James Burkhardt 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: AMC’s ‘Fix’ For Declining Movie Theater Attendance? Charging You More Money To Sit In The Same Seats

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 09:34am

    I've probably got some fanboy in that post, I admit. My local AMC might just be shitty and affecting my perspective. I definitely have some older cinemark theaters still like that in the area. but for me the contrast has been night and day.

  • On the post: AMC’s ‘Fix’ For Declining Movie Theater Attendance? Charging You More Money To Sit In The Same Seats

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 09:33am

    I have been waiting all morning for this post to go live. I want to contrast AMC with Cinemark. I am a membver of the Cinemark rewards program (movie club or something like that). I pay $9.99/mo ($8.99 before the pandemic). I get a free regular ticket, discounts on more regular tickets, and discounts on food. I have platinum status, because i wnet to the theater 26 or so times in 2022. So, bigger discounts, better perks. This wasn't the case in 2017. I rarely went to a movie in theaters, even as I enjoy going to the cinema. Cinemark changed things for me. Movie club itself started things. 9.99 for a ticket? I can buy another 9.99 ticket for a guest? Movie club encouraged me to go to more movies by discounting tickets even for prime choice viewings. Then it ripped out the stadium seating, for more luxrious reclining seats and leg room. Fucking amazing experience. Then it offered delivery to my seat (for $2). I use a cane. I have to limit my snack purchases. But now? I can get the popcorn and the soda and the water and the hot dog and not worry about juggling in one hand. I literally pay them a fee so I can buy more product. It lowered the barriers to purchase, and I purchased. The very lesson Techdirt here tries to teach. Service can compete with free. I can buy supplies at safeway, pop popcorn with a variety of flavor options, and watch a movie on my 55" TV. But I wanted that experience, and Cinemark's financials (https://ir.cinemark.com/financial-information/income-statement) show significant recovery from the pandemic, with likelyhood of returning to profitability, impling a lot of people still agree. But since before the pandemic, AMC has been doubling down on "enshittification" of the consumer experience. AMC stubs is more confusing. @0% off concessions? No. if you want a large popcorn you only pay for a medium. And if I wanted a medium at 20% off? nope. You get to upgrade. Free tickets? nope. You get the waived ticketing fees, and you can reserve your ticket, but you still pay full price. They aren't encouraging patrons back and the value proposition is in sharp contrast.

  • On the post: Dwarf Fortress: How Freeware Turned Into Millions

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 08:08am

    They claim to have lived solely off the donations of fans for 15 years (since 2007). https://www.bay12games.com/support.html This was their day job. You are right, the paid version was the retirement "plan". It was their 401K. but when you say they had paid jobs...they have been getting paid to make dwarf fortress.

  • On the post: Dwarf Fortress: How Freeware Turned Into Millions

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 08:04am

    https://www.bay12games.com/support.html They lived solely off the donations of fans for 15 years (since 2007). They made money without charging for the game. If you want to claim they didn't make money, maybe make sure they weren't making money before you say that.

  • On the post: Dwarf Fortress: How Freeware Turned Into Millions

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2023 @ 08:00am

    People act like Dwarf fortress earned zero revenue before the paid version. They still got donations. They've been living off donations since 2007: https://www.bay12games.com/support.html The paid version was a way to fund their retirement plan. They made money for their work long before the paid version came around. Is it guarenteed? no. Neither was success with the paid version

  • On the post: Elon Musk Is Running Scared From Mastodon; Cuts Off The Best Tool For Finding Your Twitter Followers There

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2023 @ 12:04pm

    just look at Netflix. WB/HBO/AT&T. Musk thinks he has a golden touch. Everyone says so. Hes following a standard american business strategy. The problem, is hes using strats that worked because he was the only realistic EV option, the only private company with reliable spaceflight. But he failed in solar and he'll fail in social media, because he fails to understand that he has real competition in this space.

  • On the post: Charter’s $7 Billion Penalty For Murdering An Elderly Customer Reduced To $262 Million

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2023 @ 08:20am

    I hate to do this, but people are definitely talking about reducing or eliminating background checks. The blunt approach advocated by some in the left is to remove the criminal backround check entirely. Citing statistics about re-offending and the hiring of former criminals. That rarely gets anywhere, for the obvious reasons the troll is gesturing to. MOst policies deriously discussed instead talk about moving criminal history to later in the interview, rather than as an inital screening. When the policy was passed in CA, they prevent employers from asking about criminal history in the application. The idea being that once a job is offered, the employer will want the employee and will balance the employees positives, the reasons they want to hire the employee, with the criminal conviction, and assess any risk.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Judge Suggests Hate Speech Shouldn’t Be Protected In Decision Against Students Expelled For Bigoted Social Media Posts

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2023 @ 01:37pm

    Weeks later, no one will likely ever see this, but... That was what I was getting at.

