PaulT 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (29334)

• On the post: Twitter Sued For Not Paying Rent On Its SF Headquarters And Its London Offices

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 02:04pm

  "What is there to renegotiate?" The rent? "They don’t need the space at all and they are breaking the lease." Most people would inform the landlord and negotiate an exit plan before breaking the agreement. "This is perfectly normal business you stupid shit." Deciding to not pay bills until the point where you get sued for keeping the property and not paying for it is normal to you? I mean, I can believe that given your standards here, but most normal people would give notice or negotiate terms to retain the lease.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:59pm

  "Netflix has stopped using their taste-watching algorithm and now just slaps “98% match” on whatever they want to push at viewers" Yeah, this is a big problem. It means people don't see what they actually want to see, and get things they find uninteresting. I regularly have conversations where I recommend things people didn't know were there. I don't think that's a good thing...

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:34am

  Amazon ratings are also garbage if they're negative. The number of times I've seen "reviews" that are just whining that the package was late, they ordered the wrong thing, someone who loved a movie but gave it one star because they don't understand what rating systems mean, etc. Some review platforms are better than others, but "1/10 my 5 year old doesn't like horror movies" in't going to tell me whether or not the sequel to Orphan is worth me watching and more than "10/10, haven't watched it yet but I love The Rock" will tell me if I want to watch Black Adam.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:31am

  So, instead of the price rising for... reasons (what? they're still growing, still profitable, why do they need to do that?), you'd rather people be falsely accused of misusing their accounts? Which will lead to a drop in subscribers and thus likely a price increase.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:29am

  Nah, I don't think so, I've been using for a long time! I'm not sure if it's available with Letterboxd normally or you have to subscribe, but its killer feature for me right now is that you can set the services in Letterboxd that you have. Then, you can filter lists of movies to see which are available on streaming, etc., and get alerts when movies in your watchlist are available elsewhere. That's such a great use of Justwatch integration.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:25am

  "God forbid a company try to make its customers pay for its products." How did I know that the usual shower of morons would make shit up here? Nobody objects to that. What they object to are people already paying for and using the service under it's T&Cs being told they need to pay more money for the same service, because they use the service in ways Netflix explicitly told them was OK in the past. Don't tell me we're in for another tiresome few years where people point out real issues and absolute fucking morons keeps calling them thieves because they're too fucking stupid to understand the actual arguments? That got tired a long time ago. Address the issues and stop lying about the words in front of you.

• On the post: Twitter Tumbleweed Watch

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 01:21am

  He did't call you a racist, he used racist as an alternative example of how he's calling people for what they are. It's interesting both that you took that so personally, and you didn't complain about being labelled a fascist (which he didn't, but the words surrounding fascist imply the same meaning as the one you object to). Your mistakes are very revealing.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 06:49am

  "I’ve been a paying customer since they started here in Brazil" I've been a paying customer since before they started offering streaming where I live. Along with the actual programming, it's customer-friendly innovations that kept me coming back, be it downloads (manual, and while flawed the "smart download" feature has been handy if I forgot to prepare before travelling), changing available content rather than just telling me I'm not allowed to stream if I'm in a different region, etc. "It’s sad because none of the services offer an interface as good as Netflix does." I'd disagree slightly here. Prime tends to be the best for me (using the primevideo.com service available to me rather than the Amazon interface at least). The main annoyances for me are the language options (depending on device, you can't check which options are there without starting to play the title) and looking at content that's expiring (unless you have a title on your list, they won't warn you). Prime at least has a section telling you what's expiring in the next 30 days and a full list of language options. The other issue with Netflix is their insistence on pushing whatever they just added rather than what's actually relevant to the person watching. I often use Justwatch (and their tie in with Letterboxd) to see what's available or new, and I swear that there's things on there that most customers would love to watch if only they knew about it, but Netflix wants them to know that a new series they're not really interested in is there instead. It's actually a pretty bad interface sometimes if all you want to do is browse past their recommendations. I'm unlikely to unsubscribe any time soon because I have a lot of stuff I'm interested in still in my watchlist. But, I know I'm an outlier with my range of tastes and willingness to compare the value to rentals rather than other services/piracy. For some people, that value has dropped a lot.

