How do you argue with anti vaxxers? - <AUTHOR> Any literature/paper books that will help open someone's eyes? <comment><USER2> Ask open-ended questions recursively. People often have a story or experience at the root of their beliefs. Uncovering that root (with your questions) also gives the anti-vaxxer an oppprtunity to ask new questions about why they believe what they believe. Generally, we need new questions to arrive at new answers.

<comment><USER3> > People often have a story or experience at the root of their beliefs.

This. So many time this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unless you actually need to argue with them because, say, you share custody of your child with one, you probably shouldn't bother.

I am neither an anti vaxxer nor pro vax. I get hated on by both camps. Neither side is very rational about this. So, you should probably put this in, say, the same box as religion and try to a) be respectful of their right to live their lives as they see fit and b) avoid the topic.

<comment><USER5> This is one case where one side 'choice' affects the other side. Thanks to herd immunity the anti vaxxers imperil not only themeselves, but also those that are vaccinated.

<comment><USER4> That street runs both ways. Your insistence on herd immunity and that they, thus, must get vaccinated also impacts their right to do with their body as they see fit.

I have a medical condition where most people get the flu vax annually. I stopped getting mine because all of the people actually helping me get healthier after doctors basically wrote me off for dead were strongly antivax in opinion. I am not, but I decided to go with skipping my flu vax because these people seemed to know what the hell they were talking about. I have gotten steadily stronger ever since.

I have had people on the internet give me hell for choosing to forego my flu vax on some theory that maybe I would be some danger to their child with respiratory problems, though there was no reason to believe they would ever actually run into me.

I sleep in a tent in the wilderness and I have minimal contact with people. I am not harming anyone and no one is catching my germs. (I also have not had the flu in many years.)

There are ways to handle germ control other than vaccines. I don't know how humanity will sort this question out. But as someone who needs a high degree of control over my body to have any hope of staying well, I think both sides are equally assholish here.

<comment><USER6> >I sleep in a tent in the wilderness and I have minimal contact with people. I am not harming anyone and no one is catching my germs. (I also have not had the flu in many years.)

You're an outlier. You, in your tent out in the woods are not the problem. Thousands or tens of thousands of people sending their non-vaccinated children to schools and living in the same cities as everyone else weakening herd immunity is the problem.

It's not an issue of bodily autonomy versus freedom, it's an issue of bodily autonomy versus the likelihood of mass death.

<comment><USER4> We have a lot of mystery diseases currently that are occurring in large numbers. Autism is just one widespread issue of the modern world. Anti vaxxers believe at least some of these problems are being caused by the widespread use of vaccines.

Given that we don't really know what is causing them, pro vaxxers are not really in a position to argue that vaccines are not part of the problem. But, they do it anyway and are at least as closed minded as they accuse anti vaxxers of being.

<comment><USER6> >Anti vaxxers believe at least some of these problems are being caused by the widespread use of vaccines.

Great, but people believe a lot of things, so show me some evidence. Believing some vaccines to be harmful is, at least, a defensible (and scientifically testable) position. But that's not the same as believing vaccination as a whole should be avoided. Vaccines do work, and herd immunity is a thing. Even if we didn't truly understand the long-term ramifications of vaccines, we do already understand what happens in their absence.

Pro-vaxxers aren't being closed minded, we just don't want our children to have to worry about whooping cough and polio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> why has the government given vaccine manufacturers blanket immunity from injuries and deaths attributable to vaccines?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd use a technique called Street Epistemology, it does wonders with religious people. There are lots of videos showing people lowering their level of confidence after just a few questions. I recommend watching this trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moApG7z2pkY&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moApG7z2pkY&feature=youtu.be&fref=gc)

</comment><comment><USER9> You don't. They're convinced, and you're not going to change their minds.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't start with the goal of convincing them. Instead listen and ask for more.

</comment><comment><USER11> So many brainwashed people out here.. So sad :(

</comment><comment><USER12> You don't argue with either side. Neither side has a recognition of the other's concerns. If you have close friends that are doctors or even nurses who will be candid with you, you quickly come to the realisation that the range of reactions to any vaccine is dependent on the many factors, including effectiveness of vaccine in each recipient (from totally effective and full immunity to total ineffectiveness and no additional immunity to detrimental effects).

Some people react very badly to the current vaccines and when this is not recognised by those who are pro-vaccination, this just re-enforces the anti- vaccination viewpoint.

As a child I was around others who were infectious with chicken pox, never got sick. But as an adult, I came close to dying from chicken pox that I got off my children. No reaction as a child but near deadly as an adult.

Yet Tetanus vaccines (which I have had at various times) cause me no side effects at all, even though most people I know have a fairly severe pain reaction for a period of time after the injections.

When it is not recognised that there have been manufacturing errors in various vaccines over time or that there are proportion of people who suffer very adverse effects from vaccines (up to and including death), this only goes to strengthened the viewpoint that vaccines are dangerous for those who are against vaccinations.

I have come across various people who know that a specific vaccine would kill them or their children but have the viewpoint that everyone else must get vaccinated so that they (the unvaccinated) would be protected.

Where we should be putting our research is to find some sort of standardised way to pre-test an individual for efficacy or adversity of any specific vaccine.

There is no point giving a vaccine to someone who will have strongly adverse side-effects to it, nor is there any point in giving a vaccine to someone where that vaccine will provide no additional protection to the person. Too often, the excuse of "herd immunity" is used without thought to whether or not this actually true for any specific vaccine. The problem here is that, if the vaccine works and gives you immunity, then what reason are you concerned about that someone else hasn't had their shots, other than passing this disease onto other unvaccinated people.

I don't bother with a flu shot. But if you want it, go for it. I know people who get sick every year after they have had their vaccines for the flu. I know of one fellow did this religiously every year and every year he got sick. After discussing this problem with his doctor, it was suggested that, over a period of three weeks, he get a one third dose. Since then, he hadn't got sick.

Vaccines have made significant inroads into certain diseases that cause a great deal of grief for many in society. But no vaccine is 100% effective and every vaccine will adversely affect some proportion of the population (however small that might be).

Instead of demonising those against vaccinations, maybe, this demonising should be against the companies that push the affordability of drugs and vaccines (and all the other related medical technology) beyond the capability of those who need it most just because they can and it will be most profitable to them to do so.

Most have heard of Martin Shkreli and his antics with drug prices. What many don't realise is that he was just following the general principles of the drug manufacturers, he was just a little too obvious about it.

<comment><USER4> ^ This.

The crux of the issue is that people who are rabidly pro vax and people who are rabidly anti vax are both equally guilty of disregarding the valid concerns of the other side. This fact means neither is willing to consider a more nuanced discussion concerning when vaccines make sense and when they don't.

Laws in the US generally try to balance the needs of the many versus individual rights. So, for example, if we need to put in a new highway, we don't simply willy nilly throw people out of their homes. There are processes in place for trying to decide where and how to build it with the least impact, then there are processes for compensating them.

We need to figure out how to do the same with vaccines, but that conversation mostly is not happening because most people talking about it are talking in absolutes. And, in their mind, if you aren't for them, you are against them. Thus, no reasonable discussion can be had.

Pro vaxxers and anti vaxxers are equally guilty of ascribing to a one size fits all solution and being extremists. This is why someone like me, who has gotten vaccines for some things but has foregone them for others, is given hell by both sides.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. But be assured that there are more in the middle ground than there appear on the surface.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for saying that. I needed to hear that more than I expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You don't.

</comment><comment><USER14> You don't. You can't argue with crazy. Or as philosopher once put it, you cannot answer questions of value with statements of fact.</comment>


Looking for feedback on a decentralized DNS system design using Bitcoin burn - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/paulkernfeld/8a43bbae163119f025d7 <comment><USER2> If the alternative DNS system allowed us to upgrade our current domain names to the decentralized protocol, then you're not fighting for everyone to start using new TLDs which would be a huge hurdle. Ideally, the upgrade should be for free but use proof of burn on newly created domain names.

Great job, I like that you're planning on making it as simple as installing a browser extension.</comment>


The Trading System That Maximizes Our Edge - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tensorbox/the-trading-system-that-maximizes-our-edge-a64e95533959 <comment><USER2> quite interesting article but ROI 11% seems fantastic

<comment><AUTHOR> that was an exceptional week because of news from China (they banned crypto exchanges). when something crazy happens on the markets - we profit greatly. last 2 weeks were very calm, we made 2.6% and 0.9%. now things seem to improve as bitcoin set a new record</comment></comment>


The new dot com bubble is here: it's called online advertising - <AUTHOR> https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising/13238920200-5fcd64b8?pk_campaign=sneak-peek&pk_kwd=jesse <comment><USER2> Posted a few days ago with 350 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873)

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's really only $280B worldwide and world has circa 80T of nominal GDP or probably about 55T of consumer spending, it makes only 0.5%. It's seriously VERY hard to believe it's not an efficient spend of money. For many people, online ads (or at least if you include SMM, for sure), even if you never click on them, is a serious driver of consumer behavior.

