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L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

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Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#311

Post by mehrdadn »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #290
kitotik wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve had more documented covid-19 deaths in ~6 weeks than we usually have murders in an entire year and it hasn’t even peaked yet. We have no clue how many cases there even are because we’ve utterly failed to do mass testing. Serious question: do you have any family, friends, or even acquaintances that you would prefer not to have 3-6 weeks of terror and complete misery with a non-trivial chance of permanent disabil…

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

The comment was not hyperbolic. Since you believe that, that means you don't believe the projections (or maybe the current statistics). That's fine, but don't respond by denigrating on the wrong basis. Instead of accusing people of exaggerating things as if they have some kind of agenda, just be straightforward and say I don't believe those numbers.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#312

Post by viceroyalbean »

yazboo wrote: post #79
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has far fewer cases and death rate without a massive lockdown. If this disease is really so deadly, why isn’t their country being massively depopulated? Same for states in the US that haven’t implemented any lockdown measures.

Sweden has the highest death rate per capita of all developed nations.

While current Swedish strategy carries a high risk of bringing it to that point, that statement is absolutely false right now. Swedish deaths per 1 million are currently 102, significantly lower than Spain (397), Italy (348), France (241), Belgium (383), etc.

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#313

Post by ceilingcorner »

kitotik wrote: post #304
ceilingcorner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

You are correct that I have an emotional reaction to death, but I was not intending to spew a bunch of hyperbole. Society isn’t a numbers game, it’s a shared set of values, and I find it appalling that we seem to be favoring the economy over human life. We have enough resources to take care of both, but chose to bail out corporations instead of people.

> we seem to be favoring the economy over human life

I really don't agree with this meme at all and the evidence doesn't support it whatsoever. The people that are hurt most by the shutdown are lower class service workers, not Wall Street stockbrokers. As I just mentioned, everyday people are hurting far more from the lockdown than from the virus. If you really cared about the average person, you'd want to get society running as soon as safely possible.

The idea that the government can support or pay for the salary of the entire/most of the population for a sustained period of time is also completely ludicrous and impossible.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#314

Post by ceilingcorner »

dx034 wrote: post #295
ceilingcorner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

In the end no one will know if it was worth it since no country went in the other direction and just lived with it. The UK tried for a bit but then reacted harshly as the situation worsened. Maybe not doing anything would've resulted in a few months of medical chaos and not much more, maybe it would've destroyed whole societies. But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nea…

Sorry, I don't recall being democratically asked whether shutting down everything indefinitely was something I agreed with before it happened. Of course people will agree that it's a good idea when the media is blaring "PANDEMIC" at them 24/7.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#315

Post by _ph_ »

nathanlied wrote: post #107
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden has far fewer cases and death rate without a massive lockdown. If this disease is really so deadly, why isn’t their country being massively depopulated? Same for states in the US that haven’t implemented any lockdown measures.

Sweden also has a fairly low population density outside its larger cities, as well as a relatively small (10M) population. And its measures aren't without criticism - consider they have 100 deaths per 1M people, which places them 10th on countries with over 1K cases. There's states in the US with similar densities; I'd imagine those would be spared most of the deaths, even if stricter measures weren't implemented, bu…

Even if you look at Germany, you will see huge regional differences. If you look at the map of the positive tested, you can clearly see spikes in the huge cities (Berlin, Hamburg, München) and in densely populated regions. You can also still see that the infection density is higher around the places of initial infections (Bavaria for example, many skiing tourists who got infected in Austria/Italy). On the other side, there are less dense populated regions with a noticeably smaller infection rate.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#316

Post by AznHisoka »

frockington1 wrote: post #297
dx034 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a few quarters. They'll survive and be back where they are now when the economy bounces back (whenever that may be). They could take a 100% cut for several quarters without cutting expenses. Small ad companies are the ones that will really suffer. They don't have Google's deep pockets and diversification.

Facebook will be in a great position with people having more and more phone time due to the quarantine. Might be a short term hit but a big boost down the road

Maybe I am missing something, but how will it be a big boost?

Most users who use Messenger, Instagram and FB already are familiar with the platform. Them using it more during the lockdown is not introducing them to new features or new content.

It is unlike a product like Netflix, where you delve more into their content (ie international stuff u may have not ventured in) or Zoom, which some ppl may not have known about previously.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#317

Post by ceilingcorner »

mehrdadn wrote: post #311
ceilingcorner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

The comment was not hyperbolic. Since you believe that, that means you don't believe the projections (or maybe the current statistics). That's fine, but don't respond by denigrating on the wrong basis. Instead of accusing people of exaggerating things as if they have some kind of agenda, just be straightforward and say I don't believe those numbers.

You've made a ton of huge leaps here. The comment is hyperbolic because it's using the tried-and-true tactic of "People are dying!!" to push their view and denigrate others'.

As I said above: it's a complex issue. The consequences of shutting the world down just might be worse than the death toll of COVID. At the very least, it's a discussion worth having.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#318

Post by dredmorbius »

dx034 wrote: post #295
ceilingcorner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you understand that millions of people are now out of work and won't be able to support their families, businesses are collapsing, calls to suicide lines are up massively, and society is general is not functioning? This is a complex issue. Using hyperbolic emotional appeals to drown out discussion is not the right move.

In the end no one will know if it was worth it since no country went in the other direction and just lived with it. The UK tried for a bit but then reacted harshly as the situation worsened. Maybe not doing anything would've resulted in a few months of medical chaos and not much more, maybe it would've destroyed whole societies. But the polls I'm aware of show that the majority of people is supportive of measures nea…

Sweden is. Much of Africa will have little choice but to muddle through.

We'll likely get a good idea of what the "no or low response" route looks like.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#319

Post by AznHisoka »

TekMol wrote: post #260
TekMol wrote: post #240

I run a website that is monetized via Adsense and I do not see a negative impact of the Corona pandemic. What makes the situation so much different for the L.A. Times then for a website?

Upon closer inspection I see that cost per click is down quite a bit. But the increased traffic makes up for it. Strange, I would think that in the current times, the value of a visitor is higher for many companies. If they sell digital goods and services, people should have more time now for those.

More time but less money, with so many of them unemployed. And nowhere to spend it since most can’t venture far outside.

Re: L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue ‘Nearly Eliminated’

#320

Post by dx034 »

adventured wrote: post #142
clouddrover wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is not a very densely populated country, and density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing. The US has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases of any nation. The US is seeing about 2,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths a day at the moment: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html Contrast the US results with Australia's or South Korea's results. Australia and South Korea are doing m…

> The US has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases of any nation. Your statement isn't very useful. It's the per capita death rate that matters the most of any metric. It's non-sense to compare the US to countries with 5% or 20% of the population using absolute numbers. In terms of density, it's the NYC region that overwhelmingly accounts for the problem in the US. NY + NJ = majority of US deaths. The NYC…

> Sweden is considered a relatively good outcome in Europe so far

I don't think that's true. Germany or Austria might be good outcomes. Sweden had few measures in place but their death rate is far higher than most neighbours.

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