Don't forgot the cost of worse products. If you're an honest company trying to build the best product, and your competitors choose to milk their customers instead, they can still win more market share by spending more on advertising.
Of course it's possible for customers to find out about these practices by doing research - too bad the marketing industry manages to sabotage every halfway reliable indicator after a few years.
I had a boss like this when I worked at a call center, he would swing a golf club around (he was short and I think he wanted to feel like he had a weapon, he never hit any balls in the place) and he would go out of his way to offer overtime to the poorest and most hard off people and wanted to see how much OT he could get one person to work.
It was his little game to manipulate people that couldn't help but say yes into a situation that left them no time to live a life.
The stats were much worse for such people, and those stats had a direct impact on his pay, but if there was a sadistic option he always took it.
Same guy had a "water drinking contest" so he could watch all his employees throw up for a day off.
I disagree with multiple of your responses, but I'd like to push back on this point in particular:
> Yes - and you just ordered DoorDash, which delivered food made by exploited workers and delivered by exploited workers. In fact, almost every convenience you enjoy is the result of some level of exploitation. That doesn't mean it's morally right, but if your outrage is pointed at GenAI (one of the technologies that can potentially level the playing field and remove some amount of exploitation) at the exclusion of these other things, you are simply rage farming.
You could have made the same point without the baseless accusation of bigotry. But even if it's true, it would still be the "You think we should improve society, yet you live in it" meme in action. Exploitation is not a binary state (some workers are exploited worse than others), and if the author believes that AI will broadly lead to much more/worse exploitation, watering down their actual point would only make their stance less likely to be heard.
And if they mentioned DoorDash workers, would you actually be satisfied? Or would you be looking for the next group of exploited workers that aren't included?
Nuance would make the points stronger, not weaker. If you complain about something while assuming everyone should agree with you without question, you are not contributing to the conversation, but merely whining.
Sure, but including more groups of exploited workers wouldn't have made the author's point more nuanced. And ironically, throwing around baseless accusations (like "you just ordered DoorDash" and "if you actually cared about the environment") will only serve to make the conversation less nuanced.
While that's most likely true, it rests on the assumption that consumer hardware stays affordable enough, and isn't locked down to disallow running "untrusted" models. I would have never believed that these assumptions could ever turn out false, but the recent developments have shown that even if unlikely, it's not impossible.
Mind sharing a video of what you're talking about? I've heard this response many times since the inauguration, but I've never seen an actual video showing a comparable gesture.
All the results I've seen indicate that solar panels will keep producing electricity long after those 30 years, just at a reduced rate (but seemingly still >50%).
I'm not sure what kind of answer you expect here. Your initial objection further up was:
> By the time the "free" electricity has paid for the installation, you'll need to replace it.
Since you won't need to replace it, I'd say that this whole thing couldn't work out better: the panels are literally just generating electricity for free! And that's not even taking into account that 30yo panels generate more than "only half the power" (the study I linked measured ~80%).
Imagine someone offered to give you their 30 year old panels and install them on your property for free. Unless every eligible surface is already taken up by more efficient solar panels, who would say no?
1. Not everyone is spending all their "spending money" every month, and 2. more free time allows people to get more value for their money (e.g. by comparing more alternative options).
This might be fair if the rules of the market were static, but companies are actively using their power and influence to affect the market rules so they can get away with paying workers less and less - that's not to mention collusion and corruption.
Just because this has been normalized doesn't mean it's not evil. If a healthcare company introduces processes that deny people life-saving interventions just to funnel more money to their shareholders, that company and its leadership are thoroughly evil.
I'd also like to add that I often pay more for things than I could get away with. I try to prefer locally owned businesses when possible, and if they have fair prices and give me good advice I often pay a bit extra (essentially a "tip" for the business) to support them.
> but companies are actively using their power and influence to affect the market rules so they can get away with paying workers less and less - that's not to mention collusion and corruption.
What do you mean? Labor is a market. Companies can’t force anyone to work for them. If the pay gets too low, people leave for other companies or jobs.
Just like all markets, the labor market isn't an immutable natural structure. It is actively shaped by the laws and regulations of the market's respective physical location. There are too many specific examples to count, but a few of the most obvious ones are IMO: Child labor, minimum wage, max. working hours and/or overtime, worker safety & health, ...
> Companies can’t force anyone to work for them. If the pay gets too low, people leave for other companies or jobs.
In an ideal world, sure! But in the real world, there are many sources of friction that - when added together - keep people tied to a job, even if they feel the pay is too low.
Markets are social constructs, not something given in nature. As such, there are rules enforced by laws to how the markets operate. Powerful money interests can shape those rules by influencing politicians to pass laws in their favor.
Unfortunately, this video isn't as apolitical as you are saying. I happened to watch this response recently, IMO it's very well argued: https://youtu.be/UjmsfOXy5oM
I'd argue that it's directly related. If intuitive use of a library/framework/pattern commonly causes issues, you have to keep forcing yourself to do use non-intuitive approaches to prevent them.
It’s intuitive in the same way Ruby is intuitive, or C, yes, C, is intuitive.
They try to give you the vocabulary to be expressive, then get the hell out of your way. You can still shoot yourself in the foot with them, of course.
I think that has more to do with the design goals of the language. C was designed to be raw and simple, and it does that well. Ruby was designed to read almost like English prose, and it does that well. Rust was specifically designed to make it hard to shoot yourself in the foot, and it does that well too.
I don’t think that was ever a major React design goal. PropTypes helped a bit, but these days TypeScript carries most of the burden of saving developers from themselves.
Anyway, React is far from perfect. But JSX was a neat invention that alleviated the tension between
`<div>something</div>` and
let el = document.createElement(‘div’);
el.innerHTML(‘something’);
Of course it's possible for customers to find out about these practices by doing research - too bad the marketing industry manages to sabotage every halfway reliable indicator after a few years.
reply