• On the post: Netflix’s Password Sharing Cash Grab Finally Arrives In The States

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 06:21am

  I think this is a terrible idea for various reasons, many already outlined. The company was built on allowing customers to tie their streaming to a max of X number of devices streaming at the same time, and they did so while making it clear they didn't care whether those people lived together. Even to those who are sharing, it doesn't seem to them that they're doing anything from, and I suspect a lot of people who aren't sharing will start getting falsely accused. But, the key to this is how they determine what is and isn't "sharing". I can foresee a lot of false positives, and in the current era of real competition and their "jack of all trades" approach leaving them not always being the primary choice for many people, it could lead to a net loss of subscribers across the board. We'll see how it goes, but this seems to be the classic blunder the music industry made when it first started freaking out about file sharing - a download != a lost sale. In this case, a shared account != a lost subscriber. As with that history, the crackdown might be way more damaging than addressing customer needs, only in this case it could be even worse because they'll not be attacking people who they think are freeloading, but the people who pay them for those accounts as well. Once you stop listening to those and try dictating what customers should put up with, the outlook isn't good.

• On the post: New Report: Twitter’s Ad Revenue Woes Are Even Worse Than Expected

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 02:44am

  I'd say that would be a great revenue stream - but can you imagine the food standards that he would be avoiding to get the product out of the door? I certainly wouldn't want to eat it.

• On the post: Twitter Sued For Not Paying Rent On Its SF Headquarters And Its London Offices

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 02:38am

  Musk a year ago: I'm a business genius, and I can make so much money for Twitter if I was only allowed to tell them how. Musk today: erm, after forcing $1 billion extra overhead, chasing away advertisers, devaluing a free service in return for a paid replacement nobody wants and firing most of the people who understood the business, money isn't rolling in. How about not paying bills and auctioning off furniture? On a vaguely related side note, this partly reminds me of stories I've been listening to about Andrew Tate. Apart from his sex trafficking operation, apparently his main source for his fortune was "Hustler's University", where he sells bad advice to gullible teenagers wanting shortcuts to escape the looming drudgery of life. His "genius" advice seems to have included: don't bother with legal/tax paperwork or even inventory before you start selling stuff, trick friends and family into working for you for free, then lie to them about revenue when you decide how little to pay them. Yeah, anyone can have a profitable business so long as you don't pay your bills...

• On the post: Twitter Tumbleweed Watch

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 02:23am

  I mean, there are caveats, I presume. When they stop being newsworthy, there will be no news and people will stop commenting on the news that happens, and its impact on everyone else. Whether that's because they've been driven out of business or reduced to constant irrelevance by Musk's actions remains to be seen, but I think the smart money is on one of those.

• On the post: Twitter Tumbleweed Watch

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 02:18am

  They'll probably whine that whichever platforms decent people go to avoid them are being unfair for having enforced standards and continue whining the same way they do now. They won't be happy until they have a legally enforced audience for their idiocy. Which will never happen, as it's as counter to common sense and decency as it is to the actual concept of free speech.

• On the post: Court Laughs Off OAN Conspiracy Network’s Claim It Was ‘Censored’ By DirecTV

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2023 @ 06:49am

  "It’s unconstitutional when the government does it" Yes. Such is the difference between government and private actors. "violates the principles of free speech when private platforms do it" No, it's other people exercising their own free speech. One major principle of free speech is others getting to tell you to shut up. Another is free association, which is other people telling you they don't want you associating with them. This is the concept you don't understand. If other people tell you that they don't want to be near you, that's not a violation of your rights. It would be a violation of everyone else's rights to force them to associate with you. Maybe instead of whining about how it's not fair that nobody likes you, it might occur to you to work out why that's the case.

• On the post: Facebook And Instagram Agree To Restore Trump’s Accounts

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2023 @ 06:42am

  "Large generic speech platforms should not be censoring opinions based on viewpoint" No matter how much you repeat this, it's not true. "If they do, they should be encouraged / shamed / bought out to stop doing that." They're already being "encouraged" and "shamed" by idiots like you. There's reasons why nobody listens to you. As for being "bought out" - interesting... you disagree with the way others exercise their freedoms of speech and free association, and your "solution" to that is to take their property if they don't comply with your wishes. I do love it when you guys admit that your problem is other people having different opinions while retaining property rights, and you prefer oligarchy/communism (depending on whether you mean corporate or government takeover) to allowing such disagreement. But, such is the recourse of those who have already lost in the free market and the marketplace of ideas.

