Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only way their business model can work is if the majority of customers sign up and never use it, which is a very weird thing for a business to depend on, IMO. This is essentially the concept of insurance, is it not?
It's not the same at all. Insurance protects people financially from unlikely and *undesirable* events they don't want to happen. Nobody in good faith wants to get in a car accident or have a medical emergency. Insurance "works" by assuming most people won't have to or want to use it. MoviePass is doing exactly the opposite, though. They're selling a desirable product for much cheaper than normal while paying full pr…
MoviePass settles FTC allegations that they limited usage, exposed user data
171–175 of 175 posts
Re: MoviePass settles FTC allegations that they limited usage, exposed user data
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought white-collar crime was usually a person scamming a company. This is a company scamming their customers, which I think happens far more than 10x what we hear about. Way back in the 90's I had a bank account that paid something like 5 percent interest, but only had a couple thousand dollars in it (maybe). I was between jobs and made no deposits for over a month - only withdrawals and only like 4 of them. I go…
> I thought white-collar crime was usually a person scamming a company. That's not my understanding of the term "white-collar crime", nor is it the definition used here, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-collar_crime The interest calculation problem you describe would fall under what I think is the usual definition of "white-collar crime".
But unless an individual found a way to "take the difference" they would not personally benefit. I'd call that one fraud on the part of the bank, and if it was caught and dealt with the bank might pay a fine but nobody would go to jail. I consider "white collar crime" something that an individual could be charged for, but maybe that's not the legal definition.
Re: MoviePass settles FTC allegations that they limited usage, exposed user data
#173Re: MoviePass settles FTC allegations that they limited usage, exposed user data
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> to be some low level worker and have some bullshit from a CEO cause you to immediately lose your job Possibly, but this government action could automatically trigger unemployment benefits (paid for by all the money the government just seized from corporate coffers), the vacuum created would probably quickly be filled by expanding competitors who would hire people from the executed company, and considering the inter…
> Possibly, but this government action could automatically trigger unemployment benefits... I like this in a perfect world, but I think in reality it causes too much disruption, and not a type that's beneficial for consumers in the short run. Normally that doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. If AT&T is wiped out tomorrow, that's a lot of people losing their phone and/or internet service all of a sudden, and for ma…
Sure, why not? The market has been doing this itself every 10 years or so for a long time. It'd be just another form of bankruptcy. I have to say that it's truly odd to see someone lamenting a company going out of business on HN.
I'm going to ignore the special pleading of "30K employees" and Walmart and the yada yada of extreme examples. Do those companies do what Moviepass did? Was Apple sufficiently punished in their wage-collusion case? I'd say no to both.
Corporate malfeasance is essentially legal, at least in the US.
Re: MoviePass settles FTC allegations that they limited usage, exposed user data
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Possibly, but this government action could automatically trigger unemployment benefits... I like this in a perfect world, but I think in reality it causes too much disruption, and not a type that's beneficial for consumers in the short run. Normally that doesn't matter, but sometimes it does. If AT&T is wiped out tomorrow, that's a lot of people losing their phone and/or internet service all of a sudden, and for ma…
> Do we want to punish regular people that happened to have some of that stock but didn't have any inkling of what was going on? Sure, why not? The market has been doing this itself every 10 years or so for a long time. It'd be just another form of bankruptcy. I have to say that it's truly odd to see someone lamenting a company going out of business on HN. I'm going to ignore the special pleading of "30K employees" a…
We're talking about government action forcing a company out of business, so extra-market action. If it was the market, I would probably err on the side of "it does what it does, and people should have paid attention", but if it's Tuesday and everyone is none the wider and Wednesday the government says your place of employment no longer exists by fiat, that's something else.
> I'm going to ignore the special pleading of "30K employees" and Walmart and the yada yada of extreme examples. Do those companies do what Moviepass did? Was Apple sufficiently punished in their wage-collusion case? I'd say no to both.
We're talking about legislating new laws in this case, and not a law about Moviepass, but a law about any company that finds itself doing similar things. You can't ignore how it affects other companies and situations, because that's how it will be applied, exactly as it was written or interpreted. The market provides nuance, because it's really myriad people making their own decision. Laws don't, they are interpreted by regulators and or lawyers, judges and juries. Any nuance needed needs to be spelled out.
> Corporate malfeasance is essentially legal, at least in the US.
Yes, which is why we were discussing ways to combat it. It's not like my position could in any way be construed as "don't do anything". In all cases, I was just arguing for a different, more targeted way to punish the company, and perhaps one which didn't provide poor incentives for discoverability of the crime.