Google Fiber is that they ran into to many headaches from existing telecom companies while trying to expand their fiber infrastructure. Instead of continuing to fight such an uphill battle they are trying to make a wireless approach work.

I haven't heard much recently from their more standard wireless attempts (other than Loom being used in Puerto Rico) but they did invest (jointly with Fidelity) $1 billion into SpaceX. The assumption is the SpaceX investments are specifically to support the SpaceX Starlink constellation which if successful could bring wireless internet to pretty much all of the planet.

<comment><USER27> Every little town in America is a battleground of government blessed monopolies for physical access. Trying to do a large rollout for Google Fiber probably turned into a bigger hassle than they expected.

<comment><USER25> Would be nice if there was a nationwide building code for cities which stipulates fiber optic to the premises with absolute minimum connection speeds of 1Gbps synchronous and ideally 10Gbps. Completely unrealistic but I can dream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> People have made endless points about how ISPs and last-mile providers will hurt the consumer and the small video startup. I don't dispute those.

But, IMHO, independent of that, the behavior of Alphabet has been less and less charitable to the little guy over the last few years too, especially in the area of android app development. (e.g. they recently eliminated their "free-forever" policy on the use of android map/location/place APIs in apps).

To me it seems that now, in one more way, the internet landscape is more fully dominated by giant corporations. Even more of the little players will be permanently confined to nickel-and-dime sidelines.

<comment><USER29> There's an incredibly ironic undertone to an article suggesting two of the world's largest global monopolies should expand their reach to better be able to beat other, smaller regional corporations.

<comment><USER30> Smaller regional corporations with local monopolies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Or better yet, we can work toward a future (no later than 2021, I hope) when net neutrality can be brought back into force just as it was from 2015-2017 by FCC action or perhaps with more staying power via legislative action. Ground taken once can be taken twice.

If we resign ourselves to the current legal landscape we hand a victory to these corrupt players.

That said I'm sure the tech giants will want to hedge their bets.

<comment><USER32> A net neutrality bill already passed the senate. With a new house (and speaker) it could potentially go through.

<comment> sjm-lbm We're going to need a new president before such a bill could be signed, but it's good news that political will seems to be moving (ever so slightly) toward net neutrality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Netflix as ISP seems to me the exact opposite of net neutrality no matter what short term tactical arguments there are.

</comment><comment><USER34> Doesn't this very story with handicapped anti-trust that let AT&T run amok teach us, that conflating ISP with media / video distribution is hurting the end user?

So no, they should not become ISPs, but they can help independent ISPs break current sick oligopolies.

Working anti-trust would simply forbid ISPs from owning media businesses.

</comment><comment><USER35> Everyone is worried about video and rightly so, or maybe is just being used as an example, but my question is: Could ISPs prevent in any way Software Updates? Could they block (for example) a patch that would fix a bug allowing them to mim web requests to inject lets say, ads?

</comment><comment><USER36> Just a reminder that this is only a problem in the USA, and Netflix and Alphabet are international companies. Now the USA is a big market, but it's not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER37> Technically now that net neutrality is gone, everyone who routes your packets can ask for money for them to pass through their network not slowed down and de-prioritized.

So becoming an ISP if you are a high traffic Web company changes nothing, unless you also own entire network from source to destination.

</comment><comment><USER38> What would seem to make sense for Netflix would be use more HDD/SSD caching of videos, similar to how a DVR for Tivo works. There really isn't a huge reason to live stream Netflix movie/show content. It's not live video.

The Netflix subscriber user could download up to 30 or 40 Netflix shows in advance from their Netflix queue (sort of like the original 'Netflix by mail' queue) over LTE at midnight under some sort of LTE multi-cast deal with AT&T or Verizon. Or maybe lossless transmission over standard POTS/DSL or Dish Satellite.

<comment><USER39> TV's would be one (of many) limiting factors here. Most consumer televisions have, relative to most other computing devices, low processing power and disk space. Plus you have to factor the additional bandwidth load of downloading a 4K television show that you may not watch and then multiply that cost by 30 or 40.

<comment><USER38> Yes, it would be like a Netflix box (maybe branded under their Roku brand name) that's similar to Tivo. A Tivo Bolt Premier can be had for $299 with a 1TB drive.

The key is signing a lower cost deal with Verizon/ATT LTE or Dish Satellite to do some sort of the multicast broadcasting similar to Over the Air broadcasting but over the internet. Or do unicast transmissions but during off peak hours and blast it out over the LTE/Satellite network over the span of a week between the hours of 1AM to 5AM. The Netflix Top 100 is probably like 95% of what people are watching.

