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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • No, it’s not a terrible argument. Anyone can have a pitch or idea. That does not mean it’s automatically a viable product/service or a viable business.

    It’s a valid question, how do we define “founder”? To play devil’s advocate, I’m curious if the people who think Musk didn’t co-found Tesla also agree Aaron Schwartz didn’t co-found Reddit. He joined later, after reddit was already incorporated by Hoffman and Ohanian.

    In business, “founder” is already an honorary title. It has no inherent power. Co-founders often ensure they get C-suite positions as a company grows, have stock/shares, or other legal powers, but none of those are guaranteed just by being a “founder”. So practically, there’s no difference between calling Musk a “co-founder” versus “honorary co-founder.” Let’s just focus on calling him a piece of shit for the very definitive and obvious things we can point to.



  • In my experience, ad personalization is still so bad it has no impact, like in your last example. But at least now I’m not seeing random shit. I don’t really bother to try and counter targeted ads, and the vast majority of the ads I get are for products I actually already bought or never intended to buy but was researching for other purposes. Yes, Google knows I spent a lot of time researching drills, but guess what, Home Depot isn’t telling them I bought a drill, so I’ll get drill ads for a month. And yeah, I looked at a bunch of luxury sail yachts, private jets, and cars, but it’s not because I suddenly make more money. It’s because I’m interested in design and engineering. But Google just stupidly assumes I became a billionaire overnight and gives me 100’ yacht ads.

    I’d honestly be more worried about a random ad getting lucky and pre-emptively catching my interest. Targeted ads are so reactive it’s not a problem.





  • The belief amongst some is that reddit basically did a rug pull. People could and would buy these crypto points with real money, so reddit likely made money. Odds are it just was not successful outside of niche subreddits, hence:

    Its newer Contributor Program, which rewards users with actual money from the Reddit gold and karma they accrue, is one such example. “Part of why we’re moving past this product is that we’ve already launched, or are actively investing in, several products that accomplish what the Community Points program was trying to accomplish, while being easier to adopt and understand,” Reddit’s director of consumer and product communications, Tim Rathschmidt, told TechCrunch.

    Crypto also hopefully seems to be on the decline, and it’s possible Reddit did not want to appear to be behind the times.



  • There are absolutely incentives - tax credits and rebates - for buying electric bikes in some areas. My state is offering $500 off any ebike purchase.

    The auto industry is not being subsidized by consumer incentives. The auto industry is being subsidized by tax credits whenever they build a new facility, which is still arguably dumb. Consumer incentives are designed to get the average citizen to buy an EV over an ICE vehicle. The consumer is gonna buy a car anyway - someone in the market for a car isn’t going to buy a bike, even an ebike, based off of price. They’re buying a mode of transportation based off of lifestyle. Many simply can’t commute to work via bike or public transportation, and if a credit gets them to buy an EV over an ICE vehicle, this is a net benefit.

    The solution to public transportation is not to attempt to disincentivize or punish car drivers, then build mass transit. Gotta build the mass transit first. The financial incentives for people taking mass transit are the fact that the most expensive mass transit in the US costs ~$1,500/year. The cost of owning an operating the average car in the US is ~$10,700/year. Yes, build more mass transit to free us from being slaved to expensive automobiles! But until then, preventing incentives for greener vehicles that would be purchased by those who have no choice is just shooting yourself in the foot.


  • I wanna know if they all applied those sentiments to all pets.

    There isn’t a single domesticated animal that isn’t “gross” and has to be cleaned up after constantly. Dogs will shit on the floor when you don’t let them outside to shit in nature, but a cat doing what it’s supposed to do will shit in a box you have to empty regularly and shreds your furniture for fun. At least dogs only lick their balls, cats have the flexibility to straight up lick their assholes.










  • Yeah, the thing with phones is they’re used every single day, and see a lot more wear and tear than say, a Kindle or a laptop. Not everyone wants to fork out for an OtterBox or some other ultra tanky case.

    I try and go four years between updates, but for my Pixel 4 that meant a warranty replacement on year two due to a charging defect, and buying another used Pixel 4 off a coworker three months ago when mine got water damaged. The replacement just shuts itself off randomly multiple times a day, and that’s fine for a couple months but I’m really looking forward to upgrading to the Pixel 8.

    We probably shouldn’t treat phones like leading cars, upgrading every year because something shiny and new came out, but upgrading regularly just due to wear and tear makes a lot of sense.