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But what if I want a faster horse?

rakhim.exotext.com

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Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#521

Post by m463 »

sureIy wrote: post #238
patapong wrote: post #230

I am astonished by how much less delightful software has become. Computers used to feel like a magical tool, that would respond instantly and allow me to perform complicated transformations at the press of a button. Now, I feel like I am fighting against software most of the time, having to compete with someones vision for how I should be using their program, which is likely aimed at the least technically sophisticat…

Is this about software or is it about you? I loved my computer when I was a kid, now I only see flaws. I don't think software was flawless at the time, it's just that I became very keenly aware of its current issues because this is my field.

> Is this about software or is it about you?

about and not about

Kids nowadays are suprisingly proficient and using phones and computers.

...because they just click "AGREE" to every popup. They sign up. They give away their phone number or their one email address or they do the subscription, then cancel it later (or forget). They enter their credit card because they don't have any money to take anyway.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#522

Post by jFriedensreich »

Here is the thing: netflix and spotify are not in the "my X collection" business. They sell subscriptions to content and the apps reflect that. I am 100% in your/OPs boat but i would expect (niche and /or open source) apps to pop up that just make my collections of my content from other sources nice and the way nerds like us want. We have a right under EU data portability laws to do exactly that BUT companies break the laws to prohibit users taking control of their data. The only reason this is not changing is that we are not organised and there is no funded organisation suing the crap out of these companies until the final instance to give us our data.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#523

Post by m463 »

I definitely want a plaid horse with a dashboard, a round steering wheel and turn-signal/drive-select stalks.

and I want to use a buggy whip to smack the fingers of people reaching for their touchscreens to spring for the in-car-purchases and seat-warmer subscriptions

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#524

Post by somethingor »

What frustrates me is that many people that claim to want a faster horse don’t actually use them where they are available

Bandcamp to me is the ideal “horse” for music (and I’m praying it stays a horse)

Those complaining about Chrome dominance but still not personally using Firefox is another example (even with all of Mozilla’s controversies, Firefox is still the “fastest horse” available imo)

Not being satisfied with the horse selection is understandable, but actively furthering the obsolescence of the available horses is not (even if the individual impact is minimal)

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#525

Post by srveale »

temp0826 wrote: post #219
chasd00 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luxury watches are a good analogy too. A $5 watch from the gas station will give you the time just fine but there’s a market for watches costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I'm convinced expensive watches are exclusively used as a vehicle for money laundering

Shady business, potentially, but you might be underestimating how much some guys really, really need to have the most expensive watch in their friend group.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#526

Post by djeastm »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #150
bluGill wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can can git rich by growing slowly in many cases - but it will be a long hard road. You could instead sell out today and get rich instantly. If you start the slow growth path at 30 and retire at 65 you will overall make more money from that thing vs someone who sells out at 35. There are some catches though. The person who sells out can go on to the next thing which in sum total may be more sell out enough to make fa…

The issue I think you're outlining is whether someone builds because they believe in their product and its value or if they are profiteers charading as believers. I'm not saying profit isn't a factor, but a lot of these founders are five year founders, they are using the company as a means to their end. Basically I'm criticizing short sightedness and what it does to our economy. That's why I've turned against the sto…

>The high liquidity means you are beholden to thousands of people who view your company as a roulette wheel amongst thousands, who want immediate gains and have no stomach for any losses.

This sounds a lot like Warren Buffett's opinion of stocks. The Berkshire Hathaway Class A stocks are 780k each because he wanted people to act like investors, not speculators.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#527

Post by travisjungroth »

TimPC wrote: post #380
Arainach wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Netflix has their content as their moat. Only Netflix-produced shows apply here. Before Netflix started producing content they had *no moat*. That's the big problem with media streaming - the content owners have all the leverage. Any profit you make they can see and simply increase licensing costs to transfer to them. If you don't want to pay they can (and will, and have done) start their own competitor since the te…

Large aggregation is also to a certain degree a moat. Most creators have quickly found that people won't pay for one creator's content unless that creator is a huge volume creator (at the scale of maybe Disney). No one subscribes to a platform with 20 movies and 5 TV shows.

Dropout.tv is a counterexample. They're not 20 movies and 5 TV shows, but they're closer to that than they are Disney. There are also all the people who make a living on Patreon.

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#528

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

setgree wrote: post #170
cjs_ac wrote: post #16

For any given thing or category of thing , a tiny minority of the human population will be enthusiasts of that thing , but those enthusiasts will have an outsize effect in determining everyone else's taste for that thing . For example, very few people have any real interest in driving a car at 200 MPH, but Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are widely understood as desirable cars, because the people who are into car…

"Shoving content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase" maximizes eyeball time which maximizes ad dollars. Netflix's financials are a bit more opaque but I think that's the key driver of the carcinisation story here, the thing for which "what the median user wants" is ultimately a proxy. Likewise, all social media converges on one model. Strava, which started out a weirder platform for serious athletes, is n…

>"Shoving content into the faces of an indiscriminating userbase" maximizes eyeball time which maximizes ad dollars. Netflix's financials are a bit more opaque but I think that's the key driver of the carcinisation story here,

Non sequitur. For the longest time, Netflix had no advertisements. Do they even now? (I don't subscribe... all their shows end up on my Plex anyway.)

Re: But what if I want a faster horse?

#530

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

bluGill wrote: post #461
crazygringo wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer. The more you watch, the less likely you are to unsubscribe. If you haven't watched a streamer in a couple of months, that's the first thing you'll cancel when you glance at your credit card statement.

Netflix could probably get enough goodwill by just automatically not charging people who didn't use their service at all as to be worth it. No hassle, we just keep rolling your subscription over until you watch something again (of course they make interest in the month you paid but didn't use services - that $0.05 should pay for the email and other infrastructure costs needed for a customer that doesn't even use the…

>Netflix could probably get enough goodwill by just automatically not charging people who didn't use their service at all as to be worth it.

Is there a circumstance that could cause their stock price to drop to $0 more quickly?

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