That way not everyone is congested from 5PM to 11PM every night and the mobile operators have additional revenue from existing wireless/satellite infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't think ISPs have any power in this situation at all. They are just delivery mechanisms when it comes to providing internet connectivity.

All of the power lies within Google, Netflix and other content providers.

Google could one day deny access to all of its services for all Comcast customers. If all of the content providers / big sites band together and do this, then there would be no value in paying for a Comcast internet connection.

I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change to happen.

<comment><USER41> Wait a minute. Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? If I put a web server on the public internet, I'm perfectly free to refuse connections arbitrarily. It's only ISPs, who are routing traffic, that are required to route everything the same under NN.

<comment><USER42> > Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality?

Sure, but it is clearly not within Google's business interests to reduce their customer base arbitrarily. Cutting off access from specific ISPs would basically be a nuclear option for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Isn't there a chance a subsequent administration could "reinstate" net neutrality? If so what'd that mean for Comcast, AT&T, etc.? Or are there ways such a move could be blocked?

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if a bunch of Internet companies (Netflix, Alphabet, etc) could gang up and collectively block an ISP...? Could give them quite interesting leverage in negotiations.

<comment><USER45> It would be more effective to just buy the house senate and presidency, they collectively have the budget.

<comment><USER46> I don't know, if suddenly all Google services completely disappeared for all Comcast users, I have a feeling that Comcast would bend over backwards to make them stop.

Nothing about that would be against net neutrality rules. I can already start a website and make it accessible only to specific ISPs by whitelisting only the subnets I want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder how much the ISPs will invest based on the current regulatory rules. Net neutrality could be revived, especially in a few years after the next U.S. presidential election.

Businesses usually want certainty so that they can invest in the future. In the state where net neutrality is repealed, there is far more uncertainty; it could be revived any time. If the ISPs accept the state that net neutrality is implemented, there is stability and certainty going forward.

</comment><comment><USER48> I am more than happy on two events, seeing if the FTC truly does resume their role as watch dog and prosecutor and seeing what Congress may end up doing.

With regards to all the panic and irrational reactions, we got to 2015 before the FCC decided to rewrite some rules and not others and we did fine. The FTC with FCC cooperation did work.

there are more than two sides to this argument and why we favor content providers exclusively over service providers would need to be addressed as well.

even some of the big high flying rollouts stalled or stopped when the rules first changed but it was fun watching many of them dance around the reasons.(FIOS and Google fiber pretty much are nothing). 5G is not a valid excuse. People decry the lack of high speed internet (the definition changes based of the techs savvy of who you talk too) but as someone who does a lot of road trips you would be amazed where you cannot get a cell signal and how often it happens

<comment><USER49> Your comment misses one of the two key points of the original post: the level of consolidation between ISPs and content providers is unprecedented and the merger between AT&T and Time Warner makes that even worse. Competitors which are solely ISPs or solely content providers will not be able to compete due to the advantage this newly vertically integrated company has in both arenas. The article is saying the only way to avert the catastrophe of a complete monopoly over both content and Internet access is for companies like Google and Netflix to "fight fire with fire" by becoming vertically integrated ISP/Content companies themselves.

This is not a case of market dominance through technological innovation, which is generally hard to predict, but rather a completely predictable result of old-school vertical monopoly. It's Econ 101 stuff and is not specific to the Internet at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Comcast acquiring Fox would also mean they gain control of Hulu -> that would make things really interesting for Netflix, and narrow it's moat - <USER2> if Comcast starts bundling Hulu with it's internet services.

</comment><comment><USER51> I have some friends who work at Netflix and it's crazy how far the executive team foresaw how Netflix would grow. I know they put a lot of resources early on into Open Connect which was to handle working with ISPs.

[https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix- works-...](https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with- isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience)

Apparently a lot of people (internally too) called them out it was unnecessary but it's paying dividends back now.

<comment><USER52> I worked at Netflix when OpenConnect was introduced and I don't remember anyone internally thinking it was unnecessary (though, even at the time, the company was large enough that you didn't know everyone). Quite contrary, this was the era of the 250GB / month cap from Comcast and we could observe clearly that they were throttling Netflix traffic. OpenConnect, the ability to deploy the CDN directly into the internal network of these ISPs served multiple purposes--not the least of which was to expose the fact that they were holding Netflix for ransom. So, to say that was the executive foreseeing things is a bit of revisionist history. It doesn't lessen the impact or importance of OpenConnect; but, it grew out of a very real impasse with a very large ISP.

