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The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

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Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#121

Post by mcmcmc »

malfist wrote: post #21
engineer_22 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in New York. A very old very famous manufacturer of firearms, Remington Arms, which employed hundreds of people and was the economic engine of its community was forced by the State of New York to shut down. That community cannot replace what was lost when the factory closed. Poverty, crime, drugs have moved in to the void. You may be right that guns are are corrosive to a democratic society, that's an open deb…

Your statement is not grounded in the truth. Remnington did not shut down because of government interference. They employed a grand total of 100 people in NY. Hardly the "economic engine of its community" They shutdown because they sold 7.5 million guns that could fire without someone pulling the trigger and 60 minutes exposed it. And you should know that their building is being converted into a 250,000 sqft AI data…

Sorry do you think data centers actually provide meaningful jobs? Oh boy, 10 whole openings for security guards

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#122

Post by sigmoid10 »

VectorLock wrote: post #93
sigmoid10 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you think this means? It's not like this is a riddle or a metaphor.

If its not a riddle or a metaphor, what is a "dopamine household" then?

Again, what do you think it is? I don't see anything it could be besides what was written. You could call it endocrine imbalance or disrupted hormone household if you wanted to be less precise and skirt around the actual biological problem, but it still doesn't change anything.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#123

Post by sharts »

gwbas1c wrote: post #117

Wow, I'm shocked at the negative attitudes in this thread. Porn and gambling are legit businesses, even if you don't like it. (And some people used to argue that part of the rise of the PC was because some people bought it as a "porn machine.") It's important to keep these things (almost) in the open, because when they become illegal, criminals move in and people get hurt. When I was an intern at a big-name, conserva…

Also its silly to vilify porn and gambling but not social media and the plethora of seemingly socially acceptable / legal things which are still legitimately destroying the fabric of society. Most haters are just as culpable.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#124

Post by thescriptkiddie »

gwbas1c wrote: post #117

Wow, I'm shocked at the negative attitudes in this thread. Porn and gambling are legit businesses, even if you don't like it. (And some people used to argue that part of the rise of the PC was because some people bought it as a "porn machine.") It's important to keep these things (almost) in the open, because when they become illegal, criminals move in and people get hurt. When I was an intern at a big-name, conserva…

one of those things is not like the other

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#125

Post by disillusioned »

_fat_santa wrote: post #104
post-it wrote: post #15

> When posting job openings, you will always have to beat around the bush, without using direct language. And only then, when the candidate has already agreed to an interview or even after it, do you tell them what kind of content they will be working with every day. > Employees join such projects for various reasons. Some realize that the pay is better than in legitimate projects. Others come because they couldn’t f…

This, Had a recruiter reach out to me the other day from a sports gambling website (one of the major ones, as reputable as you can get in this industry). I heard them out, thinking they would offer above market rate but in actuality, they offered significantly below market rate.

Yes, but they offered to put half of your paycheck on red to double your money!

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#126

Post by Scaled »

On the topic of operating costs, the annual "high risk" credit card fees just went up to nearly $2k/year. High risk in quotes because even if you have stellar charge back rates you still get hit with it (did you know the charge back rate for adult is way, way less than the chargeback rate for travel?). The card networks have something called virp/bram, which is basically designed to force adult merchants into paying these absurd fees and limiting the banks they can work with to the most predatory ones. It's a huge antitrust issue that results in higher consumer prices but unfortunately no one is litigating yet

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#127

Post by miki123211 »

This article puts "we pinky swear its not gambling" apps, I'm thinking Robinhood here, but some crypto and prediction market apps would qualify too, in a new light.

If you don't appear to be a casino at first glance, it's a lot easier to find employees, payment processors and advertising networks willing to work with you.

Brick-and-mortar companies (notably Walmart) used the same trick to get tech talent. Having Walmart on your tech resume doesn't look great, having an e-commerce startup called jet.com looks much better, even if Walmart is that startup owner and sole customer.

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#128

Post by kelsey98765431 »

theorchid wrote: post #79
post-it wrote: post #15

> When posting job openings, you will always have to beat around the bush, without using direct language. And only then, when the candidate has already agreed to an interview or even after it, do you tell them what kind of content they will be working with every day. > Employees join such projects for various reasons. Some realize that the pay is better than in legitimate projects. Others come because they couldn’t f…

> I think OP made this whole article up. Thanks for reading! When writing this essay, I drew solely on my own experience. I’ve often noticed that startups post job listings with misleading job descriptions, especially in stigmatized industries. It’s only after the interview that they reveal what the work will actually entail. Perhaps you simply haven’t noticed such job listings.

[flagged]

Re: The operating cost of adult and gambling startups

#129

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Maxatar wrote: post #101
sigmoid10 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you also can't advertise illegal drugs either. Doesn't seem to curb demand though. It may actually be more beneficial to allow these things more broadly, because then social safety features can be wedged in between consumers and suppliers more easily and they don't have to deal with a gigantic shadow market that already gets stigmatised to death by the rest of the population. Just accept that a certain percen…

>I mean, you also can't advertise illegal drugs either. Doesn't seem to curb demand though. Making drugs illegal does not eliminate demand, but it absolutely curbs it. The converse is also true, for example legalizing cannabis in Canada has significantly increased demand for it [1]. While it's true cannabis use had been gradually increasing for decades prior to legalization, there was a significant spike afterwards w…

> The converse is also true, for example legalizing cannabis in Canada has significantly increased demand for it

The relevant thing that link actually says is that more survey respondents admitted to cannabis use after legalization, the obvious problem being that before legalization they would be admitting to a crime, which will suppress response rates.

The same link also points out that the legalization happened right before COVID and then you have a major confounder because even if cannabis use is actually up, you don't know if it's because of legalization or people turning to cannabis over stress from COVID. Moreover, the reported usage increased during COVID but started to decline in 2023. This implies that either the apparent spike was COVID, or that it was something like media reports about recent legalization acting as temporary free advertising and causing a temporary increase in usage. Neither of those is evidence of a sustained increase in demand.

Meanwhile legal options do cause people to prefer legal sources over the black market, and then you get fewer people becoming addicts because the thing they thought they were buying was spiked with something significantly more addictive by a black market seller. Or the black market products have higher variation in the dose and then customers can't predict how much they're getting and occasionally take more than expected, leading to a higher rate of overdose and stronger dependency-inducing withdrawal.

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