I don't have any social media accounts, too old for most consumer target groups, and i am as underrepresented online as possible, and yet i am sure i am making way more than 0.5% of my consumer choices that way.

Can't see it as a bubble.

<comment><USER4> What exactly are you extrapolating here? You just described yourself as the least qualified person to make that conclusion all while seeming to use your behavior as reference that other people behave as an amplified version of consumer you.

And that all seems to be a distraction: a "bubble" bursting doesn't mean the behavior stops, it means less money is poured into the industry of supporting the bubble. It means the current size and market behavior is an inefficient consolidation of capital and productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The part about cause and effect was very interesting.

So possibly Facebook knows if a user is likely to buy something from a specific company and it will show an ad to them in order to boost their conversion numbers to fool the advertiser about the effectiveness of the ads. But the ad has no effect other than to artificially boost conversions. It doesn't achieve what it was paid to do; to convince users.

It reminds me of the old saying that merely finding a way to measure a trend has the side effect that it allows people to game that trend.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VxHvwgMVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VxHvwgMVE)</comment>


How iOS became an essential platform for making music - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/audio/portable-audio/how-ios-became-an-essential-platform-for-making-music-1088387

<comment><USER2> _Essential_? Really?

> _es·sen·tial [uh-sen-shuhl]_

> _1\. absolutely necessary; indispensable: Discipline is essential in an > army._

> _2\. pertaining to or constituting the essence of a thing._

I think the phrase the author is looking for is "pretty cool", or "actually quite easy to use".

Edit: On reflection I think I'm being overly snarky. But I seriously do get wound up when a writer uses a hyperbolic word when a plain and more accurate one would not just suffice but actually work better. iOS is NOT _essential_ to making music. It is, however, representative of a commonly overlooked aspect of tablet computing.

A lot of focus seems to be on gaming, but this has never really appealed to me. Making music on a tablet is where it's at. I've never owned a tablet (hence my snootiness when I read the _essential_ above), but when I played with Garage Band on my friend's iPad my mind was blown. I can certainly see how musicians are using it to work in new ways. Remember when Gorillaz wrote recorded and released a whole album on the iPad? Incredible. However, this is a gimmick and will soon pass (has already passed, even).

iOS has taken the lead in mobile music composition and production, simply by virtue of being on the first successful tablet computer line-up. Obviously the Android tablet platform has barely kicked off, so it'll be a while before there's anything comparable available to us Droid plebs.

<comment><USER3> It's going to require more OS and hardware upgrades for Android to properly support music apps due to the latency of the audio stack. In previous versions of Android it's over 100ms, 4.1 they were aiming for 10ms for Nexus devices. Other devices will depend on hardware and drivers. iOS is 5.8ms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As the author of a few iOS music apps, I'd really like this to be true but we're still a long way from _essential_.

The iPad music market has certainly matured a lot in the last year but none of the apps do anything you haven't been able to do on a consumer grade PC for the better part of a decade already.

An article that refers to iOS Garageband as a "21st century DAW" could only be written by someone in total ignorance of how much more powerful the desktop alternatives still are.

<comment><USER5> _anything you haven't been able to do on a consumer grade PC for the better part of a decade already._

Just at a much lower cost on the iPad. The PC software packages for soft synths are often hundreds of dollars. Dedicated hardware can set you back thousands. I've spend maybe $100 on iPad music software and have more to show for it.

<comment><USER4> That's true but I don't know how long this can last. Developing a quality iPad music app takes just as much time as it does to develop a good VST and from what I can tell the sales volumes aren't high enough to compensate for prices that are about 1/10th of the VST market.

I think you're going to see a lot more apps like Figure and a lot fewer serious instruments unless people get used to payer higher prices for apps.

<comment><USER6> The sales volumes are high enough. They're much higher! The Appstore and low prices, combined with the vast amount of people using iOS makes for a way bigger potential market than audio pro's using PC's

<comment><USER4> Sales of my own apps suggest otherwise. From what I can tell the market for non-toy music apps is no larger than it is on the desktop and may actually be smaller.

I get far more searches for the VST port of my iPad synth than I do for the iPad app itself, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why Android isn't a platform for making music: <http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434> (Issue #3434: need NDK support for real-time low latency audio; synchronous play and record, July 2009, 2000+ votes/"stars")

JellyBean promises some improvements: [http://www.rossbencina.com/code/dave- sparks-on-android-audio...](http://www.rossbencina.com/code/dave-sparks-on- android-audio-latency-at-google-io-2011)

<comment><USER8> I came here to say that. I do real-time audio plugins; guitar effects and amplifier simulation as a hobby and Bug 3434 is THE reason I don't have a smartphone.

Android could have swallowed this market whole, but because of that fucking issue, it is completely and utterly useless for audio, IMO.

Edit: For those of you who don't play instruments or have never tried using a digital device to process audio in real time, let me assure you that anything above 20ms latency is unplayable. You are unable to hold a rhythm when the delay from moving your fingers until your ears receive feedback is too great.

<comment><USER9> Unless I'm totally borking the math, most pipe organs where the pipes are on the other side of the room from the organ will have a greater delay than that just from the speed of sound. It just takes a little getting used to.

Mind you, I wouldn't put up with that delay if I didn't have to, and I'd certainly encourage great latency improvements for Android!

<comment><USER10> It's worse than that, because the larger pipes take longer to sound, so you have to deal with variable latency. If you get a chance, you should watch an organist play from close up. It's really disorienting how little immediate feedback there is.

<comment><USER9> I should have said, one of my summer jobs during college was "church organist" -- at a small church with a lovely old pipe organ that had exactly these issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While many of these apps are fun and increasingly powerful, I (sadly) don't think we've crossed the threshold where they are essential just yet.

I think there may well be a point in the future where replacing an entire studio / live rig with iOS may come to reality (and I'd love to see it) but this is still a long way off. The platform is imperfect and the apps out there reflect this - they're fun but even the best are still not feature complete or stable enough to be dependable in a professional context

<comment><USER12> > _I think there may well be a point in the future where replacing an entire > studio / live rig with iOS may come to reality (and I'd love to see it) but > this is still a long way off._

Well, I was there in 1996 when they were saying the same about plugins -- and in 7-8 years tons of records where produced inside a laptop and a DAW (speaking for electronic music of course, but also anything indie that was made with a 4 to sixteen track previously).

<comment><USER11> Agreed, and I think we may get the full studio workstation on a tablet faster than the transition from hardware to software. We're probably only one new chip & iOS release away from a platform that can compete with desktop in terms of power & stability

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've personally found non-tactile touch interfaces to be too delicate to operate live. That might genre-biased, though.

<comment><USER14> This is definitely the big issue with iOS music apps. There is a lot of potential there, but unfortunately, doing anything serious is no fun at the moment, because you can't beat having proper hardware to control the real world interfaces apps try to emulate.

I've got a fair few synths for the iPad which I use with a akai 25-key controller, but even with that, knob-twiddling is really fiddly when trying to get sounds.

Would be good to see more apps trying to play to the touch interface's strengths. Figure from Propellerhead is a good example of something with a more thoughtful UI. A good Kaoss-pad like sampler/effect manipulator could also be really cool.

<comment><USER13> I'm having high hopes of getting Leap Motion [1] developer device and playing with something a lot more hardware-ish (even though it's still waving in the air), within iOS.

[1] <http://leapmotion.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> An interesting article, perhaps it's time to buy a tablet (I've been waiting for it to become more productive).

I'm out of touch now, but used to experiment a lot with various synthesizers (soft and hard) in the 90's, I wonder how good the new soft ones are.

I hope the article's obvious mistakes do not reflect on its main points too seriously. E.g. - "Propellerhead makes ReBirth for all iOS devices, a new version of its ground-breaking analogue sequencing software that helped to kick off the electronic music revolution."[1]

[1] Huh? Did he just confuse ReBirth with Roland's TB303 and Tr808/909? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYZILDafL0></comment>


Org-Mode Babel: Introduction - <AUTHOR> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/intro.html <comment><USER2> A great part of even greater Org Mode.

I'm experimenting with literate programming using Org Babel right now. While this style of programming seems interesting, so far it proved only to be a great time sink for me. Maybe some benefits will show themselves later :).</comment>


Europe says SpaceX "dominating" launch, vows to develop Falcon 9-like rocket - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/europe-says-spacex-dominating-launch-vows-to-develop-falcon-9-like-rocket/ <comment><USER2> Ahh, Yes, the European way, lose money on whatever they touch and make it up with executive bonuses...</comment>


Alternative 3 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3 <comment><AUTHOR> A hoax documentary which was supposed to be broadcast on 1st April 1st, but was delayed until 20th June.