Ultimately, Netflix did end up paying Comcast in 2014 and, surprise surprise, the throttling stopped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Can Netflix and Alphabet 'reverse' the problem and block the ISP that throttle them? I imagine some consumers would rather change ISP than stop using Netflix/google. (I would but that's my UK perspective)

<comment><USER54> Most people in the US don't have more than 1 viable ISP in their area, so switching is not an option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why not prosecute the telecoms under current anti-trust legislation?

I'm as troubled by the zeitgeist's two proposed solutions, more big companies or more big government, as I am by the merger.

</comment><comment><USER56> don't worry, SpaceX Starlink will kneecap every other ISP.

<comment><USER57> I brought this up a while back on HN. It looks like in the most optimistic case you are looking at 20 Gbps per spacecraft and 200 spacecraft over the continental US for Star Link. So you are looking at 4 Tbps capacity for the entire country. What sort of capacity does the US have right now? It seems like 4 Tbps is very far off, like the level of a single large city. Heck, you can get 10 Gbps service to your home in Chattanooga, TN.

Update: Cisco predicts 847 Tbps in 2021 and "busy" up to 5.0 Pbps globally. US looks like 242 Tbps with "busy" up to 1.7 Pbps. So if Star Link has 200 space craft over the US by 2021, it could handle about 1.5% of the US non-peak usage.

[https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service- provider/v...](https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/vni- forecast-highlights.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is what happens when cable companies are the ISPs - if they give you enough bandwidth to no longer subscribe to TV, they won't be able to sell you data twice.

</comment><comment><USER59> Let's face it... Internet access is an essential utility similar to roadways, sewage, water, electrical, and gas.

Our municipality will likely just create a bond measure to run city-owned fiber direct to all homes and business, and put the ISP backbone operations up for bid (contingent on net neutral management).

</comment><comment><USER60> I have absolutely no interest in increasing my dependence upon Google or _any_ Alphabet company.

</comment><comment><USER61> Interesting that wireless services was left out of the conversation. Given it's massive growth in urban areas, and the fact, there are many options for most populations. Video is hardly a high bandwidth use case. Cultivation of victims.

<comment><USER62> Wireless has traditionally been left out of common carrier / nn talks because its easier to compete in infra-structurally compared to running cabling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> We are truly in a wasteland of competition when Alphabet and Netflix are the underdogs.

</comment><comment><USER64> Alphabet is already an ISP, though not a major national one.

OTOH, they could probably afford to buy a major ISP outright quite easily if not controlling one was seen as an existential threat.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't understand why this is turning into such a massive panic. The internet wasn't cut up into throttled tiers pre-NN, and who exactly is going to be paying for internet if it doesn't deliver what they want?

Why do people have so little faith in the market? Why is the answer MORE regulation, when regulation and regulatory capture are what got us into this monopolized mess in the first place?

What about the fact that 5G is on the horizon? That powerful people like Elon Musk have spoken publicly about building alternatives to fiber/cable based internet?

<comment><USER3> 1\. Monopolization has increased in markets in general (see: ATT-Time Warner merger).

2\. ISPs have realized what they can do with their increased monopolies, and have started developing technical strategies for doing so.

3\. Regardless of this, these companies are getting certain things from the public, such as right-of-way. They act like they owe nothing to the public, which is a lie.

It's a logical mistake to assume that behavior of ISPs in the past is what they will do in the future.

I'll start respecting the arguments against net neutrality when:

1\. Private citizens and government entities are allowed to charge arbitrary rates for ISP lines to go over their property.

2\. ISPs are legally responsible for the content of any and all packets going over their infrastructure.

3\. All legal challenges / obstacles to public / municipal ISPs are dropped and eliminated.

<comment><USER66> Re:

1\. ATT and Time Warner didn't really compete prior to the merge.

2\. ISPs have realized that basically every business is dependent on them to access their customers. Why wouldn't you try to extract value from that?

3\. Hand-wavy feelings doesn't mean anything in government outside of impassioned speeches. They owe the public nothing other than providing their service according to the contracts they made. Large organizations where every individual has their own incentives don't really have feelings or a sense of duty.

\---

1\. This is already true, as it turns out private citizens largely don't actually own the land where the poles are and governments don't want to charge.

2\. You would hate this world. Content can't be encrypted because there might be illegal content contained within. All your traffic will need to be scanned and scrutinized. P2P is basically dead. Any site with user-generated content will be blocked. Sites will have to make legal agreements with ISPs to be whitelisted for strict content moderation.

