This is the time for AI assisted efforts to merge with open source to deliver alternatives to all these Big Company type proprietary software solutions. I have been thinking of what it would cost to create enterprise workflow and document management but based on nodejs. Perhaps targeting the business markets of a smaller country such as Pakistan could be a way to get real world feedback before larger markets are targeted. Need all the documentation translated into Pashto? There is now an app for that.
Seriously - how hard would it be to recreate the 80% of features that Autodesk is actually used for? Just to get something that is "good enough", using AI to architect it, design the test suites, the integration suites etc?
Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
81–90 of 457 posts
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it," - Jeff Bezos
That’s a pretty weird take to me. Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance. Most studies show that no matter what direction crime is going in, a substantial majority of people think their neighborhoods are safer and that everywhere else is basically a war zone that is getting worse. There’s a total disconnect locally/nationally in perception that is…
You're making the exact same mistake as the poster you're answering to warns about - you're mixing the objective reality ("absolute crime numbers") to percieved reality of population.
If the population percieves themselves unsafe and unhappy, your numbers don't really mean much to them because to restore happy society you need to look at *perception* and fix the reasoning behind it. Making the crime stats number go down won't do that by itself.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a pretty weird take to me. Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance. Most studies show that no matter what direction crime is going in, a substantial majority of people think their neighborhoods are safer and that everywhere else is basically a war zone that is getting worse. There’s a total disconnect locally/nationally in perception that is…
I dunno, it seems in line with most stereotypes being more true than false [1]. “Common sense” is often derided in online spaces like this, but when there hasn’t been a massive media / social effort to convince the population otherwise [2], it’s pretty reliable. Taking a quick glance at the articles you linked shows the same behavior as those reporting on the economy - defining disingenuous targets so they can claim…
I definitely understand where you are coming from and would never deny these things are happening. But my point is that argues for too much trust in anecdotes and people’s perceptions.
We all know memory is incredibly faulty, for instance. Yet people have a very high perception of their own memory’s accuracy. It’s kind of in the same vein. It’s not that people can’t remember things accurately, it’s that we need to start from a place of skepticism when depending on it. Same thing goes for people’s perceptions of crime, the economy, etc. Their anecdotes and lived experience, insofar as they can even accurately explain their lived experience, needs to be put into context re: its value for determining “reality.”
That being said I would never undermine the value of how people feel. If people don’t feel safe, that is a bad thing too. And we can cite all the stats in the world we want but ultimately feeling unsafe is not a good thing and that perception needs to be addressed.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#84I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…
Why do you exclude the possibility that talking heads in news and politics are pedaling the idea that consumers feel it’s terrible? Most everyone I know seems to be living it pretty good with much less concern for the future. Certainly compared to 2023 and even compared to 2019.
What's the statistical relevancy of your "everyone I know" sample for US population in general?
Are people you know of different ages, social classes, races, upbringings and living locations to capture the sentiment of population?
Or are they all well off people in a few rich areas?
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a pretty weird take to me. Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance. Most studies show that no matter what direction crime is going in, a substantial majority of people think their neighborhoods are safer and that everywhere else is basically a war zone that is getting worse. There’s a total disconnect locally/nationally in perception that is…
You're making the exact same mistake as the poster you're answering to warns about - you're mixing the objective reality ("absolute crime numbers") to percieved reality of population. If the population percieves themselves unsafe and unhappy, your numbers don't really mean much to them because to restore happy society you need to look at *perception* and fix the reasoning behind it. Making the crime stats number go d…
In a different response I actually remarked on how I would never talk down to people who feel unsafe because we can cite all the stats we want in the world, but their feeling secure is very important as well.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#86I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…
There are two Americas, the one that HN folks inhabit and the underclass.
The former is doing great.
The latter has grown and shifted. I grew up in a rural community that was in the process of unraveling from a prosperous farming and light industrial area to a rural slum. There are zero operational farms in that area today. The one I worked for as a teen was in continuous operation since the Dutch colonial period.
That’s an example of why the nihilism of MAGA is so appealing. The world is collapsing around many people.
These issues are caused by demographics and macro trends. The laws have changed to facilitate generational wealth transfer, and that process will change the way the economy works and further fuel unrest. This stuff is unlikely to get fixed in my lifetime.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#87Economic Termite is a useful new term and I do hope it becomes more popular. Some other examples that the author didn't cover: Payment processors: VISA/ Mastercard have near monopoly over transaction fees Digital Ads: Google & Facebook are the Economic Termites in that space. Cloud Service Providers: The ET's here are AWS and Azure! Text book publishers: Prices always ever go up as the publishers control the market t…
Americans will swear that Visa and Mastercard earn their transaction fees, but the EU simply mandated them much lower and they were suddenly much lower, and the cards still work here. You don't get rewards, but that's fine, because you're saving that money in fees.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#88I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…
The vibecession isn't totally wrong, there are a lot of paradoxes you hear when you ask people about how they're doing vs how other people are doing, Paul Krugman has covered this a bit.
The middle class and up is doing well, basically anyone who has mortgage debt and a white collar job. Lower classes were doing well due to pandemic wage gains, but inflation and housing prices have now outpaced those.
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#89The fundamental problem all these examples are linked to is the rise of centralized power in the economy, and the antidote has been known for a long time, see this 1952 book by John Galbraith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Capitalism > "...private decisions could and presumably would lead to the unhampered exploitation of the public, or of workers, farmers and others who are intrinsically weak as individuals…
The utility sector has a 10% profit margin. Hardly an example of a monopoly abusing its position. If utilities were nationalized the maximum possible gain is 10% and the potential loss is the unlimited capacity of the government to waste resources.
Not true the maximum losses a private utility can generate for the public are unlimited because the losses always get nationalized. The 10% margin is after C suite grift so it’s likely more than 10% you can save. Plus if you are on the hook for losses might as well take the 10%
Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with much of this and I'll add one of my biggest stressors - opaque pricing. One of the biggest "innovations" in the US in the last decade or so seems to be to add as many hidden fees as possible to every service imaginable. Obviously it's hardly a new idea; I'm sure that human nature being what it is, they had to deal with it in Mesopotamia. But it makes budgeting very difficult; I suppose it's like living i…
>> I'll add one of my biggest stressors - opaque pricing. Economic "models" make assumptions like markets being efficient. Meanwhile in the business classes next door they teach how to avoid competition because it's a race to the bottom. They all learn the prisoners dilemma as an example because it's how you need to think to avoid overt collusion. I'd like an economic model as powerful as the laws of thermodynamics,…
Yup.
> Economic "models" make assumptions like markets being efficient.
Open markets require rules and referees.
Freedom Markets™ advocates eliminate rules and refs. Because "regulations discourages free enterprise".
The final result are closed markets.
"free market" is doublespeak for winner-takes-all, anti-competition, pro-monopolies, plantation class, and neoliberalism.