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

Not quite on a par with Orson Welles War of the Worlds</comment>


Show HN: Animated Watch Illustrations with CSS3 and SVG - <AUTHOR> http://www.wrist.im I wanted a little project to practice illustration as well as animation on the web. Plus I'm a big fan of watches. <comment><USER2> Impressive attention to detail. I love how there is a slight difference between the way the second hand ticks, between models. Did you start each one with a photo as scaffolding and draw the SVG on top? Did you use Illustrator or Gimp? Beautiful execution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, for each illustration I started with a front-facing photo and lined up the center of the face with the exact center of the document. From there I make sure every circle I draw is perfectly centered and I draw all the hands facing upwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really nice job, Matt. I especially like the color choices. Very fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Downright inspiring. I'm not a killjoy, but I am rarely excited by these sorts of illustrative personal projects. something about this, though, really captures my attention. Especially that you intend to continue working your way through more. Many of my friends are horophiles if you happen to be taking requests.

Also, any chance of you doing a time-lapse of your process at some point?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement. I've thought about doing a tutorial, but I hadn't considered doing a tmelapse. That could be pretty cool.

<comment><USER4> Tutorials are great, but when something comes close enough to my domain to understand it pretty well, I love a timelapse as I have those "OH! I see what you did there!" moments while getting an appreciation for the full scope of the project.

Either way, I'll be checking back regularly. Great work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why does it animate counter-clockwise when I click from San Francisco to London?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it does that when London is already a day ahead of the current timezone. That's obviously a bit counter intuitive so if like to get that working properly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very nicely executed.

</comment><comment><USER7> Lovely!

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you trying to get sued?

<comment><AUTHOR> I already had Timex tweet out the site! [https://twitter.com/timex/status/369505126752346112](https://twitter.com/timex/status/369505126752346112)

<comment><USER9> I doubt Rolex will do the same. They are extremely protective of their brand[1], I'd avoid doing one of their watches.

[1] To the point where they won't let you host their brand assets on your own servers. You have to link to theirs, so they can revoke access when they please.</comment></comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi 3 Overclock and Turbo Config (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-3-overclock/ <comment><USER2> Speaking from experience: there's almost no measurable perf benefit from disabling ondemand governor on Pi3 or other low end boards. I use Pi3 as a cortex a53 benchmark baseline, and I no longer bother controlling the clock.

This does not hold on higher end boards though. E.g. NVIDIA TX1 or 2 is considerably faster if you force max clock.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately I don't see any graph as to how much more performance was squeezed out of it, and neither any data of the temperature increased, although in comments I can see people providing some answers with their heatsink and fan set ups. I would be curious to see if this has any improvement for applications such as games in RetroPie.

<comment><USER4> Since older rpi models can run NES games, I guess the rpi3 is more powerful than necessary. And if the game you're playing is running smoothly, why bother? With the consoles, there are no graphics settings.

<comment><USER5> Getting all N64 games to run properly is a big win. They don't all run all that stable yet.

<comment><USER4> Ah, I wasn't aware that so recent games were available.

<comment><USER5> The Dolphin Emulator has been posted on HN before it emulates both the GameCube and the Wii. That is the one emulator that impresses me the most... You can play online with other Wii players if you extract some info from your regular Wii, aka make your Wii immortal to a degree by digitizing it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yoz-y If I only have the three aluminium heatsinks, would any of this be advisable ?

<comment><USER6> I kind of wonder if you could do a mineral oil immersion with these boards. The GPIO header might be tricky.

<comment><USER7> Sure, what is different about GPIO vs. ATX power?</comment></comment></comment>


Arizona Legislator: Use Porn Tax to Fund Border Wall - <AUTHOR> https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2019/01/18/arizona-legislator-offers-genius-plan-fund-border-wall-tax-porn/2619364002/ <comment><USER2> Hideous. Glad I don't live in AZ. Imagine combining fascism, cronyism, and puritanism into one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. This is probably the most insane idea yet of government implementation of technology scam. Bet the people behind it get reelected which is the most astonishing thing to me.

<comment><USER2> Whoever is voting in Arizona is either evil, ill-informed or apathetic!</comment></comment></comment>


Vincent Canfield comments on his expulsion from the 36C3 - <AUTHOR> https://tarnkappe.info/vincent-canfield-from-cock-li-comments-on-his-expulsion-from-the-36c3 <comment><AUTHOR> previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21905761)</comment>


ICO generator - <AUTHOR> http://yetanotherico.com <comment><USER2> This is excellent, I was just talking to a colleague today about how ICOs could be autogenerated!</comment>


The harmful impact of Audible-exclusive audiobooks - <AUTHOR> https://blog.libro.fm/the-harmful-impact-of-audible-exclusive-audiobooks/ <comment><USER2> This argument doesn't seem particularly strong.

First of all, for books that are entertainment (most fiction), how is this any different from series that are exclusive to Netflix? The answer given by the author is a non-answer, claiming you can "buy DVD's online". Yeah right, please show me where I can buy _Tiger King_ on DVD? I didn't think so.

Second, for books that are more in line with libraries' missions to make information accessible for an educated citizenry, the original print and ebooks are still available, right? And if you have vision impairment, there are also methods for automated screenreading, since _most_ books don't have audiobook versions.

So I don't really see any valid complaint here except "we want to sell things exclusive to other stores" which, yeah, and I'd like to have a billion dollars.

If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead, but that would shake up _everything_ , a pretty radical change. But if you're not going to go there, then there's no reason why audiobooks shouldn't be exclusive while other things get to be.

<comment><USER3> _If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead_

There are laws for this in some industries in the United States.

Movie studios aren't allowed to own theaters anymore. Beer companies aren't allowed to own bars anymore. Car manufacturers aren't allowed to own auto dealerships. Most television shows are decoupled from the distributors, which is why you see things like a big extra Sony or CBS Television Distribution logo at the end of a sit-com rerun.

I'm not sure that what's happening with audiobooks rises to the level of the problems we used to have with "tied houses" (bars only allowed to sell a certain brand of beer), or movie company vertical monopolies of the past.

<comment><USER4> > Beer companies aren't allowed to own bars anymore.

I thought it was the opposite, where breweries can sell for on premise consumption, but not off premise?

<comment><USER3> It used to be that breweries would own chains of bars in the United States. Similar to the way you can only buy Exxon gas at an Exxon station. That was made illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a continuation of a trend found throughout our purchasing life: exclusives are generally harmful to customers. This is specifically because an exclusive represents an artificial loss of choice.

They are, however, very lucrative to creators and the distributors, so I have high doubts that the concept of 'the exclusive' will ever go away.

<comment><USER6> Harm means to hurt or injure. If I write a book and exclusively circulate it among my closest friends, am I harming you because there is 1 less book you for you to happen upon?

<comment><USER5> This is a distinct usecase from only offering it through, for example, Barnes and Noble. The former (sharing exclusively among friends) is not necessarily harmful, the latter (only selling through one vendor) is.

<comment><USER7> I think his point is that if you create an audiobook and then limit how you sell it, you are creating more choice then if you didn't create the audiobook at all. You're saying it's different but you aren't saying how. How does creating additional choice harm the consumer?

I'm not making an argument either way, just trying to clarify positions.

<comment><USER8> The real answer is, very few authors say "oh I have a great idea for a book that I'm only going to sell through Audible!" They have an idea for a book that they want to sell, and then through licensing deals and marketing it becomes an Audible exclusive.

So the choice is _created_ when the author decides to write a book. The choice is _restricted_ when the author or publisher decides to offer it only on Audible. Writing a book is "creating more choice", offering that book exclusively through one reseller is limiting that choice.

You might make the argument that this is just capitalism and the free market doing its job, but to keep healthy competition alive capitalism is generally regulated to keep the biggest players from dominating the entire market. Amazon and B&N might have the money to fight over exclusive rights to a book, but smaller bookstores don't. This creates a barrier to entry for any new or smaller stores who want to compete in the book market. The reason regulators watch for this kind of stuff is because Amazon has the money and the audience to completely lock out any competitors they want, singe-handedly destroying the free market.

Amazon doesn't need an exclusive deal in order to sell books. They need exclusive deals in order to put their competitors out of business.

<comment><USER6> The way I read that, the problem isn't exclusive deals. It's _Amazon_ signing exclusive deals.

What do you think about this: authors can sign exclusive with non-monopolistic entities?

<comment><USER8> Just my opinion but I would say that's fair. That's such a bad idea if you care about profits and wide exposure that there's almost no economic incentive to sell a book but _exclude_ selling it on Amazon or B&N, you're just throwing away money. Which, in a free market, you should be able to do at your own discretion.