3\. Blocking municipal ISPs is not as mustache-twirlingly evil as people make it seem. Some ISP goes to a town where it would normally not be profitable to operate and makes a deal with city in exchange for exclusivity. The risk that the citizens of that town would just form a municipal ISP funded by tax dollars and undercut them once the market is established has a real cost which is going to be paid in one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Comcast just made a bid for 21st Century Fox. $65B USD offered to Fox to compete against Disney.

Massive acquisitions and mergers are becoming commonplace.

</comment><comment><USER68> well that didnt take long... [https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st- cen...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-century-fox- film-tv-studios-acquisition-deal-announced)

</comment><comment><USER69> I guarantee you that if they start tampering with netflix traffic there will be riots.

</comment><comment><USER70> Is it just me, or does this site/link not work on mobile?

</comment><comment><USER71> A few facts:

\---In 2001, there were 9300 ISPs in America, handling the majority of US internet subscribers. \----By 2010, most of America was supposed to have a fiber optic service to the home as every state cut a deal to have the state utilities upgraded to fiber and to charge local phone customers. \---And every merger made the situation worse.

Unfortunately, the companies essentially lied about the deployments while competition was shut down, not through market forces but through a takeover of the FCC.

The FCC, in 2005, removed the right of small ISPs to use line sharing to offering service, and the competitors were removed by getting rid of the wholesale arrangements, both of which started when the Telecom Act of 1996 opened the networks to competition.

By combining the 'Broadband' service, which is Title II, with the Internet Service, an "information" service -- when the FCC mushed these 2 services together, they became, together, an information service, which stopped the obligation to rent the utility networks

– This caused Net Neutrality.

\---7000 small ISPs were put out of business and then AT&T and MCI were put up for sale-- and merged.

Documented in: 'The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal"-- a free download. [https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE](https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE)

The FCC is currently erasing all the remaining laws and regulations on the telcos, claiming 5G will fix everything. With a range a few blocks and requiring a fiber optic wire -- what this is really about is that we'll have a few companies in control with no more regulations or obligations -- and whatever they give us-- we will have to be thankful for.

My take -- this has gone too far and we need to start to break up AT&T again.... and separate the companies from the wires.

And, we also need to go after the billions in cross-subsidies where the companies have been able, with the help of the FCC, to manipulate the accounting to dump most of the expenses into the state utility to make their other services 'profitable'.

These 2 recent articles supply a short history of the mergers and the commitments that were never completed for broadband and competition; the second is the Verizon New York 2017 financial report -- published MAY 31, 2018

\---"The Mergers that Created ATT & Verizon Were Failures. Time to Break Up AT&T…Again." [https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB](https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB) and \---"How Did Verizon NY, the State Utility, Lose $2.6 Billion in Just 2017? The FCC's "Zombie" Rules." [https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0](https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0)

I summarized the findings. So far, NO regulator has bothered to examine this new financial report and no reporter has bothered to dig into it.

We've all been played. Most people don't understand how we got here or that the FCC and telcos have actually rewritten the history-- it is said that the winners write the history.--We can't let this stand.

Netflix et al doesn't have to be ISPs... We need to reopen the networks for competition—wireline and wireless and let the customer choose which ISP to use over the networks customers paid multiple times to have upgraded.

And AT&T and Verizon should be separated from these utility networks—ie, all of the wires which would include all the fiber that was built for wireless, FiOS, etc).

No more tracking, blocking, prioritizing of their own affiliate companies, overcharging, and letting the networks deteriorate.

</comment><comment><USER72> Sounds like healthy competition?

<comment><USER73> I have a hard time getting excited about a world where every new business has to be fully vertically-integrated because their competitors are all being dicks to one another.

Healthy competition only amongst those who have the resources to compete in all markets at once...

<comment><USER74> It's inevitable with the efficiencies brought by technology. You need fewer and fewer middlemen, and so you end up going vertical.

<comment><USER75> If anything this makes things more inefficient, because I bet a lot of core infrastructure will have to be laid out many times over.

<comment><USER74> It doesn't seem to be enough to offset the gains from the efficiency of scaling horizontally. Each product or service, when provided or assisted by computers, requires fewer and fewer humans which are the most difficult to scale up, so an organization can set that up and then move up and down their supply chain. It might be a temporary benefit though, because once it's big player vs big player they won't be able to easily extract value (or one of them will kill the other and get even bigger, which is bad for the rest).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>