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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it is, but see the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it.
This story seems on topic considering y combinator is a startup focused enterprise, so monetization discussions, in whatever direction, are relevant.
This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…
But it also allowed skill with the game to shine by getting further on a single quarter.
Granted, paying for a chance to test and improve your skill sounds a lot more fair than paying to win.
That hypothesis offended the sensibilities of anyone who believes that all those who are able to work should do so. From each according to his ability, Comrade.
Soviet Communism is, indeed, terrible.
But a UBI is basically the opposite of politburos and bread lines.
And when the supply of unskilled labor exceeds the demand to such an extent that it no longer commands a living wage in a free market, what's your solution?
This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…
It's similarly lacking in awareness when it advocates one route to levelling playing fields being a model where everybody receives micropayments from any commercial entity that uses their data (interesting in theory) apparently without realising that data regarding people with money is usually a lot more valuable than data on people without it (before we even start to consider other issues like implications for deanonymisation). That's after moaning that Twitch separates people into "haves and have nots" because some people earn considerably more money from their streams than others based mainly on things other than their spending power.
And anyone that thinks "government employed Twitch stars tasked with building communities for the marginalised and estranged" is going to equal things out has never been through a process where government bodies evaluate who to fund...
The games themselves are content from a production culture standpoint, which is why we so little innovation (and lots of duplication) within the market. EGP coming out of the pipeline.
There is a salient point about the capture of leisure time, but it was written 40 years ago. Seeing as it ties into the Facebook ad policy reveal of a month ago, maybe it's worth bringing up in it's own thread.
> how can the market exploitation of civic, social, and leisure spaces possibly be averted What? The ominous "market" isn't forcing its way into any of these spaces. You let it in . You bought that game with micro-transactions, you signed up for that "free" social media app that was "secretly stealing your data". What shall we do? Our economic system isn't doing what we think it should! Could it be that we don't unde…
Are you not concerned that while some of these costs may not be entirely hidden - they are very often intentionally obfuscated? It's not exactly analogous to "people should know to avoid credit cards with 20% interest rates" as that interest rate must be openly communicated to the consumer while the collection and sale of my personal data has no such requirement.
This is a good read, but I question this line: > Video games, at their best, offer everyone an equal chance to overcome the same challenges on an equal playing field. “Pac-Man,” after all, didn’t let you add extra quarters to purchase immunity from the ghosts. I mean, in a way they did. If you had more quarters to spare in Pac-Man, you'd be more likely to make it further than your cash-strapped compatriot. But then a…
Some people are making substantial amounts of money from activities that we traditionally associate with leisure, in the example given, videogames. This devalues gaming as a leisure activity for the rest of society. This is a bad thing. This is an indicator of a broader trend of the monetization of all forms of leisure. This is bad. Consequently we should find ways to redistribute wealth so that everyone can benefit from having leisure time and using it in non-wealth producing ways.
I think this is a fair summary of the argument (but I don't want to misrepresent the argument so correct me if I got something wrong), though I've tried to phrase it in more neutral terms rather than the ideologically loaded ones the author uses.
I agree with some aspects of the argument. I think it's true that people are finding more ways to make money from things that would previously be described as hobbies through the advent of platforms like Patreon, Twitch, and YouTube. I also think it's undesirable for everyone to view their hobby as a means of making more money, but I don't think it's likely everyone will move to this for a simple reason: these are winner-takes-all fields. The most popular streamers are going to create the vast majority of revenue and reap the vast majority of profit.
Further, money serves a useful purpose: allocating labor to things people otherwise wouldn't do on their own. Sure, it'd be great if everyone could play videogames more without worrying about providing for their needs. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way. We aren't at a point where we can produce everything that people want at a small amount of labor time and use the rest for leisure. Plus a fundamental fact about people is this: we're never satisfied. We always want more. Access to money mediates our desire for more by limiting what we can have. It also helps integrate us into broader society by making us do things that at least someone finds valuable enough to pay for.
In short, I think the article is weak because it is dealing with what would be nice (from the perspective of the author, not necessarily my perspective), rather than what is realistically achievable.
> how can the market exploitation of civic, social, and leisure spaces possibly be averted What? The ominous "market" isn't forcing its way into any of these spaces. You let it in . You bought that game with micro-transactions, you signed up for that "free" social media app that was "secretly stealing your data". What shall we do? Our economic system isn't doing what we think it should! Could it be that we don't unde…
Are you not concerned that while some of these costs may not be entirely hidden - they are very often intentionally obfuscated? It's not exactly analogous to "people should know to avoid credit cards with 20% interest rates" as that interest rate must be openly communicated to the consumer while the collection and sale of my personal data has no such requirement.
Similarly, the ways in which a site will use your data is hidden within the thousands of words of fine print in their privacy policy.
Seems exactly the same to me.
But because of "commodification" and a perceived social inequality in the leisure sphere this is supposed to be inherently bad for reasons not stated.
Then they shift to talking about UBI.