McDonald’s corporation doesn’t actually employ all its fast food workers, the franchise owners do. Franchise owners are free to pay their workers more. Some do, such as in high cost of living areas where they’d otherwise be unable to hire anyone.
Greed has nothing to do with it. Even mom and pop bakeries will give you a discount if you buy a dozen bagels instead of just one. Are you going to start shouting at them? Why am I wasting my time talking to you? Blocked.
Yes I know Bezos owns Wapo. That’s why I don’t read it anymore.
Do you think it’s his personal charity? I doubt it! Even if he doesn’t need the money he’ll see it as a matter of pride to make the paper profitable. Anything otherwise would be like a gardener letting all his plants die: embarrassing.
Economics 101: if you charge a trillion dollars for a newspaper and nobody buys it, your profit is zero. If you give your paper away for free and everyone in the world accepts a free copy, your profit is also zero. Somewhere in between the two extremes is a price where profit is maximized. This is the equilibrium or market-clearing price since either raising or lowering the price from this point will reduce profits.
Again, maybe you don’t understand, but $7 < $26 < $29. If you only need the paper for 1 day (or anywhere up to 1 week), it’s cheaper to pay $7 for the 1 week subscription than it is to pay $26 (50 cents per week) for the whole year. There is no option to pay 50 cents for one week and then cancel it.
If no one’s buying it then they’re not maximizing profit. Profit is maximized at the market-clearing price.
And no, it’s not “worth 50 cents.” That’s a temporary price for the first year. The price goes up after that. At 50 cents per week they’re almost certainly losing money. The goal is to lose money the first year and make money the next year when the price goes up. It could backfire and people just cancel after the first year. But that’s still more money than not getting the 50 cents per week.
If they’re overcharging you then don’t buy. If they set a price and nobody buys it then they’ll lower it.
No one’s forcing you to subscribe to the Wapo.
Volume discounts are everywhere. Ever seen “buy X get one free” deals at the grocery store? That’s all this is.
The $7 option is good if you only need the paper for 1 week. The other options probably lock you into a 1 year contract.
Yes! Playing some Dark Castle in the woods!
Sure, we know loot boxes are bad because they exploit the psychology of gambling. But what about Steam sales? They’re exploiting FOMO, hoarding/collecting psychology. We know that Steam users are buying billions of dollars worth of games they never play.
You have not denied that Rossmann engages in rage baiting. Everything you’ve said dances around that point. You’ve tried to make this a discussion about who is paying for it. THAT DOESN’T MATTER. It’s the subject matter which is toxic. And Louis Rossmann is guilty of it. I’ve watched plenty of his videos and they’re all the same. Endless rage masturbation. It’s garbage content. The modern day equivalent of Jerry Springer.
His activism could cure cancer and end world hunger but that wouldn’t excuse him for it, because others are doing the same activism WITHOUT THE TOXICITY.
You just named them yourself. FUTO. His company.
Without views he has nothing. It doesn’t matter who is paying him, he’s not getting paid if he doesn’t get views. The algorithm brings him views when he gives the algorithm what it wants. What does it want? Engagement. And the path he has taken to generating engagement is outrage, toxicity, and negativity.
He says “my finances don’t depend on YouTube” then why is he still publishing on YouTube? Shut it down! Oh wait, he can’t, because then he’ll stop getting paid by his sponsors.
YouTube has consistently reduced the amount it pays creators per ad view over time. Yet creators are making more videos than ever. Why? Because they make money through 3rd party sponsors. YouTube is a platform. The value it provides to creators is the audience it brings to them through network effects and through the algorithm.
I’ve already addressed Rossmann’s political activism in a previous comment. I appreciate all the work he’s done on it. But he’s by no means the only person fighting for right to repair. There are tons of others doing so as well, such as iFixit, the EFF, and loads of organizations representing farmers all over North America.
My criticism of Rossmann is specifically with the style of content he puts out. Negativity-based reaction videos are his bread and butter. That’s how he makes money. This puts an asterisk on all of the good things he does, just as MKB’s occasional soft takes put an asterisk on the work he does.
This kind of toxic negativity is heavily favoured by the YouTube algorithm and it leads people into mental health spirals. That’s my point. Louis Rossmann makes money by damaging the mental health of vulnerable people in his audience. None of his beneficial activism makes up for this. You can look at other right to repair activists and see that they are working towards their goals without this odious behaviour.
There are thousands of youtubers just like Rossmann. They sit there in front of the camera and react to other videos or news. People watch because they get a thrill out of seeing someone get angry and “pwn” the bad guys. There’s no creativity in it. It’s just emotional dumping. It’s totally toxic.
Louis used to be all about creativity. He used to make repair videos and teach people useful skills. He stopped doing those when he realized the algorithm would give him a bigger audience for these negative takes.
Call him a victim if you like. Algorithmic capture I’ve heard it called. Many many youtubers have gone down that road.
As for MKB. I like his videos because he’s a very good speaker, he puts a lot of thought and creativity into the whole production, and he is actually honest about the drawbacks in products he reviews. Is he perfect though? Clearly not. I would prefer if he didn’t interview Apple mouthpieces to let them deliver well-practiced marketing directly to his audience.
Sometimes I also think MKB gets a bit too starstruck because he can’t quite believe where he is and what he gets to do for a living. If you go back through his videos and sort by increasing date you can see his very first videos. It’s rather stark how far he’s come.
Both guys are in the business of self-promotion. One is based on positivity, the other negativity.
You want to fill your life with negativity? Go ahead. I’ll pass.
I’m a big fan of right to repair and I appreciate all Louis Rossmann has done for the movement. Having said that, I wouldn’t say he’s strictly a pro-consumer guy. He’s a professional gadfly.
I dunno what it is, and I’m not saying the person you’re replying to is doing this, but tons of people seem to throw shade at MKB. Like they think he’s being sneaky or is in any way untrustworthy. All I’ve ever seen the guy do is be honest with his opinions. Yes, he is generally a very tech-positive guy. But he’s not afraid to explain in detail why he thinks a product sucks.
Robin Hood might not have even existed as a singular person. Rather, the name could’ve been a common alias shared by many different outlaws.
I don’t. I just use the phone because it works well with my laptop. My previous one was all banged up and scratched, so I wouldn’t really call it a status symbol.
I don’t really care about status though. My friends are a bunch of misfits. If it bothers you that people are using something as a status symbol, perhaps you’re more concerned about status than you realize. I’d love to just advise you to stop caring about that but it’s not that easy. Status seeking is a pretty common, normal behaviour.