101–110 of 136 posts
> AI gives us speed. Talent gives us empathy Not sure if this is the primary reason. It just seems to me their AI adoption was unable to meet the baseline effectiveness of their human agents.
What does empathy even mean in the context of payday-loans-as-a-service? They'll lure people debt traps and then bleed them dry, but pretend to feel bad about doing it?
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> But there is also the realisation that a customer who uses BNPL today, won't be coming back next month when they are paying off their loan. I don’t think that’s a good argument. For shops and customers that utilize BNPL you are not typically making routine purchases at the shop anyway because the minimums are $50 or more (merchants can negotiate those terms with the provider) but the base tends to be around $50. If…
How does bnpl increase sales? My intuition is it brings in a slight bump now, at the cost of longer term. The customer can either wait N months to buy the bike cash, or buy it now and pay interest for the next K months. - In the first scenario, customers can quickly save up and return for accessories/etc. - in the latter, the customer is playing XX% on top of the bike purchase which ultimately reduces the purchases t…
Loans like this also encourage customers to increase spend, because adding an extra few dollars (cents, etc) to your monthly payment is psychologically not as big of a deal as waiting another month or two before you can afford the more expensive item.
They don't understand the problem, and when I point that out by explaining my issue another way they just answer "Have I solved your issue?". Well, no, you didn't; you didn't even understand the problem.
The worst part is that they are pretending they are humans.
I whole-heartedly believe in free markets, but at the same time, fuck everything about the circus clown show that is modern techno-capitalism.
Maybe you should reconsider where your heart lies, and ask if "free markets" that have worked so well for modern society have always been heavily regulated in order ensure they serve citizens beyond capital owners.
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I can't believe it takes b-school professors to figure out that people financing their DoorDash might not be the best people to lend money to.
This is the primary positioning tactic used across the startup industry . Uber isn't a taxi app, it's actually the "future front end for millions to access autonomous transport". Doordash isn't a delivery app, it's an "on-demand logistics" platform. Similarly, Klarna isn't a shady payday loan company, it's an "AI-first consumer finance play".
We just used to call them loan sharks
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Oh, you count china as socialism? I rather meant the more traditional approaches, like the one I was born into that fell apart. China as of now is rather state capitalism to me. And yes, they are quite effective in some areas. Totalitarism can be. Doesn't mean I would like to copy them.
The Overton window dynamically shifts between “true socialism has never been tried” and “no true socialist,” but all growth or development in China must be attributed to China being sufficiently capitalist. Do you mean to say that China’s socialism is a mirage, a fig leaf for authoritarian state capitalism in a country that was once socialist, or do you mean that China was never even socialist to begin with, that it…
Well, it started of as authorian socialism and now is just authorian party state oligarchy with lots of red flags.
And I have no connection to US demonisation policies (and this article was about a european country). My background is, that the alternative left in europe(where I socialiced) - rather traditionally does a glorification of China. So I am aware of all their glory.
I just happen to value free thinking and free speech. And this is not possible there. And that is no propaganda, but official chinese policy.
So I don't know about "true socialism" but I do know that all the marxists experiments ended up in authorian dictatorship, which is why I am more than sceptical to base new experiments on Marx again.
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In the Netherlands no less than twenty trade associations sent letters to the government on behalf of their shopkeeper members urging legal action to prevent Klarna from coming. Part of it is that Klarna is fairly expensive compared to the common payment methods (i.e., cash and debit cards). Klarna charges a whopping 4% of the purchase price, whereas using a debit card (perhaps 95% of payments in physical shops) cost…
How is Klarna any different than Affirm or its precursors like Bill Me Later which later became PayPal Credit?
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The Overton window dynamically shifts between “true socialism has never been tried” and “no true socialist,” but all growth or development in China must be attributed to China being sufficiently capitalist. Do you mean to say that China’s socialism is a mirage, a fig leaf for authoritarian state capitalism in a country that was once socialist, or do you mean that China was never even socialist to begin with, that it…
"Do you mean to say that China’s socialism is a mirage, a fig leaf for authoritarian state capitalism in a country that was once socialist, or do you mean that China was never even socialist to begin with, that it was just authoritarian all along?" Well, it started of as authorian socialism and now is just authorian party state oligarchy with lots of red flags. And I have no connection to US demonisation policies (an…
I think federalism in the US allows a kind of “freedom gradient” where the patchwork of overlapping legalities allows for uneven enforcement and a distribution of norms of business and in behavior. These gaps allow for growth and innovation but can lead to voter approved market failures in one jurisdiction that might as well be a world away from those who work in the state capitols or in D.C.
I don’t know why socialism, Marxism, or whatever is blamed for dictators doing bad things for good/bad/no reason. I don’t blame democracy for the bad policies of its adherents either. Any system of government can produce bad results.
Either Klarna is really good at pulling strings to get media coverage, or mainstream media does not fact checking themselves. About a year ago, the company was everywhere in the media when its CEO announced that it created an AI bot that is doing the equivalent of 700 fulltime customer service folks. I did what seemingly no other publication reporting on it did: signed up for Klarna, bought one item and used this bot…
Mainstream media will print a press release for you if you send it to them. It is very important to understand how limited the fact checking really is. If a mainstream paper prints a statement of the form "X said Y", you can be sure that:
- they are pretty good at checking that person X did actually say Y
- they make no effort whatsoever to fact check the underlying statement Y.
There isn't really the money or interest in actually investigating the claims of every little press release.
> really wants to be seen as an "AI-first tech company" when it goes public, and not a "buy now pay later loan company" because AI companies have higher valuations even with the same revenue
Yes. This is because multibillion dollar investments are made by people who are easily distracted by the jangling keys of AI.
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"Do you mean to say that China’s socialism is a mirage, a fig leaf for authoritarian state capitalism in a country that was once socialist, or do you mean that China was never even socialist to begin with, that it was just authoritarian all along?" Well, it started of as authorian socialism and now is just authorian party state oligarchy with lots of red flags. And I have no connection to US demonisation policies (an…
In the 80s and 90s, Japan was the vaguely menacing economic bogeyman but that seems to have been in stark contrast to all I read about how Japan had almost no growth in GDP through those years due to inflation or something I have already forgotten. Which is why I don’t really look at what China or the US is doing as being surprising. China has been the bad guy since they were admitted to the WTO, if I had to put a da…
Maybe because the base of the theory comes with violence included? The need to take something of other people away(means of production) and maintain that order against expected resistance of the current owners?
It is really not surprising to me, that all experiments ended with totalitarism, because how else to do it like this?
(I am pretty sure there was some exchange between Marx and Engels I read, that already discussed the need to have camps where all the capitalists would have to be imprissoned)
Also there is the concept of global domination. As far as I understood it - Marxism needs to rule globally to really work. No other model allowed. But in reality there are indefinite more possibilities between socialism and capitalism. But then again, I did not read much Marx. What I read confirmed what the (stalinists influenced) socialist priests told me before. And they definitely had the world revolution concept ingrained. But I also met and debated with lots of other alternative folks and the totalitarian concept seems universal with marxists.
Anarchistic socialism is a bit of a different story, but in my eyes the same principle, just more local.