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That would be a separate issue, those are not the terms of a buy-out package initiated after the acquisition, but rather wanting to enforce the terms of their original agreements (because Musk terminated them).

My archetype of a good sales person is the successful realtor. Realtors tend to “eat what they can kill”, so you can see the skills power law clearly. They are selling themselves more than houses, but there’s a lot to learn from that.

Some people love their realtors, although they do very little for their outlandish commissions. They do however, guide you through the process and give you transactional advice. Like any sales person, they generally have an interest in the transaction closing but they are only trusted if they come off as acting in your interest. That trust can ultimately help the transaction close — this is the line that I think good sales people walk.


> although they do very little for their outlandish commissions

Realtors exist because buyers and sellers usually don't trust each other enough to talk directly.

It's stupid and inefficient, but here we are.


I think you value their work too little. I worked as a realtor for a time and admittedly not a good one.

A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services.

There is often an element of buffering communication between buyer and seller, but it's not just a trust problem. Due to their different interests and perspectives, they will tend to communicate in ways that could offend the other party inadvertantly. A good realtor is skilled in smoothing this over and being more objective.

As an aside, the term realtor is trademarked and is something on top of real estate agent, but for the American public the realtor association has been so successful that almost every agent joins.

At the time I did this work, the requirements for licensing were indeed too lax in my state and therefore a commensurate number of lower quality agents. Which of course feeds the impression that agents are useless, because it was more true.

My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened.

None of that detracts from the fact that a good agent does quite a bit of work to build up knowledge, and to assist through a huge transaction that most people will seldom make and therefore more likely mess up.

Unfortunately this work is also often spent doing things that never lead to a transaction, such as multiple showings to buyers prior to finding a fit, or preparing listings that ultimately fail to sell for whatever reason. These costs need to be accounted for somehow, so we end up thinking only of the services rendered in our dealings.

I realize I have even more to say but I gotta stop sometime...


>A good realtor has knowledge of current values in the local market, issues to look for throughout the transaction, which services will be needed and who can be trusted to provide those services.

Even if a "good" Realtor actually knows these things (and they don't, even though most think they do), you can't trust anything they say because they have misaligned incentives from you. So what service am I paying for, again?

And if only .001% of Realtors are "good", what does it even matter? You're not likely to be able to find a "good" one anyway. And if I do how do I verify they are "good?" You can't. And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.

If I want home buying/selling services I should be able to pay a fixed fee (either per service or per hour) and get those services on the open market (and pay for them even if I don't close). Them demanding 6% of the value of my house is straight criminal. As is, the buyers agent works for the seller, because that's who is paying them.

>My understanding is that licensing the has since tightened

You're wrong. Even if they have tightened, any dingus can still get a real estate license.

Real estate agents are the house version of used car salesman.


Incentives should be aligned because you will use that agent again if they do a good job for you. Not all realize this, but repeat moves (every 5-10 years) and referrals are how good agents make their money and both mean that they need to be trustworthy.


> And you straight up can't change your mind about who you are working with midway through the process, you sign a contract.

You don't have to, those contracts are optional. They will threaten to not represent you, but if you are a well qualified buyer, this is something you can force without much risk.

The more well qualified buyers refuse, the more normalized working for clients without contracts will be


>> These costs need to be accounted for somehow.

Why?

Realtors have for years committed antitrust violations to the detriment of home buyers and sellers and helped push home values up for no reason because they act in their own interest instead of their client’s. A realtor’s ultimate goal is to close the deal at any price, not get you a good deal. They are beholden to the sell side. They were a key reason for the housing crash of 2008. They offer very little value in 2025, and the value they do offer is sourced from their monopoly practices. They are strictly rent seekers (no pun intended).


I think they provide a quite useful service.

As a seller, they can handle all the visits for you - no need to take calls from potential buyers, arrange times with them to show them the house, etc. This becomes almost indispensable if you live far away from the house you're selling.

As a buyer, they also provide convenience - sometimes I've seen 3 or 4 different apartments in two hours, which would almost certainly be impossible if I needed to contact and arrange time slots with 4 different sellers. They also filter properties with unrealistic prices - I have seen many owners who have massive bias, having grown in the house, etc., and will charge like 100K over reasonable prices. A good realtor would probably not even show you that home or warn you beforehand so you don't waste your time.

In my country, they also help with the bureaucracy associated with actually performing the purchase, which is far from trivial - although this can vary per country, I guess.


They exist because they've embedded themselves in the process and are hard to get rid of. If you want to buy a specific house it's already set up for you to find a realtor and the homeowner has already agreed to pay them a fat stack of cash. I needed a realtor to send an email, he dragged his feet then went on vacation, and I ended up overpaying to beat offers that showed up later. Rent seekers.


> Some people love their realtors

I'm sort of concerned that some people have "their realtor". I've sold a few houses, realtors are companies I contract to sell my house and they can be fired.


Yeah, but it’s “your realtor” through that transaction, unless they are fired. Regardless, most successful realtors have repeat clients, for buying and selling (even if it’s years between transactions).


And how many people who threatened to “move to Canada” did so? I don’t doubt that Elon’s antics will have an impact, but in my experience the actions people take may be different when the rubber meets the road. Your friends may be less idealistic (or changed by the world) in a few years, and some concerns may be weighed differently.

I don’t think there’s a valid universal “hybrids are better” conclusion; it all depends on your specific needs and what you value. A single car for a single person is different than a family with multiple cars. For an electric car, Tesla still makes a compelling product (and while competitors in the US are getting much better, notably Hyundia/Kia, Tesla still feels like the market leader).