  • On the post: Elon’s New API Pricing Plan Seems Perfectly Designed… To Help Send More Users And Developers To Mastodon

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2023 @ 01:17pm

    Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us.
    I feel like this shows us something about how Musk misunderstands twitter. He vaguely understands that the ability to look at twitter with the API can be valuable, but only in this passive function, as a data set. He fundamentally misunderstands that twitter isn't a revenue center for most of its users. He fundamentally misunderstands that having users and content is twitters draw. And he fundamentally misunderstands that while he needs users to drive ads and he needs content to drive twitter's value to users, his competitors invite that content for free.

  • On the post: GOP Belatedly Realizes Its Embrace Of Propaganda And Conspiracy Results In Bizarre And Unpopular Candidates

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 01 Feb, 2023 @ 11:08am

    But do you vote on the issues? In national elections, you have the choice of 2 candidates, whose positions are largely defined as contrasts of the other. You aren't voting on the issues because a candidate's position on an issue more and more is defined by what the other guys does and what the national platform is. There isn't room for nuanced takes on any issue. As a leftist, there aren't politicians who represent me on most issues in a given election, and when they do, voting with the party is often more important than principle. My vote "on the issues" often devolves to "this guy caucuses with R, so his vote will support worse policies than the other candidate". Because that's the closest I can get to voting on the issues. Federal PR makes third party representation more viable, reducing the effects of the glaring issues with first past the post systems that traditionally narrow options. That in turn makes more varied parties and more varied stances on the issues viable in the eyes of voters.

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

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 10:48am

    Chozen seems to be running under the assumption that Musk is the big dog in this fight. Like how Trump avoids his bills by burying his debts and settling for pennies. He hasn't considered the money behind the anonymous investment conglomerate that owns the building in SF, nor the resources of a group called "the crown estate".

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

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2023 @ 09:44am

    If you can guarentee you outlast the other side at a cost below the cost of compliance, or get a discount that offsets the legal fees the tort violation might be cheaper than paying. But I wouldn't expect that both the Crown Estate and the big money Real Estate conglomerate that own these buildings are going to quietly fade into the night. Musk is not the biggest dog in this fight.

  • On the post: In The End, Trump Will Screw Over Anyone: Including His ‘Own’ Social Media Company

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2023 @ 11:48am

    if you think facebook and twitter aren't "Tech", I recommend you look up the term "Big Tech".

  • On the post: Trump Lawyers Sanctioned Again For Stupid Lawsuit Claiming Clinton Rigged The Election She Lost

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2023 @ 10:39am

    I have never seen a moment so perfect for that quote.

  • On the post: T-Mobile Hacked For The Eighth Time In Five Years

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2023 @ 07:44am

    This is the company that needs to start getting banned from schools. The network is a bigger data threat than TikTok

  • On the post: Wyoming ‘Bans’ Electric Cars In Dumb Performative Oil Industry Ass Kissing

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2023 @ 08:55am

    The issue is we put out emissions we don't remove, and have eradcated natural emission sinks. Natural emissions are higher, they are just naturally balanced by natural sinks to remove them.

  • On the post: Wyoming ‘Bans’ Electric Cars In Dumb Performative Oil Industry Ass Kissing

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2023 @ 08:52am

    From the summary of the article you cited:

    It's true that natural fluxes in the carbon cycle are much larger than anthropogenic emissions. But for roughly the last 10,000 years, until the industrial revolution, every gigatonne of carbon going into the atmosphere was balanced by one coming out. What humans have done is alter one side of this cycle. We put approximately 6 gigatonnes of carbon into the air but, unlike nature, we are not taking any out.
    We've added additional emissions, and have reduced the emission sinks in the environment, impacting the balance of natural emissions.

  • On the post: How The Enshittification Of Social Media Is Decreasing The Switching Costs And Enabling Something New

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2023 @ 08:42am

    Take the next step. Mastodon gets huge influxes from twitter fuck-ups, but not all will universally stay. Its the upkeep bellcurve. A new service launches or an old service has a milestone or viral event that sees mass adoption, but that popularity is short-lived. Thats why it sees a downward trend. It has seen that trend every time there is a twitter backlash. But Mastodon's floor ends up being larger than the old userbase. Outside the major user spikes, new users are also coming into Mastodon faster than pre-Musk-twitter-buyout. This suggests that once Mastodon hits the floor on any given surge, they see user growth, and there is little to suggest that their floor isn't still growing.

  • On the post: How The Enshittification Of Social Media Is Decreasing The Switching Costs And Enabling Something New

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2023 @ 08:30am

    For instance in this article he’s pretending that people are actually leaving Twitter for Mastodon (a small number did)
    So, hes not pretending. People are leaving twitter and exploring and experimenting with other twitter like options, including Mastodon. It was the changes to the service that finally put me over the threshold to switch. The only reason I ever pull up twitter now is a few holdouts, and they are getting harder and harder to find in my feed.

  • On the post: Lawyers Blocked From Entering Madison Square Garden By Vindictive Owner Use 1941 Law To Bypass Bullshit Ban

    James Burkhardt ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2023 @ 07:53am

    In fact, I'd argue that this attempt should result in new discovery - if intended to hide from freelance discovery, MSG is actively concerned that any defense they present would be undermined based on the contents of public spaces in their building. That wont play well to a jury if they can establish that purpose and it won't matter if theres no fire to the smoke.

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