Bobson Dugnutt 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: TV Industry’s Idea Of Innovation: A Free TV With A Second Small TV That Constantly Shows You Ads

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 10:50am

    If it was David Byrne, I might buy it.

  • On the post: TV Industry’s Idea Of Innovation: A Free TV With A Second Small TV That Constantly Shows You Ads

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 19 May, 2023 @ 10:47am

    Or: Advertising has become such a vital fluid of capitalism that science and technology is devoted to turning the physical universe into a giant billboard.

  • On the post: Important Things At Twitter Keep Breaking, And Making The Site More Dangerous

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 01:42pm

    Never give awful things a pass

    Don't frame two awful things side by side in comparison. CSAM/animal torture bars are abjectly awful. Nazi bars are abjectly awful. They are kinds of awful, not degrees. If one is worse than the other, you end up giving the less-worse object a pass.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 01:22pm

    Luxury filters down, however. Let Lexus, Infiniti, Acura and Genesis win with this performance-as-a-subscription gambit, the same principles will in a decade or so filter down to more quotidian Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Hyundai/Kia models, respectively.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 01:19pm

    Still can’t be too sure about created jobs, though…
    For the transit system? It comes down to two choices: Do you want the transit system employees on the public ledger or off the public ledger? Transit will always be a labor-intensive endeavor. Let me pre-empt any discussions of driverless vehicles coming to save the day. Bus drivers are a vital resource beyond just piloting the vehicle; they offer customer service, help secure wheelchair passengers, monitor safety in and out of the bus ... for the relatively high compensation they earn, they are also very productive for the work they do. There are also the invisible front-line workers: the mechanics, cleaners and call center workers who are also needed to ensure orderly operation of the fleet. These workers will require a bureaucracy to allow them to work effectively. The caveat is that public employees' costs will always outgrow ridership productivity. Fares will never be able to cover the kind of high-frequency, high-ridership service riders want or need. In Asia, transit systems achieve profitability by also being in the development and property management game. (The land and buildings are always much more profitable and serve to stabilize the transit systems' operating finances.) The other alternative is to outsource operations to a private contractor. The costs are lower because the wages are lower. That's it. Same work as a public employee, at much lower wages and worse benefits. And yeah, there's always the risk that the tender changes hands and the entire workforce has to be laid off and re-apply with the new contractor. The purported cost savings of contractors have diminished over the years. For one thing, in the U.S. and Europe, there's a cartel of private companies. In the U.S., Transdev (which late last year bought competitor First Transit) and MV Transportation dominate the private market. Two other French companies, Keolis (which is the French high-speed rail operator) and RATP (which is Paris' bus and rail system) are also minor players. With a shortage of transit workers that is now global, the cost basis for private contractors is converging upon public employees and not offering the same bargain.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 12:48pm

    Enshittification of restaurants and hotels

    The analog version of this enshittification is the sock-on charges you're seeing in sit-down restaurants and hotel bookings. Restaurants (not the no-tipping ones) have begun the "we added a X% charge to cover employee healthcare/kitchen staff/Because Reasons" rather than just raise the price of the food and/or alcohol. Customers who want the charges removed can do so, but the penalty falls on the waitstaff or front of house. Workers can be fired, at worst, or have the charge taken from tips. Hotels do the "resort fee" nonsense where the additional costs cover the common areas and amenities of the property like HOA dues for a condo. Hotels started this when guests migrated to online booking in the early days of the internet. Because the internet allows for comparison shopping to get lower rates, and there was downward pressure on prices, hotels just decided to unbundle amenities and sock on the resort fees because guests were enticed by the lower initial price.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 12:28pm

    Or workable public transport.
    Realize that public transit, workable or shitty, is mostly operating costs (i.e., shit you have to pay for all the time in order to keep it). And 70% of operating costs are labor; at least 50% is the driver alone.

  • On the post: Automakers Are Making Basic Car Functions A Costly Subscription Service… Whether You Like It Or Not

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 18 May, 2023 @ 12:21pm

    In California, this is sort of a thing if you want a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. New ones are lease-only, and there's a hefty fuel subsidy. Right now, there's only one vehicle, the Toyota Mirai, but Hyundai will offer one or two models plus a semitrailer.

  • On the post: Important Things At Twitter Keep Breaking, And Making The Site More Dangerous

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 03:48pm

    Crank magnetism in action

    He's a demonstration of what RationalWiki dubs crank magnetism. A crank is someone with a bigoted, conspiracy-minded, extreme, or otherwise rational but fringe viewpoint. Magnetism refers to the nature of cranks to be attracted to one another and to accumulate multiple crank viewpoints over time.

  • On the post: Important Things At Twitter Keep Breaking, And Making The Site More Dangerous

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 17 May, 2023 @ 03:32pm

    That is an uncalled-for defamation of 💩.

  • On the post: Iron Maiden Opposes Women’s Lingerie Company For Using The Word ‘Maiden’

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 12 May, 2023 @ 10:15pm

    In addition to the torture device, which might not have existed, Iron Maiden is also New York City slang for a horizontal, floor-to-ceiling turnstile that can't be jumped and can be crossed only one way.

