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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Maybe, I just know that you don't need a million dollar studio, a giant tv transmitter and an FCC licence anymore to broadcast your video to 60 million people. If removing gatekeepers and democratizing the media to give more people access is a good or bad thing will be a decision we will find out when we can look back in 100 years. But now anyone can communicate with any number of people trivially easy. I can get this post to you and 100 other people without touching a mimograph even once. But in order to get your video listened to by 60 million people you need to follow the content lead of other, far more predictable sources of information. Theoretical broadcast capacity available to individuals doesn't matter when there are quite distinct trends in heavily consumed content which mirror those presented by traditional, quite distinctly centralized, media providers. Much like we discovered that you don't need to go round banging everyone up for thoughtcrime, in order to effectively control a population, we also discovered that you don't need to actively, completely, and brutally suppress all dissenting voices in order to wield a great deal of power over the conceptual space. And that's quite key in the modern age of international capital, owners of media empires and their ilk don't need absolute control, they just need enough control to keep themselves happy and fat. These aren't governments tied up with any one nation, forced to control every aspect of their citizen's lives because they have nowhere to run to if they fall. Entirely the opposite, that power to simply obstruct and stymie organization against them gives them ample space to operate internationally. And if they lose out in one country, so what, there's plenty of others. I think if you're wanting to look at effective use of power by the wealthy today you want to look at their needs as much as their methods. They don't need to be totalitarian, but the control they do need and use still causes a hell of a lot of collateral damage for everyone else. Not just with media, and not just today, same thing with capital flight from many areas in the US and UK. It does bad things to their economies but it doesn't matter to the people doing it, preservation of mere national economies is irrelevant, they're international companies. That's quite significant with stuff like Amazon, which is perhaps the apex of multinational retail. You can see/predict a lot of what it does if you assume that small losses don't matter to it as long as it retains enough control and primacy in its market. Essentially I guess I am arguing that the ability of large companies to absorb losses that smaller ones cannot, applies in media as well. If you have the ability to set the agenda for discussion, you don't need to worry who exactly is speaking or what they might say. And that power still rests heavily with centralized, traditional media.
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Oct 6, 2018 01:33
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YouTube and Twitter really just take the place of the regular old rumor mill. Joe Shmoe isn't creating news coverage, his soap box just has a megaphone attached to it
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Oct 6, 2018 01:45
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That's probably a much more concise way to put that ramble I just posted yes. Sure your video might get watched by millions of people around the world. But even the shittiest national broadcaster gets millions of viewers within a single country every day.
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Oct 6, 2018 01:45
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Even by the low standards of this thread, I'm baffled as to how people are so confused by the simple sentiment that "It requires a lot of money to participate in the mass media, thus the mass media is owned by very wealthy people, naturally those people will use the mass media to protect their own interests." It's diabolical and sad, but the mass media does do a brilliant job of divide and conquer. People from all ends of the alarmingly narrow political spectrum are harmed by what oligarchs do, but the oligarchs know this and they do a wonderful job of keeping people distracted with trash and sensationalism or arguing over seemingly major issues that are comparatively trivial compared to "how will we earn money for food" or "the planet is dying". Virtually nobody is not guilty here, so don't get up on yourself... both the extreme right, the slightly less extreme right and the left, such as it is these days, is equally culpable. It always makes me think of that line from Baudelaire about the devil's greatest trick was convincing people that he didn't exist, to badly paraphrase. I don't believe in the pitchfork-and-horns one, but I would say that corporations are an appropriate substitute. Edit: Source of badly quoted quote JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Oct 6, 2018 |
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Oct 6, 2018 03:27
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JustJeff88 posted:It always makes me think of that passage in the Bible about the devil's greatest trick was convincing people that he didn't exist, to badly paraphrase. I don't believe in the pitchfork-and-horns one, but I would say that corporations are an appropriate substitute. That's not from the Bible, BTW. It's from CS Lewis.
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Oct 6, 2018 04:08
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Spacewolf posted:That's not from the Bible, BTW. It's from CS Lewis. Thank you. Not surprised that I made that mistake; I read CS Lewis more attentively. Edit: It was originally in French, from Baudelaire apparently. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Oct 6, 2018 |
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Oct 6, 2018 04:44
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Spacewolf posted:That's not from the Bible, BTW. It's from CS Lewis. Who do you think wrote the bible?
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Oct 6, 2018 06:11
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QuarkJets posted:Who do you think wrote the bible? My uncle Jeff.
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Oct 6, 2018 07:19
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OwlFancier posted:But in order to get your video listened to by 60 million people you need to follow the content lead of other, far more predictable sources of information. Right now it's settling on two ways: Either get the attention of people or networks of people with high follower counts, which are the new gatekeepers, or do the Russian troll thing and just relentlessly dump your poo poo in the replies of already-popular content. Both are largely about money. Things are still relatively diffuse, but it's increasingly revolving around celebrities, slick production, and quantity.
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Oct 7, 2018 02:31
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BrandorKP posted:Businesses are just systems. The flows in systems are controllable with feedback. the term you're looking for is hysteresis
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Oct 7, 2018 20:07
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hysteresis is just a delay, lag. We need a good closed loop feedback control. Edit: oh you mean the Dengist thing. That's the perfect word, thanks.
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Oct 8, 2018 03:23
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https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1049986673059213313?s=19 Looks like the bell has finally tolled for Sears.