The problem only comes if the biggest players in the space use their power and influence (read: money) to keep smaller competitors from having a chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not exactly the kind of person that would support Amazon on anything, but this is sort of what "exclusive" means, you know. So this amazed tone he uses to repeat you cannot sell "exclusive" stuff at other places is pretty silly.

<comment><USER10> The real issue is the circumvention of the first sale doctrine. Before the download era, licenses were mostly attached to physical media that could be given, resold, or loaned out. By eliminating the physical artifact, modern content companies are exploiting a loophole in consumers' traditional resale rights.

<comment><USER11> How is this different from a band performing exclusively live to people who buy tickets and actively disallowing recordings? Or what about a Broadway show that doesn't have a recording?

Should we force all performers to make their content available to buy to anyone across the world? I'm not necessarily against this, but it would be quite a big change.

<comment><USER10> In Audible's case, they're already selling access to a recording in perpetuity; your examples are all live performances. There's a colorable distinction here, and there's no need to force people to make recordings if they don't want to.

A harder question is where the line between these two regimes should be: movie theaters and television stations are generally treated like performances despite showing recorded content. Netflix acts like a rental company: when you drop your subscription, you lose access to their library.

<comment><USER11> Well, stretching the analogy a bit, a lawyer could argue that Netflix's act of streaming a piece of content is a live performance - you're not paying for the video, but rather to access this "Netflix theatre".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think this is their biggest problem. Libro.fm is selling their audiobooks at what appears to be some kind of absurd MSRP.

Audible offers audiobooks at that price point too, but you'd have to be an idiot to pay it. Amazon will sell you the Audible version of a book you've purchased the Kindle version of at a steep discount. So steep that purchasing the ebook+audiobook is cheaper than purchasing the audiobook by itself.

Compare the pricing for _All Creatures Great and Small_ , which is atypical mostly in that the combined-purchase discount is unusually stingy:

Libro.fm: $37.94

Audible: $29.99

Kindle+Audible: $17.48

I don't like buying DRMed audiobooks, but it's not that hard to justify at $2.99.

<comment><USER13> If you listen regularly, the Audible membership is even better... $23/month for two books, and 30% off on everything past that. So that can get the per book cost down to under $12

<comment><USER14> I really hate their dark-pattern of holding your credits hostage if you want to pause your account. I have like 10 credits that I don't want to spend right now, I'm backed up and hardly reading and I can't pause my Audible membership that's $24/mo without losing my credits. I also don't want to be rushed to pick out 10 books and possibly waste my credits so I can pause. I'm VERY picky about what books I burn a credit on.

It's a really crappy way of keeping me tied in and I want to make sure people know about it.

<comment><USER15> You can convert your membership into the "Silver Plan", which charges you every other month. This way you're paying a bit less.

However, their silver plan is very hidden away and is only presented as an option when you go to cancel your account. And even then it might not work and you'll have to write to Customer Care to switch.

<comment><USER14> Oh interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll check that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree that these exclusivity deals are bad news for most of us but to be completely frank this is largely on the authors. They are the ones agreeing, ultimately, to these deals to line their own pockets at the expense of readers and potential readers. Yeah Amazon is evil but no one forces the authors into this.

<comment><USER17> > I agree that these exclusivity deals are bad news for most of us but to be > completely frank this is largely on the authors. They are the ones agreeing, > ultimately, to these deals to line their own pockets at the expense of > readers and potential readers. Yeah Amazon is evil but no one forces the > authors into this.

No individual author has the ability to impact something like this from happening on their own. Why would it be "largely the author's fault" when they have no say over the ecosystem?

<comment><USER18> > No individual author has the ability to impact something like this from > happening on their own.

Yes they do, they just .... don't enter into an exclusive contract, and pick instead a contract that allows them to market in other places as well.

Or are you implying that Audible requires only Exclusive contacts? Because I don't believe that's true.

<comment><USER17> > don't enter into an exclusive contract, and pick instead a contract that > allows them to market in other places as well.

It's not like you get to tick off a feature list in your contracts to get all the stuff you want. Audible is likely paying them for exclusivity and they're getting read and promotion out of it that other publishers aren't able to get them. The author's goal is to get their work to where people who want to read it are. It a weird sift of responsibility to expect the author to concern themselves with how the overall audiobook market shakes out for consumers or even other authors. They have no leverage in the negotiation to make those decisions unless they're like Stephen King.

<comment><USER18> > It's not like you get to tick off a feature list in your contracts to get > all the stuff you want.

Yes, actually that's exactly how it is. The author can choose if they want it exclusive or not, and Audible will offer them some money to go exclusive.

And they are not required to take that money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I absolutely do not understand this article. It contradicts itself.

> ACX offers higher royalties to creators (i.e. more money from audiobook > sales) if they opt for Exclusive distribution.

Well, then pay more money to the authors, instead of complaining about it.

Also, how is this any different from bookstores having exclusive rights with certain publishers. I remember some books I wanted few years back were available only on Barnes and Noble (back when Amazon was still not that big). How is this different from games being Steam or Epic store exclusives? Like come on, create incentives for creators and they will flock to you. You can't sit around and complain when literally you're a middleman and you refuse to pay your creators more.

<comment><USER20> steam doesn't do exclusives ... not important to your point at all just thought I'd toss that out there.

<comment><USER21> Steam however does provide a huge amount of cool features you get for free when you implement their API and use their platform. This effectively creates exclusives because its a pain to implement those things yourself.

<comment><USER20> That's just offering a good product that people want to use... I find negative views on exclusivity only really come into play when the platform "buys" that exclusivity rather than it being a choice of the creator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If I want to write a book, and only sell the audiobook version on wax cylinders in a physical shop that is only open on leap days for a billion dollars a cylinder then that's what I'm going to do and everyone else can pound sand.

The entitlement of people is staggering.

</comment><comment><USER23> Exclusives on _every_ platform are annoying - Audible, Nintendo, Netflix, you name it. People make mutually beneficial deals, and one way to do that is with exclusivity.

<comment><USER24> Well, I think you mixed things up a bit here.

Nintendo makes sense; they created many of the games from scratch. Are they supposed to rewrite them for every platform?

Netflix is more of a Tv station now... that's like saying it's not fair This Is Us isn't on Comedy Central.

I do agree exclusives suck, however I think the only fair comparisons are media that's traditionally available everywhere (music albums, podcasts, books).

<comment><USER23> How is a book as a form of entertainment any different from a movie, video game, TV show, etc?

<comment><USER25> I don't think it is fair to compare a book with a piece of software written for a specific platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm glad I've trained my brain to acclimatize to TTS, trivially easy to compile epubs into audiobooks now. Think we're a few years away from neural TTS solutions making passable audiobooks. Tons of services for articles sound OK now. Even youtube wiki TTS spam are becoming not bad.

<comment><USER27> I've been using TTS for years by now, and IMO it's really good by now for original digital epub editions. The biggest remaining issue is some words can be mispronounced (wrong part of speech, foreign or rare words). Even "text in quotes" is accentuated now in Google TTS, although it'd be nice to also highlight _italicized text_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I always wanted to know, if it would be ok to publish an audio book "creative commons", that has been licensed Audible exclusive, since it would be the creative work of a private narrator, that has no financial interest.

But since the author is the owner if the base creative work, this must be forbidden, if the content is licensed to a specific company.

Another interesting question would be, how this would fit to a text-to-speech approach while not letting a human read the book but a machine...

Can someone tell me more about this topic?

</comment><comment><USER29> I was really excited when Google Play came out with audiobooks on their platform. I realize that Google's success may still result in an oligopoly situation. That would still be better.

I'm a prolific Audiobook listener, but actively avoided Audible because of the subscription model.

<comment><USER30> I've never been attracted to audiobooks because of the really steep price (compared to ebooks), but I've just checked five fiction books from my to-read list and they all seem _much_ cheaper on Google Play than on Audible and Libro.fm.

Out of five, one is $2.5 cheaper, while the other four are $10+ cheaper.

<comment><USER31> Great for long drives, workouts, Migraines, or if you are losing vision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "We are Libro.fm, an audiobook platform that makes it possible for you to buy audiobooks directly through your local bookstore"

Can someone explain how this works? Do we actually buy from a local bookstore or do they just pass a commission to the local bookstore on each sale?

<comment><USER33> They pass on a commission. I've found a couple articles that claim it's a 50/50 split ([https://www.fastcompany.com/90489801/libro-fm-kanopy- audiobo...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90489801/libro-fm-kanopy-audiobooks- free-streaming-quarantine-boredom-support-local-communities)), but I don't know if that's true at all or true for every store. Since they don't disclose it, I'm guessing they have different deals with different stores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> That was a lot of text to convey the point that Audible is doing to audiobooks what the Epic Games Store is doing to games: paying publishers extra (in this case, a better cut of the price) to release only on a single platform.