  • On the post: Mozilla Wonders What Social Media Could Look Like If It Started With A Clear ‘No Assholes’ Policy

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 11 May, 2023 @ 10:47am

    Bergman, did you read the room?

  • On the post: Mozilla Wonders What Social Media Could Look Like If It Started With A Clear ‘No Assholes’ Policy

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 10 May, 2023 @ 11:47pm

    Hostage taking, explained

    is asking for freedom of speech coercing anyone else into being a hostage?
    Yes. In any discourse, read the context: 1. Did the communicator say/write/perform something? 2. Was the message heard/read/seen? If you answered yes to both, congratulations, you have free speech. That's free speech for you, in a nutshell. If you answered no to either, it does not mean an act of censorship occurred. There are more than two possibilities besides free speech and censorship.
    1. In a free speech culture, communicators have both positive (the right to create) and negative (the right to withhold information) rights. Why would someone want to stay quiet? Well, they wouldn't want to say/do something against their free will and conscience, or say something that could get them or their family/friends in harm's way.
    2. Publishers and other keepers of platforms have property rights to choose what to share (positive rights) and what to withhold (negative rights).
    If you're a speaker/creator/performer, and you cannot find a platform or an audience, that is all on you. Nobody owes you their time, money, energy or attention. If the only way you can get theirs is by playing the victim, pounding a rulebook, and making people do what they otherwise wouldn't when given the choice, then you are hostage taking. You're not maintaining a conversation. You are trying to extract concessions.

  • On the post: Mozilla Wonders What Social Media Could Look Like If It Started With A Clear ‘No Assholes’ Policy

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 09 May, 2023 @ 02:14pm

    Hostage taking

    Most if not all appeals to "free speech" are moral hostage-taking. Free speech is a dead issue, since it is one of the few universally held civil liberties everyone believes in. People appealing to "free speech" are losing an argument or losing an audience, so they take free speech hostage into forcing engagement with them on their terms.

  • On the post: Adult Content Industry Sues Utah Over Porn Law

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 09 May, 2023 @ 02:04pm

    It depends on how the PPV revenues are divvied up among Marriott, the hotel owner and the TV provider.

  • On the post: Even The People Who Were Eager To Pay Elon Musk $8/Month Are Cancelling Their Blue Subscriptions

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 11:36pm

    When the WGA strike ends

    I plan to write "Epic Fail: A Twitter Tragicomedy" with a cast of 280 characters.

  • On the post: Even The People Who Were Eager To Pay Elon Musk $8/Month Are Cancelling Their Blue Subscriptions

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 08 May, 2023 @ 02:31pm

    How to Try in Business Without Really Succeeding

  • On the post: On Social Media Nazi Bars, Tradeoffs, And The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 06 May, 2023 @ 09:13pm

    Twitter.

  • On the post: On Social Media Nazi Bars, Tradeoffs, And The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 04 May, 2023 @ 06:45pm

    Arminianism and Calvinism

    First coined by the fine gentlemen at Penny Arcade.
    Yes, John Gabriel coined the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in 2004. Even Croshaw credits Gabriel. Croshaw's variant came five years later. Gabriel's GIFT: Normal person + anonymity + audience = Total fuckwad Croshaw's GIFT: Normal person = Total fuckwad It's the internet age's version of the theological controversy of Arminianism and Calvinism. Gabriel's is the Arminian version. We can choose to be fuckwads, and fuckwaddery is part of the human condition, but through grace we can also choose to be good people. Croshaw's is the Calvinist version, distilled down to total depravity and predestination. We are all fuckwads by nature, we are going to be fuckwads, and the internet creates the conditions to bring out the fuckwaddery within us all.

  • On the post: On Social Media Nazi Bars, Tradeoffs, And The Impossibility Of Content Moderation At Scale

    Bobson Dugnutt ( profile ), 04 May, 2023 @ 06:37pm

    The problem with libertarianism is the same as Marxism in the U.S. They are mirror images, really. Both are theoretically elegant. They do have fully formed, logically coherent arguments that they make. However, they both make grand claims to politics -- ideology as a framework for organizing society. Trouble is, when they try to turn theory into practice -- the proof of the pudding is in its eating, after all -- not only does practice look nothing like theory but they make the world a worse place by forcing reality to conform to their theories. There is no ideal-form libertarian that we could point to to judge practical libertarianism against. It's also not been able to create any successful political movement or a political program. Peter Thiel is the most successful libertarian who has ever lived. He identifies as a Libertarian. He passes for Libertarian among Libertarian circles. He's not only one of the wealthiest people alive today, he's also one of the wealthiest people who lives in history. He is very much political. He is very much philosophical. He is also building out his organizing principle of the world. Read up on Curtis Yarvin to see where Thiel is trying to take libertarianism. And yeah, when Peter Thiel opened his bridge in 2009, many libertarians crossed it and believe "freedom" and "democracy" are at odds and define freedom as only deserving of the people who crossed that bridge. For those who didn't cross that bridge, find another bridge to cross, change your name, or ... yeah, realize that democracy has a lot going for it and delivered more good to more people and generally more humanely than most other politics before it.

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