D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Didn't he also try to rebrand eBay as X back in the day?
Musk bought Twitter, what hasn't gone wrong?
- Thread starter digitalwanderer
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- space karen
cheapchips
Veteran
X.com and another company merged and became Paypal. Musk wanted it to stay as X and lost that battle.
WhiningKhan
Regular
I would love to see a fight between M$'s lawyers and Musk's! It'd be like watching republicans fight or something.
WhiningKhan
Regular
M$ does not own unicode though, it's an ISO standard. Instead the current "logo" is kind of what an open source software fundamentalist might choose as it should be impossible to trademark or otherwise claim ownership of. I definitely ANAL though.
This is really funny to watch. A Chinese or Mayan pronunciation of the x as 'sh' makes lots of bad excrement jokes about this as well. This whole debacle underlines why I really don't want to support Tesla as well, but man if you want an electric car it is skin pickings and now NACS is becoming a standard as well.
WhiningKhan
Regular
OK I guess I was way off. Microsoft has been granted trademark for X in 2003.
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Zombietoid
Regular
X doesn't always mark the spot. 
Two bits of news:
1. Questions over how many of Musk's X followers are fake
2. Musk admits X could fail
1. Questions over how many of Musk's X followers are fake
2. Musk admits X could fail
Zombietoid
Regular
I never really cared much for Twitter, but then they started making you sign in to look at tweets. Now you can't even DM anyone unless you upgrade.
That's stupid. You can message people for free on Facebook. Or should I call it Messenger? But you know what I mean.
That's stupid. You can message people for free on Facebook. Or should I call it Messenger? But you know what I mean.
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.www.newyorker.com
That's scary and something really has to change in the balance of power between governments and private organisations here or we really will find ourselves living in one of those dystopian futures where private organisations run every aspect of the world (even if that means they have a puppet government sitting in front of them to appease the public).
I see this as largely a flaw in the US system of small government and privatisation of everything. On the surface it has it's advantages, but scratch the surface and it results in situation like this which will only get worse over time.
Honestly had no idea Musk had this kind of power and reach.
They changed it silently to "only from verified users", so you have to change it yourself.
On another news
100% agreed.
Capitalism only works when tightly regulated by a strong and well functioning democracy.
Big business should fear big government, and big government should fear the people.
Big business should do the right thing for society and the world at large almost without needing to be forced to do so, just out of fear of the regulatory hammer.
I always think back to the creation of the ESRB as an example of big business getting ahead of this and doing the right thing before the government forced their hand, back in the days when regulatory capture wasn't quite so egregious.
I think the EU has struck the best balance in this respect so far.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
In a truly capitalistic society big business does the right thing because it generates the most money. Fear of the regulatory hammer generally leads to inefficiently run businesses that attempt to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of often conflicting government regulations.
IE - Businesses that are best at "gaming the system" (navigating regulatory statutes and laws) are also generally the ones that are the most predatory. That's due to them having to be such in order to survive in a heavily regulated environment.
NOTE - this doesn't mean that predatory businesses don't exist in in a purely capitalistic society (the eponymous snake oil salesmen of yesteryear), but it means that they will always remain small fish moving from town to town (to remain in one location too long meant that they'd be in danger of lynching from the public in the largely unregulated West in the US) or eventually die as consumers move away from predatory businesses to businesses who provide what they claim to provide.
That also means that the least efficient businesses are often helped by regulations that seek to make competition more "fair" by limiting what big business can do while not limiting to the same extent what a smaller business is allowed to do. Thus businesses that are inefficient and unable to compete will get help from a government that relies on heavy regulation.
Case in point if you look at the US military and their procurement regulations that limit who they are allowed to procure non-critical equipment from (toilets, office chairs, desks, etc.). If someone out of the US or military procurement loops isn't aware, this is generally limited to smaller "disadvantaged" businesses which often charge 3-4x as much as larger more efficiently run businesses. This also affects from whom the military contractors (like Boeing) can buy or subcontract from (IE - they are generally forced to use more expensive and less efficient businesses when subcontracting or procuring non-critical components due to Federal Government procurement regulations).