Moving to Canada is way harder than choosing not to buy a Tesla in the future. And few people will buy something that gets them judged or ridiculed by their community or friends. Fortunately, the EV market is getting competitive.


You’re loosely describing a CSRF vulnerability, which do occur but people try to design against them and mitigate them. For example, actions that mutate often require POST (which won’t be triggered by a link), cookies may be marked strict (and not sent from frames or following links), etc.


Why do you say this? I used to live right in the center of the stick figure, and regularly did the loop up around Christie Pits or down around Trinity Bellwoods. Those streets are great for running, not boring at all.


I must confess, I looked at the map, looked at the streets, and even though I know exactly where that is as I live at Ossington and Dundas, my brain took spadina crescent on that map and somehow anchored it as the area next to the U of T circle to the east, so in my mind the map was all around the AGO... I dunno why.


You should share the secret of how to “correctly invest”, because the point of the parent comment was that it’s not about the capital



The global market has changed a lot since 1930s.

In the 30s, customers can't place orders on the order side of the ocean and have it the same week.


yes, and some changes are not for the best. But for the real big global market of resources, oil, gas, steel, energy, high-tech.. some ideas are still valid imho, of course to be adapted. And i notice that the lifes of 99.99% of us people has not even a fraction of the freedom of capitals and goods, and this is another side of the problem.


Looking at inflation-adjusted dollars or even fraction-of-GDP, Biden has spent more on stimulus and new investment programs than the entirety of the New Deal. So what gives? Maybe it’s not a capital problem.



Certainly blew the mind of the people writing the techdirt article if the opening paragraph is any indication: "Well here’s a surprise for you / This is… flabbergasting." It's almost like they thought they had good reasons to expect something else from TFG's adminstration.

Why were the results different?

DOJ composition running up through 2018 was pretty strongly influenced by a decade of liberal-leaning but cross-partisan staffing, and this was a legal theory that obviously emerged from within staff rather than coming down from the top.

And psychology of liberal or conservative but principled lawyers is likely to be conscientious enough when it comes to their legal theorizing that except where it serves particular organized power plays, you'll see some principled arguments come out, like this one, because obviously the DMCA exists to protect copyright rather than stymie repair.

Also, right-to-repair has an appeal that crosses partisan boundaries very well, especially among voters themselves. Sure, businesses and social influencers who'd sacrifice right-to-repair for pro-capital / power-play positions are probably highly represented and influential in the right-wing party, what with the investment in social philosophies oriented around hierarchies of status. But going against right-to-repair is still unpopular enough and likely to piss off conservative-identifying libertarians that there was bound to be some discomfort, even with the usual Republican enthusiasm for being a pro-capital / pro-business capture party.

And finally, while it's obvious that the 2018 POTUS is only capable seeing the issue in terms of friends/opportunities and enemies/liabilites rather than principled legal or social theories, it's also obvious that right-to-repair is one of the things that benefited from his shall we say limited range/depth of interest when it comes to policy. Inattention can allow any number of things to thrive. At least until someone offers to buy right-to-repair off of him. Elections matter.


I don’t think the surprise was based on the head of the executive, rather it was based on the DOJ taking a stance in favor of exemptions.

I just get tired of the idea that the president/executive completely colors every single government action. Let’s stop pretending that every election will completely rewrite the MO and agendas for every agency.

The comment I replied to was based on exactly those kinds of assumptions (“couldn’t possibly imagine this happening under Trump”) and was wrong. Now you’re just doing a no-true-Scotsman (“oh, it only happened because he wasn’t paying attention”).

I’ve personally seen no evidence that right-to-repair is a partisan issue in the way you’ve suggested, and I’ve seen plenty of evidence that the cronyism charges you’re levying are also not limited to a single party. You can hate the guy for lots of reasons, but the idea that Trump is uniquely capable of being bought on this issue seems very strange to me.


> TFG's adminstration

Huh? Did you mean DJT?


TFG = The Former Guy = Trump



Just another UFA.


WTF? DYM TLA?


I'll give you a hint, starts with useless rhymes with ducking


Cost of living is extremely high in Tel Aviv, but the rest is true.


For the region, yes. Compared to the US, it's closer to Houston and Chicago, and way less that the typical tech hubs like the Bay or NYC.


Israel is geographically pretty small though -- I'm guessing you could live an hour up or down the coast and have it be an outrageous commute for people accustomed to the Bay Area?


It’s not stable if you need to reboot daily.


Knowing you can survive reboots is positive for stability.


That’s totally different from needing to reboot.


Not at all. It’s merely a question of whether social networks are shielded from liability for their recommendations, recognizing that what they choose to show you is a form of free expression that may have consequences — not an attempt to control that expression.


Of course Comrade, there must be consequences for these firms pushing Counter-Revolutionary content. They can have free expression, but they must realize these algorithms are causing great harm to the Proletariat by platforming such content.


Well it would be the same exact protections that are provided to everyone else's free speech.

Yes, if you as a person start making death threats or direct calls to violence, then you could be held liable for that.

Were you not aware of that?

An algorithm isn't any different from any other sort of speech.


Brother, the child asphyxiation challenge isn’t political content getting unfairly banned. They would only be liable for harm that can be proven, far as I’m aware, so political speech wouldn’t be affected unless it was defamatory or something like a direct threat.


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