mycorrhiza they/them

  • 3 Posts
  • 87 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 29th, 2023

help-circle










  • of Google, not Youtube

    That’s my whole point! Google can afford it. Even if YouTube showed zero ads and earned zero revenue Google could afford it.

    If I want to support a small creator, I donate. I don’t feel bad about hurting the bottom line of one of the highest-earning companies in the world.

    Even if YouTube runs at a deficit, it’s probably worthwhile for Google to control the main video hosting hub on the internet and keep competition out of the game.

    So does shipping, etc.

    Spending on shipping or manufacturing is a lot less discretionary than spending on advertising. You have broad leeway to advertise less or more, and past a certain point the main requirement is that you advertise as well as your competition. If Google shows fewer ads across the board, even half as many ads, you’re still in business.

    What is your proposed alternative?

    If you want to talk real life, they’re already raking in $60 billion a year in profit so I see no need for an alternative. If you want to talk hypotheticals, I think central back-end infrastructure like Google’s servers — and the data we put on them — should be publicly owned, with an open-source marketplace of front-end services we can use to access it. We should be able to browse YouTube with whatever site interfaces and suggestion algorithms we find most useful, not the ones most profitable to Google.

    Blackrock owns 5% of Tesla

    Blackrock’s clients own 5% of Tesla.

    Blackrock dies tomorrow if they do anything other than what their clients expect of them. The sole purpose of Blackrock is to invest rich people’s money and maximize returns for them while managing risk. They have some leeway in how they do this, but only up to a point. They’re very good at what they do but they are ultimately replaceable.




  • Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online.

    In 2022 Google grossed around $280 billion, and only around 10% of that from Youtube. Before tax they profited around $73 billion, and after tax around $60 billion. They’re doing fine selling ads.

    And we paid all of that $280 billion, even those of us with adblockers, because companies charge us more to cover their marketing costs. I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card.

    I don’t feel like watching ads to convince even more companies to pay google to advertise to me and buy my data. They’re all making enough money already, and every year they spend less of it on wages or tax for society to function. Their money goes to stock buybacks, payouts to their major shareholders, executive bonuses, and think tanks to push policies and social trends that hurt all of us.


  • It really doesn’t. A lot of the time they’re flippant not because they have no interest in discussion but because so many libs dismiss and sneer at their vilified and misunderstood political positions — I’ve seen people literally assume they’re Trump supporters or Putin supporters and go around saying so to anyone who asks — and it makes discussion frustrating or outright impossible. Conveying a lot of background information to someone who is hostile and not listening is difficult. So they’re flippant, and it becomes a vicious cycle.







  • The nazis rose to power because they were backed by capitalists and the German establishment, and the reason they were backed was that they helped suppress a resurgent socialist movement in Germany and redirect the frustration of the german middle class toward scapegoated minorities and away from capitalists. Nazis co-opted socialist language and messaging, but were staunch capitalists and class-collaborationists who carried out mass privatization and crushed labor organizing.