Lots of complaints about Netflix, but for the money, combined with Prime, I only miss affordable NHL, which is split between too many providers.
I agree that I wish Netflix had less lowbrow content, but they target a wide audience, and let's be honest, most people willing watch crap.
And seriously: go for a walk, read a book, play a game, or work on a hobby? TV shouldn't be your life, and it's long been one of the big societal problems.
I love to support creators, but I wish there was something common between free and significant subscription price so that I could show appreciation more readily.
Examples I would use without thinking for worthwhile-to-me content:
- "tip" options in the App Store
- 10/year
- 1/month
Similarly, I'm surprised these newsletter gatekeepers haven't implemented a tip jar where you put in $/year and it gets divided based on readership.
I know this has been tried in other ways, but I think Substack and Medium could make this work.
I know I'll get hated for this on Hacker News, but this has been solved quite well on the bitcoin & Nostr side of things. It's easy to tip couple cents or whatever amounts and there are many apps / websites that support that.
The main difference is that using the legacy dollar rails is super annoying for small amounts, since there are multiple banks/companies on the path between you and the author you are trying to tip. And each of these intermediators needs their $$$ from you.
> I'm surprised these newsletter gatekeepers haven't implemented a tip jar where you put in $/year and it gets divided based on readership.
I've seen a bunch of publication with a "tip" button, but I suspect it's not worth the effort. Very few people pay in the first place, so a random one-off payment of $1, $10, or even the "unicorn" $100 is not worth standing up the infrastructure and dealing with the tax paperwork.
On the flip side, if you find 100 people who really like your content and are willing to substantially support it on an ongoing basis with a subscription, you end up with recurring revenue that makes it a better deal.
My site has both subscription and one-time donations. The subscriptions bring in 90% of the revenue even though more people have Paypal accounts than accounts with specific crowdfunding services.
It's only in the past few hundred years where focus actually matters: knowledge workers, and some factory work where lack of attention resulted in injury.
They were called Sophists in Ancient Greece and were despised by Socrates because their arguments were based, not on truth or facts, but whatever rhetoric would convince the audience.
The quality I value in myself (and others when I find it) is a bias to doubt evidence of things I already believe, and to accept proof of things I do not believe. The bias isn't strong (that way lies madness!), but it makes your mental model of the world stronger. It's also a much better filter than "intelligent", "polite" or "articulate", which are all orthogonal to the kind of rational, open skepticism I advocate. The big downside is that such qualities are subtle and hard to judge. Tribal affiliation is, for all its faults, easy to measure.
Another point of optimism: being a persecuted (or neglected) minority can have some positive effects, if you can find your people.
We have similar problems in Colorado re: pipes leaking. People don't want to pay the full cost of water, which includes supporting infrastructure. Municipalities are caught between these unfunded costs and taxpayers refusing to pay 1¢ more. I believe the utilities require political approval to raise rates, so that doesn't happen either.
I would add that these finds would, and many did, find there way to the black market, ending up in private collections, which is almost as bad as their destruction.
Contrary to what others say, I don't think MacOS is that bad. In general, it's perfectly stable. There has been an increase in situational paper cuts -- I haven't experienced any I recall, but one cannot discount that others encounter weird problems. In the end it's significantly more stable than Windows and completely free of crapware.
Personally, the new look is annoying at worst, but it doesn't affect my day to day at all.
The biggest Apple problem is the same as its been for a decade: languishing Apple app development.
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