</comment><comment><USER35> Last time I checked there wasn't even a good way to filter on Audible exclusives. They're typically the only audiobooks I get through Audible, as I'd otherwise wait for them to be available in my library app.

<comment><USER9> Library app? I didn't even know those exist. I thought everything is copyrighted and DRM-ed right now. You mean there is actually a way to read/listen to new books without buying them, like, "legally", not "stealing" them from torrents?

<comment><USER36> Yes! Overdrive and Libby apps. Login with your library card. Enjoy!

<comment><USER9> Huh, cool. Not in my country, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have been enjoying downpour.com lately. The token system means most books are $15 or so. Heard about them from an anti-DRM advocacy group and was pleasantly surprised at the prices and huge selection

<comment><USER38> Libro.fm is good too. No DRM, fairly good selection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Off topic but, why would anyone want to buy audiobooks via their local bookstore? I haven't seen this anywhere else: when is it something desirable to ADD a middleman rather than removing them?

<comment><USER40> How does Amazon replacing the local bookseller eliminate a "middleman"?

<comment><USER39> In case of Libro, you have both Libro and the bookstore as middle men. In the Amazon case, you only have Amazon.

<comment><USER41> Do people think in terms of "middlemen" when buying stuff. I don't think so, latte sippers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Have people used the Libro.fm Android app? I've used the Audible Android app for years and it's trash, even compared to something like OverDrive. No other audio app on Android gets shut down in the background like Audible does (if it lasts more than 30 minutes without being actively played that's a long time). It takes forever to boot because they want to trick me into purchasing more credits and showing ads. Whenever there's a notification, it pauses for like 8 seconds, twice as long as any other audio app.

<comment><USER42> Strange. Works beautifully on iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Did anyone else read the headline initially as "Audible Explosive Audiobooks"?

</comment><comment><USER44> "we all know amazon is evil, but did you know that when a book becomes an audible exclusive, libraries cannot buy copies of that audiobook? did you know that capitalism is the enemy of accessibility?"

Evil capitalist Amazon is also the greatest creator of book accessibility since Gutenberg.</comment>


Hackers learnings about how to earn on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://1967vacation.westescalante.com/gbook/go.php?url=https://dwnlodit2.com/aR79 <comment><USER2> Yes.

I use this method too. Is very fast and legit</comment>


Google plans to partner with banks to offer checking accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/next-in-googles-quest-for-consumer-dominancebanking-11573644601?mod=rsswn <comment><USER3> Recently, Google suspended accounts for using Emoji comments on YouTube. This is the whole account, including Gmail access[1].

Now imaging your checking account also got disabled because some bot decided that you looked suspicious.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWaz7ofl5wQ&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWaz7ofl5wQ&feature=youtu.be)

<comment><USER4> > Now imaging your checking account also got disabled because some bot decided > that you looked suspicious.

That's already how fraud protection works in the majority of banks.

<comment><USER5> Far from the same.

A bank might suspend your checking account if it detects suspicious financial transactions on the account. The goal here is (ostensibly) to protect the account owner.

Google, as per the precedents it has repeatedly set, could suspend your checking account for participating in a stream on YouTube and following the streamer's instructions to spam chat with emotes in order to vote on his path through the game, as happened to Markiplier and his followers. That's far beyond what anyone should consider reasonable risk for being able to access their bank account.

<comment><USER6> The bank might suspend your card until you clear it up (and my bank is much lighter touch, granted after having blocked my card a dozen times), it doesn't close your account and lock you out of all your financial services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Given Google's reputation for avoiding any type of direct customer support, I'm perplexed as to why they are trying to do this.

It's one thing to offer an online product suite without any support, it's a completely other thing to offer a product that is as heavily regulated as banking services.

They're probably not going to earn any significant amount from providing a checking account. I can only assume that they're after the transaction data itself (looking for patterns, etc.), but I find it hard to believe that the payoff would be large enough to endure the pain that is the current regulatory environment surrounding banking. Especially when you're notorious for avoiding personal interactions.

<comment><USER8> I have Google Fi and bought from Google Store. Their customer service has been fantastic.

Maybe my experience is one of the few exceptions but I know a bunch of people who also had a great experience with customer support by Google.

<comment><USER9> I just checked what it is. Isn't it a bit expensive?

$70/m for a mobile plan seems ridicilous.

<comment><USER10> said no one that lives in the US, ever!

It always blows my mind how that whenever you go anywhere in the world, you can get amazing mobile plans (data and call / sms) for $10-$30 dollars per month.

<comment><USER11> Probably has something to do with the size. I'd imagine covering a country like Denmark or Ireland is considerably easier and cheaper for a smaller company then covering the US would be.

<comment><USER12> You would be surprised to see prices for mobile Internet in Russia

<comment><USER13> & in India.

<comment><USER14> How is the rural coverage? Is it better than the rural coverage in the US?

<comment><USER13> Yes, atleast 3G is everywhere, 4G is I think most of the places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those who think that google locking arbitrarily your google account isn't fun enough...

And also for those who reject adblockers and are happy to see google roaming through all their financial transactions (and health information [1])

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project- nightin...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project-nightingale- gathers-personal-health-data-on-millions-of- americans-11573496790?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=4)

<comment><USER15> They already have much of your financials. They buy them like everyone else that wants to know.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/05/23...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/05/23/google-now-knows-when-you-are-at-a-cash-register-and-how- much-you-are-spending/)

<comment><USER16> But they use "custom encryption technology" to solve a problem they have created themselves.

I cannot see how you can not be happy about that. This is definitively not a lie or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Besides the privacy risks with full on moving your banking to Google, I think another big issue is when they decide this product isn't profitable any more, and/or some other department in Google comes up with banking 2.0 and you end up having to move all your bill payments, auto draft, etc back out. If we thought killing Google Reader was bad, killing your bank app would be even worse.

<comment><USER18> It sounds like Citi bank is providing most of the actual services so they'd probably roll the account fully on to them in that event.

<comment><USER19> So Google is the middle man? I'd rather just go straight to Citi directly, and get customer support on the phone or in-person

<comment><USER18> Yeah I'm not sure what Google's value add is. It might be like how Simple Bank was partnered with BBVA to run the back end (before BBVA straight up bought them).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Temporarily disregarding the other concerns, I much more trust Google's security since they have the option to require a security key to login (Advanced Protection Program), no other bank I know of can do that for their customers' accounts. Having no phone support could also be seen as a positive to prevent social engineering, assuming you can get support over email or live chat.

<comment><USER21> The concern isn't Google's security it's that google will ban you with poor customer service and no recourse

<comment><USER22> Presumably that's why GP said "Temporarily disregarding the other concerns".

<comment><USER21> Temporarily disregarding the issue at hand to talk about something unrelated is still off topic even if you disclaim it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This increasing spread of FAANG companies across all domains in an attempt to keep customers completely contained in their ecosystem reminds me of the megacorps in the Shadowrun universe. We are not too far away from the point where national law does not apply to them any more. It is certainly already hard to make tax laws stick. And all the googlers that are proud to slave away for that particular overlord remind me of the sarari men.

<comment><USER24> No, it's setting themselves up for breakup, an it's the FAAG, Netflix is not engaging in these shenanigans. Sad to say, you would think the most corrupted of the FAANGs would be the entertainment company, but they are the most pure of them all.

<comment><USER25> GAFAM is what the french use and I think it is most fitting [0].

[0]: [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAFAM](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAFAM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Count me out. I already stay away from them as much as possible (ProtonMail over Gmail, DuckDuckGo vs Google search, I never log in to youtube and on Android where you are required I always use incognito, etc., etc.). No way in hell I am going to give Google of all companies my complete financial transaction records so they can "analyze" it and sell it to someone. I'm sure my bank probably already does it but I'd rather them do it (smaller local bank) than have Google in possession of that information.

<comment><USER27> I've made the switch to invidio.us, which let me import my subscriptions from YouTube. I love that you can switch out YT comments for Reddit comments, as well as the minimalistic appearance in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Imagine having your entire life ruined (not being able to purchase food, pay your rent and or bills on time, etc) because you merely WATCHED a video that politically doesn't align with the majority of their employees? You are practically asking children to watch over your money at that point.

<comment><USER29> Isn't that stuff supposed to be in authoritarian china/soviets/1984/whatever?

<comment><USER12> No, this is progressive

Also see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Every time I read another headline like this (and the healthcare one from yesterday) think of that scene from the Matrix. I realize it's not exactly a perfect metaphor, but nonetheless I have visions of an Agent Smith character saying something like this:

 _I 'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify Google and Amazon and Facebook and I realized that you're not actually businesses. Every business on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. A disease, a cancer of this planet._

<comment><USER31> Ironically, that's the exact definition of a business in modern neoliberal growth capitalism. Grow grow grow, consume all resources, eat all competition. "Natural equilibrium with the environment"? Please...