• On the post: Biden Administration Declares War On The Internet, Clears Path For Offensive Hacking Efforts By Federal Agencies

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 05:36pm

  "Masnick literally defends it almost daily, mostly by pretending it didn’t occur." "And he has very explicitly supported censorship in general" What's fun is that because this forum is not censored, you can make this claim, but few regulars would believe you. Yet, it's a trivial exercise to back up your claim with proof of your assertions. "going so far as to say “moderation is free speech” which is just the most fucked New Speak possible." One day, you people will get it through your thick skulls that free speech does not mean freedom from consequences, and moderation is simply other people exercising their own speech. I know you disagree with the speech others exercise, but when you're in a group of people and you say things that annoy/offend/abuse others in the group, they may ask you to leave. This applies online and offline, and you can't force others to accept you. If you won't agree to leave, others will and go somewhere you don't bother them. I suspect this is something you experience regularly in the physical world, which is why you waste so much energy here.

• On the post: AI Lawyer Has A Sad: Bans People From Testing Its Lawyering After Being Mocked

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 05:08pm

  "Josh added a clause to the TOS prohibiting users from testing the website prior to using it in a live dispute." Because if there's anything a software developer will tell you, it's shove everything into production, no need for test/QA environments! Sadly, that's not completely sarcastic, I've known devs who did that. Note the past tense there...

• On the post: Facebook And Instagram Agree To Restore Trump’s Accounts

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 04:29pm

  "flipping out about Twitter un-banning Trump without “process” was pretty dumb because they banned him without process" Is that what you're being told? The process is pretty clear from where I sit, and in fact it was clear that they singled him out for exceptions from the process until keeping him around threatened their bottom line. "But you don’t hate Zuckerberg" Lol. "Tried it, it was awful" I'm fairly sure that you'll find that not having right-wing trolls on social media was as far away from awful as many people can imagine. You might not have liked it, but for some of us not having nonsense hatred inserted into random conversations was quite nice. "So FB isn’t going to ban Trump cuz it’s politically untenable to do so" https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/26/facebook-conservatives-2020-421146 Yeah, not for the reasons you hallucinate though. "Ban him forever from the public square?" I'm wondering - how big does a platform have to be before you guys demand the means of production be seized and private property owners lose rights to it? I know you always itch for such communist takeovers, but now that you're not pretending that Twitter is the only "square" and you're admitting they have competitors that normal people manage to use simultaneously without being banned, how big do they have to be before they lose control of their property?

• On the post: Facebook And Instagram Agree To Restore Trump’s Accounts

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 03:59pm

  "You don’t get to ban something cuz you don’t like it" Fun fact: yes, we do. When someone comes into a community and causes a disruption, they can be asked to leave. You might be swearing loudly in an otherwise quiet restaurant. You might be making inappropriate comments at a waitress. You might simply be saying nothing offensive, but you chose the wrong venue to do so, such as a theatre. Nobody's afraid of what you say, we just don't want to listen to you and know from experience that letting a bunch of people who don't care about others around them gather is bad for business. "Make an argument, refute them." Or, to put it another way, force minorities who are the target of attacks to constantly defend their own existence because another minority dislikes them. No thanks, we'd rather tell the abusers to leave everyone alone. If you're told to leave premises on a regular basis, the problem is likely not everyone else. Either you're incapable of adjusting your conversation to the current social situation, or you're deliberately causing trouble. Either way, the rest of us don't have to put up with you.

• On the post: Biden Administration Declares War On The Internet, Clears Path For Offensive Hacking Efforts By Federal Agencies

  

  PaulT ( profile ), 27 Jan, 2023 @ 03:27pm

  Most countries on the internet are allies, economic or political, at least right now. There's historical precedent for former allies or enemies to change status. Why change a global internet because of a handful of bad actors? Especially ones which are largely self-isolating? Also, why take a step backwards? Satellite is far slower than the existing transatlantic cables. Unless you have stock in Starlink, there's no reasonable purpose in changing to that.

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