TheActualDevil

Go crazy?

Great deal. You get 10 hours pay, they get perpetual use of your likeness for all eternity and you don't have to work ever again! Great deal for somebody.

I mean, he's aware of his popularity and privilege. He's made a few comments clarifying that it wasn't to "stick it to Amazon." He does have a problem with Amazon's business model when it comes to authors as well as the traditional publishing industry's barriers to new authors and he understands that these are people's only real option. He used that clout he has in the industry and his fiscal security to try help open up other avenues for publishing. And yeah, the guy is rich, but not publishing house rich. Printing thousands of books, then distributing them likely takes more liquid cash than he has available. He had a good idea of what it would cost and that's what was asked for on Kickstarter. If he hadn't made that, all the people would have kept their money. If more money was needed, he is rich and could probably cover it. I don't see any risk here that anyone shouldered except for him risking his goodwill with fans.

I try to be skeptical of people. Particularly successful people who have made a lot of money. But from everything I've seen, the man lives his values and seems to be a pretty good guy. For his Kickstarter books, when he was talking to Audible about the audiobook versions, they offered him a very good deal. Then he pushed them to tell what a typical author would get. When he heard how bad a deal that was, he refused.

The man really cares about books and their place in this world. He has been successful and made a lot of money and social power in the industry from decades of writing. Now he's using that to try and make the industry a better place for all writers while also still getting his books to his fans.

And my understanding is that his employees at Dragonsteel have profit sharing as part of their working there, on top of their paychecks. So any money he makes is also distributed throughout the staff. He also seems pretty liberal for a member of the LDS church and has spoken about his views evolving over the years as he's realized the reality around him. He seems like a pretty genuinely good guy doing his best to change the industry for the good of all writers.

Did you have your location services turned on around other people who likely did google that kind of thing? Or connect to the wifi in that house that almost certainly put in a search or 2 for that game? Or people who were there that Google knows you interact with? Did they Google it? Or was it just a very popular thing that was huge in the zeitgeist that day for everyone? We are tracked in so many ways that don't require them having to store and analyze literally every conversation that everyone has (Both sides of the convo as well!)

I would argue that calling a possibly humorous image posted to the internet a meme, is itself a meme in language and has gone past our ability to stop it.

Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You're looking for something different to happen. That's the point behind rerunning the tests.

But, how are you getting other people on board with your actions? How are you convincing others that the thing you think is harmful needs to be stopped? Voting with action requires group solidarity.

Say, we take this post as an example. These companies are doing unethical things, then lying to the public about it's good while raking in dollars. Sure, you and I may see through it, but have you met people? They're idiots and likely to just take everything at face value. You can just quietly shake your head and take your dollars elsewhere while droves of consumers keep giving them money. That's fine. But you haven't actually don anything. Your singular dollars don't have an effect. People have to know about things to act on those things.

That's where complaining comes in! Someone has to sound the alarm for people to take notice and make changes in their own life.

I get it. You're already on board with what this guy is saying and don't need to be informed. But other people do exist. People who may have not heard it phrased in a way that won them over. Circlejerking over an issue is definitely annoying, but I don't know that this single post counts as that. If every post here is just complaining, I'll agree that it should be slowed down. But complaining the second a single person tries to draw attention to as issue is going to get the opposite of the results you claim to want.

Vote with your dollars, don't complain?

Genuinely asking, is that what you're trying to say?

I'm guessing the market will just sort it all out, right?

Every libertarian thinks every other libertarian isn't really because they don't subscribe to every set of their specific beliefs.

Wait. Is it not about technology, or about hating technology?

Does she have access to the bedroom during the day when you're not sleeping? If so, it's likely she views that as a piece of her territory. Personally, I'm not a fan of cutting cat's off from rooms for chunks of time if they have access normally. And sleep training your cat/cats is great. It takes some effort, but syncing their sleep schedule with yours is worth it.

I would argue that it's more just a, for once, positive side affect of the bloated prices we experience in everything. When you get a buy one get one free deal with glasses, you can shop around and see that they aren't charging double for the single pair. It's on par with what you pay for a single pair elsewhere. It just means that creating a pair of glasses isn't as expensive as they want you to think.

T-mobile isn't paying full price per Netflix subscription they give along with a cell phone bill. They may even be making money. Netflix subscriptions overall are down. Netflix has been desperate to get more people signed up. It wouldn't surprise me if this is considered a promotion for Netflix. They pay Netflix to lump it in with cell phone plans to get people who previously didn't have their own Netflix account to now be signed up. Once that free year or whatever ends, a percentage of those people will certainly pay for it. That biggest hurdle of signing them up for their own account is done.