<comment><USER32> I don't get the downvotes, it's painfully obvious that any company that is not on an exponential growth path is a failure in today's world. And the opposite, a failed company (uber & co) on an exponential growth path is almost praised as a divinity.

There is no end game, we need more superfluous gadgets, faster things, smarter things, for what ? God knows, but it seems we can't do without it. We won't stop until we're forced to.

<comment><USER33> > it's painfully obvious that any company that is not on an exponential growth > path is a failure in today's world.

I _dramatically_ disagree with that characterization. VCs and the startup world think that it's "growth or failure". There are a massive number of businesses where stable is fine (though mild growth would be preferable). You just don't hear about them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We are un/intentionally creating single points of failure and dependance in our lives. We now depend on Amazon for all retail goods and (90%?) all web services and soon to be grocery shopping. Then Google is our email, documents, photos, cell phone provider, and now bank. I could Apple and FB, etc but this basically wipes out our life the minute we get locked out of our Google or Amazon accounts.

<comment><USER35> And single points for, say, interested governments to collect information on us.

<comment><USER34> Yep and the marketing industrial complex... why not have all my banking/net worth info in the same data warehouse as my gmail, google voice/fi, photos and stored documents. Amazon can handle my healthcare, retail, shopping and household conversations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My goodness. I don't even trust Google enough to let them have access to any of my financial or payment info. I'd rather keep cash under a mattress than trust them with holding money.

</comment><comment><USER37> I am surprised Google hasn't started Business Card similar to Amazon Business Card (5% cash back on AWS and Amazon Purchases). Businesses that use Google Ads (and Google Cloud) are far higher compared to who maintain a business account on Amazon.

Wouldn't data on Business Purchases be higher in value?

<comment><USER38> Higher in value to what? Consumer transaction data would be a valuable data set for purposes of targeted advertisements. Seems one hand washes the other.

<comment><USER37> Google runs B2B Ads too.

<comment><USER38> I don't know this but I presume advertisement revenue from users is larger compared to revenue from B2B ads. Or at least that is my basis for why consumer transaction data would be more valuable as a supplement to advertisement targeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So what happens if I'm posting too many emojis on youtube? [1]

I know I'm losing my email account as well all my personal data on Google Drive and in Google Photos. Am I also going to lose my bank account if I'm careless enough to bank with Google?

[1] [https://www.insider.com/markiplier-youtube-fans-heist- lost-a...](https://www.insider.com/markiplier-youtube-fans-heist-lost-access- google-accounts-spamming-emotes-2019-11)

</comment><comment><USER40> I am assuming they would want read-access to your account, transactions and all of this to help them build some ML to adapt advertising and other avenues. Google probably builds one of the most comprehensive profiles of each user it has. It will likely continue to find ways to get in more data businesses (hence this checking thing) to get more and more data. For google it doesn't even matter if they have people thinking about what to USE that data for. The algorithms they run will find correlations - transactions or otherwise - <USER2> might surface if you have HIV, are interested in porn, are worth hiring. It does not matter if these are questions they are thinking about - the ML will find those questions and answer them - and then tie that to all of their products, including advertising and selling profiles.

</comment><comment><USER41> What's next, Apple announcing Apple Cloud Services? This year has been crazy with how much big tech is trying to create walled gardens for consumers.

<comment><USER42> It's the only way to continue the infinite growth model. Maximize rent seeking.

<comment><USER43> swimming in more cash than you can even think what to do with helps.

<comment><USER44> Perhaps that's why they're getting into real estate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The first time I tried to break the cycle with Google was for NYE 2011, but Gmail was impossible to get rid of at the time. The last redesign has meant that I literally more than prefer Thunderbird nowadays, and it's no longer considered weird to not want e-mail/Facebook/etc on your phone, so I'm aiming to dump Gmail for real for 2020.

Since they killed off so many services pretty much the only thing else that I use is Google Cloud. Current plan is

\- Disposable account for my phone until I replace it a new phone that has no identifying marks shared with the old account. Probably create a new disposable account for the replacement phone and disable sync

\- Otherwise unused Gmail account to own the gcloud stuff

\- Delete my domain, move e-mail to pretty much doesn't matter any more, I'm back to where the only thing I actually need is POP3. It's insane that somehow this happened but it did. It's 1998 all over again

<comment><USER46> I switched to iCloud as my primary email account and use Mail on macOS and iOS. Good enough for how I use email.

GMail is an awful experience these days and would consistently bury important messages (to me anyways) in the tabs/buckets (or whatever they're called) no matter how many times I would drag them back to Inbox/Primary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I lost my home due to a large amount debt I couldn't pay . I tried applying for a loan last month so I could get a bigger apartment for myself. All along, I thought I had a clean record only to find out that I had an initial eviction and some other negatives with a very low score of 435 which prevented me from getting the loan I seek. I met JAMEY GARRISON services online. I really appreciate meeting him. He helped me increase my score to a high 789 and all the negative items on my report were removed. I got everything I required and even more. As i speak, I'm now at the brim of getting a very big home. I want to fulfill my promise to him for such a discreet delivery in a relatively short time and at an affordable price. So here I am recommending JAMEYGARRISCREDITREPAIR AT GMAIL DOT COM or (970)414-1303.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm interested in why Google is partnering with Citi, assuming the rumors are true. Citi is notorious for having some of the worst tech amongst the churning community (churning is when you sign up for credit cards/bank accounts solely for the signup bonus which are ludicrously valuable in comparison to the ongoing rewards/perks of having the account; after the bonus is obtained you close the account and reopen it later once you are once again eligible for the signup bonus).

I originally thought the adage was a joke, but it really isn't. I signed up for a Citi checking account (purely for the signup bonus) and they have two interfaces for transferring money to other banks. One looks new but outright doesn't work. The other looks old, but does work. 90% of the links on the Citi account dashboard point to the new/non-functional interface. The other 10% point to the old/functional interface. All of the confirmation emails received for transferring money were clearly generated by a very, very old system (plain text HTML with spaces/asterisks used to space out content).

I also literally could not find the routing number for my checking account on their website. I had to use the live chat to ask for it.

A non paywalled (but different) article: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/13/google- ch...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/13/google-checking- accounts-cache-citigroup-bank)

<comment><USER49> On the other hand, maybe this is exactly why they are interested in partnering with Google. If the bank agrees that they are loosing on the technology side, it would definitely make sense (at least on the boardroom PowerPoint) to partner with one of the leading tech companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Wondering why it took Google so long to want to get there. The data mining that will occur on these checking accounts is valuable to their ad business.

However, if they add some revolutionary features to it, happy to join. Or, they could just buy Revolut.

</comment><comment><USER51> So you have your paycheck direct-deposited, and you pay all your bills on this account, so Google now knows your income, your rent, your indebtedness, where you have all of your accouts (mortgage, auto loan, credit cards).

<comment><USER52> I wouldn't be surprised if they already know most of those things. They can be gleaned from things who I get email from in Gmail, things I Google, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The article includes a chart from McKinsey showing what company users would trust more to handle their finances. Amazon is number one, Google is two, Apple is just behind Google, and Facebook is dead last.

I can sort of understand putting Amazon first, though I personally wouldn't, but I can't imagine rating Google ahead of Apple. Apple isn't perfect at services, but I would definitively trust it over Google with my money.

As it stands, Google already has so much information on me, I'll be damned if I would ever put my checking account into that. No. Just no.

</comment><comment><USER54> zwkrt's Tenth Rule of Startups:

Any sufficiently complicated tech company or venture-backed enterprise contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of a credit union.

</comment><comment><USER55> First, who writes checks any more? Second, who the hell wants Google monitoring their financial transactions [more than they do already]?

This just seems monumentally misguided.

</comment><comment><USER56> Even if you don't use their bank services, your financial privacy is not safe. The had a deal with MasterCard to gain access to credit card transactions:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google- an...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and- mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales)

</comment><comment><USER57> Google did few good things. But now it is trying to substitute The Internet.

Well thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to my old luddite way of doing things.

</comment><comment><USER58> There is no reason for them to do this except to have 100% visibility into your purchasing behavior. To serve you more ads, better.

</comment><comment><USER59> I would be way too stressed out about losing access due to the whims of google. This is about as tempting as a kick to the sacks.

</comment><comment><USER43> Is there a history of people who went from entrepreneurship -> industry -> became rich -> opened a Bank? In older times these would be loan sharks but have other industrialists done that?

And is this the best use of the mountains of cash that these companies (google-apple-facebook) have hoarded?