NOTE - those regulations were instated with good intentions. Basically to help minority businesses, businesses in poor communities, etc. But as with everything the regulations just lead to abuse (gaming the system of regulatory laws) due to less efficient businesses having a monopoly on government procurement contracts with no incentive to become more efficient. Efficiency would see them compete better in the general market eventually leading them to no longer retaining the disadvantaged small business tag and thus they'd lose out on lucrative government procurement contracts. So, in this case, government regulations lead to more costly and lower quality goods and services.
Regards,
SB
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Yeah, sure.
I'm not surprised about Musk. I said so in the beginning of this thread, he consistently behaves like a wannabe oligarch. He tries to entrench himself in essential services so that he himself becomes indispensable to society. No surprise given he is the son of a diamond oligarch. He learned from home that the most robust form of power is leverage.
In that way, he is not very dissimilar to his "rivals" such as Zuck or Gates. Those two, if you see their busines decisions, seem to have the same strategy. They are not just naively seeking money. That too. But they seek to entrench their businesses and services as tools society cant leave without.
As for that being a flaw of capitalism, I think that's just the capitalist flavour of the same problem that always finds ways to manifest in every system: concentration of power, welth and influence into ever shrinking elites (dynasties, families, companies, armies, governments, religions, gangs, nations...) and the positive feedback loops that make this concentration eveolve esponentially.
A big state won't solve the problem in the abstract, it will only change the "title" we give to the villain. Instead of getting screwed by a shitty CEO we will be get screwed by shitty political leaders. Instead of a rich boy inheriting his family fortune and starting a succesful company in the "easy mode" there will be a rich boy inheriting the cabinet of some stateman that was in charge of the ministry of energy or whatnot through nepotism.
Capitalism works when oligarchies dont form, but they always form.
I'm very divided on the EU. They do grant us mere mortals a lot unquestionable wins, with sensible regulations. But with every benevolet dictatorship, the problem is in the long term. Eventually, every central decision making organization grows arrogant, megalomaniac, and gets infiltrated by selfish and greedy psycopaths.
Ianis Varoufakis is as leftie as they come, as big gov. as they come, as anti-capitalist as anyone can be, and he has been turning more weary of the EU at every new interview I hear from the guy. His claims that EU is part of the structure of the Neo-Feudalism that we are slowlu sleep-walking into resonates with a lot of my own intuitions, and I have seen similar concerns be voiced by many other commentators from all kinds of political backgrounds.
This only works if the vast majority of citizens and consumers arw highly inteligent, competant and cosciencious, and are exercising those traits extremely often. That world is as utopic and detached from reality as any comunista fiction.
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TLDR: Big companies eventually abuse us. Big religions evetually abuse us. Big governments eventually abuse us. The problem is not the kind of organization that happens to be big at the time. The problem is there being a big organization in the first place.
Any kind of power imbalance is detrimental for the weaker side.
If we don't like being a bitch, we should develop more independece of our own. Switching from one abusive pimp for another that promises "will treat you right" is a delusion.
Any kind of power imbalance is detrimental for the weaker side.
If we don't like being a bitch, we should develop more independece of our own. Switching from one abusive pimp for another that promises "will treat you right" is a delusion.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
Definitely, but big business has more incentive to keep people happy than big government. Generally speaking big government can keep citizens in line through threat of force. Generally speaking big business is about keeping consumers happy and buying their product through selling them goods and services that make them happy, they generally can't rely on force. I say generally because there have been times throughout history when large businesses were big enough that they used force to ensure they had no significant competition in their area.
Of course, it's not all wine and roses with big business, unfettered it's easy for them to abuse their workers. But throughout history (at least in the US) that tends to be the outlier rather than the norm. Yes you can save money by abusing your workers, but you can also save money by treating your workers well and having them be more productive. Which way any given business went depended on the mentality of the head of the business.
Of course, as with everything there's a bit of recency bias. And all I have to do is compare living conditions in the 70's (huge government oversight and massive regulation of industry and absolutely dismal quality of life) to the 80's and 90's (fewer regulations and less government oversight and significantly improved quality of life) to now (a move back towards 70's era oversight and regulation of industry and quality of living is also rapidly deteriorating).
Nothing is perfect. In all cases, you have to pick your poison. Small government + small business, for example, certainly has its attractions but even that isn't without drawbacks. Cost of goods and services for consumers is significantly higher without big business and the efficiencies enabled at that level of operation. OTOH - smaller businesses are more nimble at reacting to a changing landscape.
Regards,
SB