- 0 Posts
- 46 Comments
This sounds like a modern day version of the Schlitz mistake back in the seventies where they cut the quality so much, so fast, that the formerly largest brewery in America became a worthless brand that nobody trusted.
The b-school lesson from this was to drop the quality of your product more slowly so people wouldn’t notice.
I figured no big company would ever suffer consequences from shitty product ever again because they’d figured out the drip instead of the open floodgates.
I hope more companies get to enjoy this fate, especially food producers.
The only reason I ever took my kid to Disneyland was because we lived in southern California and knew somebody who worked there that gave us free passes.
It was a great day that my now adult daughter doesn’t remember at all.
I loved my own childhood trip to Disneyland in 1979 when it was a much, much simpler and cheaper affair.
If I had kids today, Disney would be completely off the table.
The only reason I keep Spotify anymore is that I’ve got a family plan with something like six accounts. I gave those to random acquaintances back in the Facebook days - people who are really into music.
If I cancel Spotify, there are five people out there who are suddenly and without warning going to find themselves without music.
I really don’t even remember who they are, but I feel like continuing the subscription is my community service
When I was in college, I could fill up on three bean burritos at Taco Bell for $1.81 out the door. Del Taco was cheaper at $1.50.
That was thirty years ago, but still. I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt a whole lot easier to dig up that kind of pocket change back then than it does to dig up whatever it costs today.
The last time I logged on to Facebook was this past fall because there was a death in our fairly tight knit group of high school classmates. It had been three or four years since I’d been in there.
So I went on and said my words.
While I was there, I didn’t really notice what was in my feed.
What I noticed was suddenly I was getting notification after notification that my posts from years and years ago were getting deleted because they didn’t fit whatever the current terms and conditions of use were.
This amused me.
So I left my words of dead classmate up for a week then sent my account silent again.
I can’t see Facebook or any social media being a place I ever hang out again, which is a little bit of a bummer because without any social media, IRL social activities all but come to an immediate and total halt.
Oh well. I’ll live.
The only surviving adult MOVE member, Ramona Africa, refused to testify in court and was charged and convicted on charges of riot and conspiracy; she served seven years in prison.
Jesus Christ! No criminal charges against police so let’s imprison the sole surviving victim!
(She did get a handsome settlement years later, so there’s that but holy hell man)
I wish I knew the answer to this, but I don’t think a dollar amount floor on labor in fiat currency is it. That’ll just find a new equilibrium in a devalued currency.
I don’t write this because I disagree with the sentiment. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment.
But wealth isn’t about dollars. It’s about assets. For day to day living, it’s about real estate.
I just wrote out a whole bunch of thoughts but I don’t think they’re applicable to the topic.
Maybe do things like:
Unoccupied residential real estate is taxed at some obscene percentage of assessed value.
No individual may own more than ten living spaces (apartments are a need, and somebody’s got to own them)
Entities (looking at you black rock) may not own residential real estate.
REITS are absolutely off the table.
Water is a public good and Nestle can get fucked
Student debt and medical debt are capped at some percentage of income formula.
And to get really crazy, instead of minimum wage, employers must demonstrate that employees can afford two bedrooms with no more than twenty five percent of gross wages.
I’m drinking beer and watching rich people ride horses. These are casual thoughts without citation and are not intended for academic review or criticism.
My Roku is doing this and has been doing this for quite some time.
Of all the ad delivery schemes cooked up over the past ten years, this one is the least offensive to me.
Like I’ll come back from the bathroom or whatever, and all that registers before I hit play is that some random graphic is covering the screen while on pause. I cannot name a single thing that’s been in any of those ads.
In general, I do wonder how effective this constant onslaught of marketing is. At some point there have got to be diminishing returns, right?
I cancelled prime the day they sent the no more ad free email.
Netflix doesn’t even provide me with low quality counterfeit goods that get lost in transit, so this is a super easy decision.
Heh. What am I saying? I cancelled Netflix last year when my kid’s graduation coincided with their shared password crackdown. I only still had it so she could use it.
But if people don’t go back to the office, commercial real estate will crash, they’ll convert it all into affordable housing, and my curb appeal will lose its sweet, sweet premium value.
Let’s not pretend there isn’t a micromanaging control issue involved in this, but the core is all about real estate.
This year the shipping has gone from two days from ordering to two days from processing to two weeks to maybe we’ll just lose the order entirely.
Add to that that so many of the sellers seem to have migrated over from the eBay “hey look at this cheap knockoff crap that fell off a truck” crowd, and I’m just not seeing the benefit anymore.
My renewal is a week from today. I think I’m going to cancel by then.
I really don’t know where I go from here vis a vis online ordering. Probably just use my boss’ account when there’s something that I just can’t get anywhere else.
My membership is up in a week or so. I was looking into the Walmart equivalent as a replacement, but they’ve proven to be even worse. I don’t know where to go from here.
I’m not a daily Amazon user. Maybe one or two orders per month. But when I need those things, they can be tough to find at brick and mortar.
To the comments of old people on Facebook - I’m fifty one years old. I deactivated but did not delete my Facebook account five years ago.
This past fall, one of our high school classmates finally succumbed to his addictions. He and I were inseparable back in the day to the extent that if anybody thought of one of us, they automatically thought of the other.
So I felt compelled to say a few words. I reactivated my account, and said my words. I was shocked at the number of replies I got because I couldn’t believe that many people were still using the platform. I figured everybody would have left by now.
I left my post up for a week, then deactivated my account again.
Ten years ago, Facebook was a great way to meet women for people in my age group. Unfortunately, when there’s a contentious breakup and you’ve got hundreds of mutual friends, it could and did turn into a social hell scape. That’s what got me to leave. I think I got out before the rampant disinformation really got going. For this, I am grateful. (Coda to this topic: Ladies, seriously, what drives you to aggressively slide into my DMs when you see I’ve recently been through a horrible breakup? Why would you think this is a good time to pursue me? This happened with several people. I did not understand it and found it horribly off-putting.)
Unfortunately, without social media, I’ve found it difficult to stay in touch with friends who live far away. But that little downside is not enough for me to go back.
Rawdogging YouTube today is a similar experience to what I had with a free trial of Hulu several years ago. The ads were so frequent and so lengthy that I cancelled several days before the trial was even over. I swear I was getting six minutes of ads for every two minutes of content.
There’s a point where the greed makes the product unusable.
I watch a lot of Tubi on my TV, and I find the ads there tolerable. They don’t just flood you with them. I’m totally ok with sitting through their ad breaks in exchange for a free watching experience.
(I don’t know if Hulu has gotten better or worse. The experience was so god awful that I’ve never even slightly entertained the thought of trying it again)
The mechanics of that game were more like a very fast choose your own adventure than the traditional move joystick left, spaceship go left mechanics.
Because the graphics were coming off a laser disk, they didn’t generate on the spot. There were predetermined outcomes to every move.
When people figured this out, information started to collect in the magazines, and the game became beatable.
When I look at the current state of the internet, I pine for the simpler days of the nineties when a/s/l and stormfront.org look downright warm and fuzzy in comparison. That was just weird individuals being weird. Now it’s institutionalized across the entire Internet.
We would have to first value education, and that counts for parents and home life as well.
Instead, we’re at war with education trying to water it down as much as possible if not outright eliminate it.