<comment><USER60> Financial services as a whole are inherently a large part of the economy so it's reasonable to see why they're going after it. Warren Buffet attributes a large part of his success to his insurance interests and the capital (to invest) made available to Berkshire Hathaway via the float.

There's also the Japanese model of group companies centered around a bank: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Well, it's not just channel deletion anymore, soon they'll be able to deny thought criminals access to their money (in other words, steal their money).

It'll eventually come to the point where thought criminals won't be able to get police protection or get healthcare.

We live in a society, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER62> Hopefully they wont lock your accounts if you violate their TOS elsewhere in their ecosystem...

</comment><comment><USER63> From a contrarian investing perspective, the number of non-finance companies branching into finance indicates that we are near the end of this credit cycle. This is large-scale capitulation.

</comment><comment><USER64> What is the expected value-added Google intends to provide the banks?

<comment><USER65> lower cost of doing business; better user experience¹.

¹ ymmv.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> One of the advantages of being a software engineer is that almost every industry needs software.

One of the scariest things about a potential software monopoly is that every industry needs software.

</comment><comment><USER67> my name is tracy. have been through alot about looking for a good credit expert, finally i found one of the best, he helped me overcome the challenges about my low credit score, you will love to work with me, he is the best i have ever work with,you can ask him via email:JAMEYGARRISCREDITREPAIR AT GMAIL DOT COM or (970)414-1303.he increase my credit score from 400 to 850 and clear my debts also. and for your information he is great and his service is the best

</comment><comment><USER68> Why is it that these gigantic SV companies can't manage to operate a bank? It's like they don't want to rock that boat.

</comment><comment><USER69> Now you can get your checking account shutdown when Google decides to exit the business, instead of just your profile

</comment><comment><USER70> Can anyone think of any positives that this may have? All I have read is a ton of negative comments on this.

</comment><comment><USER71> For the same reasons I don't want Facebook to have a new crypto currency, just, no. While this isn't _as_ bad... I just don't see this as particularly good. I, personally, think more people should favor smaller, local banks and credit unions over the large national banks as it is.

</comment><comment><USER72> I think this is one of those things that just should not be allowed.

</comment><comment><USER73> They will use this data to create a hedge fund.

</comment><comment><USER74> A checking account? Literally an account for writing checks from? How many people are writing checks these days?

<comment><USER75> Assuming you have money, where do you keep it?

<comment><USER74> In a current account. I don't need to write checks, ever.

<comment><USER75> That's a synonym for "checking account." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_account](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_account)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> What are they checking for?

</comment><comment><USER77> Let's write this out in TeX:

$hell^{no}$

</comment><comment><USER78> Because you should absolutely lose access to your money when Google's algorithms decide your YouTube comments are spam.

<comment><USER79> The Cast System of 2020:

\+ Those with Amazon Prime and Google

\+ Those with only Google

\+ Those banned from Google

<comment><USER80> \- Heathen refuseniks who refuse to do business with any of them.

<comment><USER81> Those people don't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> President Elizabeth Warren will put a stop to this.</comment>


50 Cent Party (price of Chinese pro-government blogger) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

<comment><USER2> Nothing new, something similar exist in India currently, which was probably formed after the last general elections, who created it, is not clear, but it is working against the government though. The nature of the comments state that it is not hired by any international organisation, thus raising fingers on the opposition party BJP.</comment>


Theranos Reaches Settlement with Walgreens - <AUTHOR> https://news.theranos.com/2017/08/01/theranos-reaches-settlement-walgreens/ <comment><USER2> I suspect we are going to see Theranos pivot to becoming a conventional medical technology company, probably focusing on lab tech for blood work analysis etc. They are likely to disappear from public consciousness until we hear about an acquisition by a Siemens type company.

They got here through hype, smoke and mirrors, but they now have the capital, social network and core organizational processes in place to do this and it is a rational path to recouping time and $ investments from everyone involved.

However it will be difficult/impossible for this to pivot to happen without Elizabeth Holmes' resignation.

<comment><USER3> There is damaged and there is zombie state. I suspect Theranos is in the zombie state, too wealthy to fold but it is really no longer alive. Damage you can recover from Theranos as a brand is so tainted that no other company with a successful line of medical devices will ever want to be associated with them for fear of getting contaminated by proximity, and no customers will sign on for fear of being used as a stooge in the next round of fraud.

Any acquisition of Theranos will be after the book is closed and the assets are sold off. People working there will likely have a big hole in their resume's that they'd rather not talk about.

<comment><USER4> From John Carreyou on June 22:

[https://twitter.com/JohnCarreyrou/status/877499269191782402](https://twitter.com/JohnCarreyrou/status/877499269191782402)

>Theranos burning $10 mln a month, will have less than $30 mln left after Walgreens settlement. You do the math...

Liquidating office equipment:

[https://twitter.com/startuplqdtr/status/873385484860313600](https://twitter.com/startuplqdtr/status/873385484860313600)

<comment><USER5> Is @startuplqdtr a Twitter parody site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Theranos is clearly a failure. 14 years of wasting investors money, 700million (?) down the drain, nothing to show for it except bad publicity, FBI and FDA investigations and major compliance issues.

At what point do investors pull the plug / fire CEO and move on?

<comment><USER6> 686.3million in 9 rounds (!!) to be exact. this is like a bad soap opera.

they were seeking to raise additional 200million. These VCs are insane.

IF (!!!) this ever worked they would be - 1billion before shipping any product. Whoever puts anymore money into this should ask for at this point majority of the equity no questions asked.

<comment><USER7> I think Color was worse, no?

(Edit: actually no, they raised "only" 41Mi)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, for someone not following this particularly closely -- what _is_ next for Theranos?

I know settling with Walgreens was a big goal of theirs, but I don't remember if that was the end of their legal troubles. Similarly, they mention their investors, which makes me wonder if they have issues on that front as well. (eg, did they lie when they sold shares?)

Even after the settlement though, they probably have a huge pile of cash -- and at least some investors are willing to let them try something with it.

<comment><USER9> Does their technology actually work, or will it soon? Doesn't their future depend on shipping what they promised?

<comment><USER10> That's the problem - there is no technology.

<comment><USER11> If the investors aren't shutting down Theranos, then there is a possibility their due diligence on Holmes' patents held out hope of patent trolling someone with deep pockets in the future, or some other similar hope pinned upon those patents. My limited layman's understanding of their microfluidics- based claims is they violated currently-known assaying principles. Hope someone with deeper knowledge about this can pipe in, I've only seen some rants from claimed clinicians when they first announced way back, with terms that went way over my head, and they summed up the rant's TL;DR as, if she really figured it out, she'd be publishing and collecting a Nobel or two, as she would've upended a century of what we believe is statistically possible.

However, if instead of using their "nanotainer", a fancy name for a very small blood sample container, some future microfluidics implementation used _in vivo_ implanted chips, and can build up a sampling profile over time say, and some of her patents stand smack in the road of that deployment, then they could recoup some of their money.

<comment><USER4> Last time I looked, their patents were vague to the point of being worthless.

<comment><USER11> There were a number of patents assigned this year. Surprisingly many, for a company in seemingly so much trouble [1]; this display makes it easier to see the assignment dates [2]. Perhaps this is staying the hand of the investors for now, and they're performing some independent due diligence.

[1] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Theranos&FIELD1=ASNM&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PTXT)

[2] [http://patents.justia.com/assignee/theranos- inc](http://patents.justia.com/assignee/theranos-inc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unrelated, but that website had around 100 words of actual article, and a bunch of unnecessary other information. The date, for example, was repeated _twice_ , and there was a link to Theranos's website (not to mention a short "about" paragraph) _on their own website_.

<comment><USER13> It's a press release. The expectation is that this will get picked up and placed into a number of different sources.

They don't expect a particularly high volume of traffic visiting this page directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How are they still in existence?

<comment><USER6> Personal connections of the current CEO. "Old boys club" fell head over heels for her.

<comment><USER15> """One of her earliest investors, Timothy Draper, was an old neighbor from childhood. Another, Don Lucas, was the friend of her father's college classmate. (Lucas brought on Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison, according to The Times.)

Holmes' father's family "moved in powerful circles," and he himself is a longtime public servant who held "a number of senior government positions in Washington," Abelson and Creswell report. Her mother was a congressional aide.

But despite those Washington connections, The Times report suggests that Theranos' powerful board — which includes two former senators and two former Secretaries of State — is at least in large part a credit to Holmes' power of persuasion.

According to the Times, she met George P. Schultz, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State and one of the company's first high-powered board members, at a conference."""

[http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-elizabeth-holmes- new...](http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-new-york- times-family-2015-12)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I first read this I thought it said "Thanos Reaches Settlement with Walgreens". :)</comment>


Show HN: MailSlayer - Do More with Email - <AUTHOR>

MailSlayer is a Chrome and (coming very soon) Firefox extension that plugs in to Gmail to add powerful apps to your workflow which help you Write Organize and Send emails more efficiently.
We are currently developing an API that will allow 3rd party developers add their own apps to the Platform and would love your feedback!
If you want to get in touch, you can email me at greg at mailslayer dot com.
www.mailslayer.com
Thanks, Greg <comment><USER2> Clicky link --- <http://www.mailslayer.com/>

The features page is confusing. There are 4 features described through 4 screengrabs and 4 pieces of text, but the pieces of text are not in general next to the respective screengrab. You've numbered them, but it's still confusing.

Also there's no indication of what apps are available.</comment>


Ask HN: Could you implement News.YC in your favorite language? - <AUTHOR>

State the language/framework and how long it would take you. <comment><USER2> I built a version of it in Rails in a day or two once just for fun. It wasn't quite production-ready, but all the functionality was there.

<comment><USER3> Would you be willing to share it? I've been wanting to implement something like news.yc for my family, to replace the mass emails being sent around every once in a while, but haven't had the time due to my project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seconded. Open source it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ok: Classic ASP, and about a week... or Python/django in about a day.

So, why are you asking this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to implement something similar, don't want to pick a bad framework.

<comment><USER5> The code that runs news.yc is open source, eh?

<http://arclanguage.org/install>

(see news.arc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Arc / about a year and a half.

<comment><USER7> of course, given hacker news, and arc, you could do it in no time at all :)</comment></comment>


Microsoft WebsiteSpark - <AUTHOR> http://www.websitespark.com/ <comment><USER2> That's great and all, but if you decide to keep the Microsoft platform as your business grows, there's no direct upgrade path from their web editions.

Format and reload with Standard/Enterprise.

<comment><USER3> For web development, why do you need more? What are the limitations?

Also, have you run into this before? I would imagine they would offer straight upgrades or "unlocking" of the web editions to upgrade, is this not the case?

<comment><USER2> I won't argue that it's perfect for Web Development. However, from the offer, it seems to point at having the free software host (in production) your website. If your business grows where you need additional products or services that expand beyond this offer, you must upgrade if you decide to stick within the Microsoft framework.

There is no "unlock" functionality to go from Web Edition to anything else -- you must format and reload. It's one of the features to help upsell customers to purchase Standard/Enterprise from the beginning.

<comment><USER3> Ah, that kind of stinks about the unlocking function not being there.

Only thing I can think of is that if your business is growing so you need upgrades, at least your business is growing? haha. I can definitely see why this could be a potential bottle neck, but for freelancers and side-businesses it probably won't be as much of an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In case someone pops in without looking at the site, it's basically a way for small web design companies to get the MS Platform for free.

<comment><USER5> What exactly is the MS Platform? Is this web hosting using Windows Servers, or free software to develop websites?

<comment><USER4> From the program guide:

Technology offering: The WebsiteSpark technology offering for participating Web professional companies currently includes:

\- For design, development, testing and demonstration of new websites--for a total of up to three users per Web design and development company:

* Visual Studio Professional

* Expression Studio 2 or 3 (1 user) and Expression Web 2 or 3 (up to 2 users)

* Windows Web Server 2008 or R2 (when available)

* SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

\- For production use: that is, to deploy and host new websites developed using Program software - using a total of up to four processors per Web design and development company, of the following (physical or virtual) dedicated servers:

* Windows Web Server 2008 R2 (when available)

* SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

Deployments may be on 4 servers or VMs of 1processor each, on 2 servers or VMs of 2 processors each, or on 1 server or VM of 4-processors.

<comment><USER6> I wonder what SQL Server _Web Edition_ is and how it is different from regular SQL Server - is it non-relational?

And how is Windows _Web Server_ different from regular Windows Server - can't you install Apache or IIS on _any_ Windows?

<comment><USER3> To my knowledge the "web" editions (used them before, briefly) are just trimmed down fluff removed copies. They're built specifically for serving web content and don't have quite as many services and features installed as you would expect from a server meant to be say, an AD domain.

I may be slightly off here, but this was my understanding of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> the bizspark program is much better.

Rather than getting just free web software, you get pretty much all microsoft software for free for 3 years.

<comment><USER3> The bizspark program is definitely nice, but for people like me who do freelance work for other people on the side it's not a viable solution, I recall a limited number of years in business, and something along the lines of being a startup, not a freelancer.

This however might make it possible for me to venture out into new territory, easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know another great suite of tools you can get for free. It's commonly known as LAMP.

Or Ruby/Rails, or Python/Django...

<comment><USER3> I use Ruby/Rails, LAMP, haven't tried Django yet but I already have a project planned out for it.

In my limited experience, I find nothing is quite as nice as VS for a development environment. I enjoy the other frameworks just as much, but there is a huge gap in usability and ease of starting between the two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is it that every other company on the planet can name things without them sounding lame and corporate? Microsoft has this bizarre design deficiency that I've never heard properly explained. Good design is not as hard as they make it seem.

<comment><USER10> I think BizSpark (for product businesses) and DreamSpark (for students), are both great names. WebsiteSpark sounds lame, I think WebSpark would be a much better name, but I'd guess someone is already operating under that name

<comment><USER9> _Spark sounds too Orwellian for my tastes, I guess. Like, Spark is such a weird-sounding addon descriptor that I automatically assume it's being attached to something low-quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Way too little. Way too late. I fail to see how this could be of interest to anyone, certainly not to anyone not already on the Microsoft stack.

<comment><USER3> Because the .NET framework actually is a nice development environment? Especially with MVC?

I'm interested in it, as I am forced to use VB @ work (no, I don't like VB, I'd much rather use C# on the .NET platform, and I do when I do personal dev with .NET) and honestly, I have yet to find a development environment quite as nice as what VS offers.

I think it offers a great way for developers who work as cogs to enhance their sidebusiness and cut their costs, I do a lot of work on multiple platforms, but I've considered signing up and pushing some clients towards .NET because it's a rich development environment and now actually cheap enough to do small sites with on the side.

<comment><USER11> You fall into the category of people already on the Microsoft stack then, don't you?

I got the impression from this whole thing (and Microsoft's recent behavior in general) is that they're trying to entice the non-Microsoft people over to their stack... And I (personally) think this is a weak offering, especially considering how happy I am with my current workflow and tools.

<comment><USER3> Depends, what qualifies me as being on the Microsoft stack? My day job deals with .NET to COBOL/JCL, my free time I spend with Rails and supporting other peoples poorly written php(grr...), on OSX, not in Windows....so I don't think I'm already on the stack, I use it for my day job because it's the standard I have to follow (no one I know willing chooses vb.net over C# :().

<comment><USER11> Fair enough, then. In that case you are exactly the kind of person I'm suggesting wouldn't be swayed. Are you going to switch to Windows just for this? Are you going to drop Rails because Microsoft has decided to grace us with a non-prohibitively-priced copy of their tools? For me, the answer is a massive 'no'. I could be wrong about you, of course :)

<comment><USER3> haha, it's not so black and white for me. I can't swear loyalty to any one platform because I'm too curious not to try them all. I LOVE working in .NET, it has taught me a lot, I don't want to switch away from it....on the same note I LOVE working with Rails, it's a pleasure, pretty, 'feels good writing' framework, that has also, taught me a lot.

I'm the same with with operating systems, I like using them all (now that I have Windows 7 that is), so I have a desktop PC for Win7+VS+Gaming, my macbook for LAMP style development and my Linode VPS for handling my own *nix server and bash/shell/testing/personal hosting...I just can't switch to one platform when they all have a different purpose..right tool for the job kind of thing.

Really, I just like to mix it up, I don't want to get locked into any one platform, but if a job pops up that the client wants .NET, why not do it with free professional level software?

<comment><USER11> Everything you say makes sense to me.

...Except that last part. If a job pops up and a client wants .NET, I would strongly encourage them against it. Why? Well like you said, you don't want to be locked in. Why would you be ok with locking in the client? If that client's site gets bigger and they need another box or what-have-you -- oops, that's another X thousand dollars for another license, etc. That sort of thing would not be ok with me.

Of course, I'm not a freelancer, so maybe my take on client-is-always-right will vary wildly from yours :)

<comment><USER3> No I agree, I would prefer not to work in .NET for my personal development honestly, but I do know that like my shop, some corporations or small businesses are already locked into the Microsoft stack, and won't consider something like Rails or Django for their production applications.

Obviously these are normally for more business oriented, intranet style applications, not normally public sites, so scaling is a little different and normally they will have their own server licenses already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Learn More" loads a PDF. Yech.

</comment><comment><USER13> I thought it's a microsoft service to park domains.</comment>