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Oct 10, 2018 15:07
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OhFunny posted:https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1049986673059213313?s=19 Bankruptcy doesn't mean liquidation. But, Sears has been a zombie for almost 10 years. It would have died if the owner wasn't infusing it with his own cash and selling off everything he can to add a few more months to its life. Seriously, look at how much Lampert has hosed himself in this deal. He has lost an insane amount of his own money for nothing. He has been using his personal money to pay the monthly debt the company owes, because he thinks he is going to fix it any day now and get his money back. quote:Sears, which has been losing money for years, has $134 million in debt due on Monday. Edward Lampert, the hedge-fund manager who is Sears�s chairman, chief executive, largest shareholder and biggest creditor, could rescue the company, as he has done in the past by making the payment. quote:Sears has more than $11 billion in cumulative losses since 2011, and its annual sales have dropped nearly 60% in that period to $16.7 billion. Analysts say it needs to raise more than $1 billion a year to stay afloat. Lampert is also the biggest single creditor the company. If they go fully bankrupt, then he is the biggest creditor who won't get paid. All that is in addition to all of his own money he sunk into it. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 15:26
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Oh no, now he only has 1.5 billion left.
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Oct 10, 2018 17:53
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Lambert posted:Oh no, now he only has 1.5 billion left. I'm not crying for him. I'm just saying that he monumentally screwed up. Like, to an unprecedented degree. But, he kept plowing his own money into it because I guess he really believed in himself. Or some kind of sunk-cost fallacy.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:19
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Lambert posted:Oh no, now he only has 1.5 billion left. For someone like Lampert...just take solace in knowing this is probably going to gently caress with his head as much if not a bit more (in a certain way) than literally being kidnapped in Connecticut. It's one thing for a bunch of goons to try to extort you for money, it's another thing to desperately try to bail on the sinking ship of your entire worldview and ideology. Oh and put like 10 significant digits of wealth into that ship in the process.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:24
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TyroneGoldstein posted:For someone like Lampert...just take solace in knowing this is probably going to gently caress with his head as much if not a bit more (in a certain way) than literally being kidnapped in Connecticut. For someone like Lampert I will only take solace when he is dragged in front of a Tribunal Wasteland Court and sentenced to a heinous death.
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Oct 10, 2018 19:41
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Cant wait to watch the documentary on sears.
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Oct 10, 2018 19:46
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In creepy-rear end retail news: https://news.avclub.com/walmart-inv...tm_content=Main
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Oct 10, 2018 20:22
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I'm not crying for him. I'm just saying that he monumentally screwed up. Like, to an unprecedented degree. Shoulda taken some tips from Trump who never believes in himself to use his own money. If you read “Fear” by Bob Woodward there’s a funny chapter where the Republicans are trying to get a measly $10 million out of him to save his campaign and he does it as a grudging loan.
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Oct 10, 2018 20:27
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BarbarianElephant posted:Shoulda taken some tips from Trump who never believes in himself to use his own money. If you read “Fear” by Bob Woodward there’s a funny chapter where the Republicans are trying to get a measly $10 million out of him to save his campaign and he does it as a grudging loan. Based on what we know and have learned about him, odds are that $10 million was a much larger chunk of his fortune than anyone realized or wanted to admit.
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Oct 10, 2018 21:19
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Crow Jane posted:In creepy-rear end retail news: https://news.avclub.com/walmart-inv...tm_content=Main I want to create a hack for these carts that will configurably simulate a heart attack, a 110 degree fever, and an 80mph walking speed.
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Oct 10, 2018 21:31
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I'm not crying for him. I'm just saying that he monumentally screwed up. Like, to an unprecedented degree. On the contrary, more billionaires pumping their own money into businesses is a good thing
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Oct 10, 2018 23:56
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I'm not crying for him. I'm just saying that he monumentally screwed up. Like, to an unprecedented degree. Nah. Pure faith in Randian theory. He was unwilling to accept that it didn't work in the really real world.
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Oct 12, 2018 09:34
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Crow Jane posted:In creepy-rear end retail news: https://news.avclub.com/walmart-inv...tm_content=Main I really wish these sites would stop reporting on these dumb patents that won’t go anywhere
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Oct 14, 2018 23:49
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It’s official https://twitter.com/wsj/status/1051700855668387840?s=21
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Oct 15, 2018 06:50
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ok tesla you're up
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Oct 15, 2018 13:12
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finally
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Oct 15, 2018 18:32
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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*Turns eyes to J.C. Penney and Barnes & Noble* Next!
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Oct 16, 2018 02:17
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Someone will break up these trusts. I doubt trump will. Down the road if we see more and more retail collapses amazon could hit monopoly level and get broken into pieces.
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Oct 16, 2018 04:54
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LeoMarr posted:Someone will break up these trusts. I doubt trump will. Down the road if we see more and more retail collapses amazon could hit monopoly level and get broken into pieces. Amazon is about 5% of the retail market. That is huge in absolute terms, but not really in relative terms. In the U.S., you don't get anti-trust actions taken against you just because of the size of the business. The only way that happens is if you become a true monopoly with 90%+ of the market. If you aren't that size, then they will use a test to determine business impact on consumers. For that, they would have to prove: quote:- That the company somehow harms shoppers — for example, by conspiring to make the products they buy artificially more expensive. Amazon has not done any of that yet. quote:But rather than using tactics to shut out competitors or that run afoul of anti-trust rules, Amazon has built its empire just by giving customers what they want — products at low prices with lots of choices — which is not against the rules, no matter how big it grows. tl;dr: Amazon won't be trust busted, even if it grows 10x its current size, unless it starts leveraging that size to manipulate the economy to extract more money consumers and actively lock competitors out of the market until Amazon serves as a functional single market. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 05:05
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Amazon is about 5% of the retail market. And it's even less if you include all goods sold everywhere. But maybe they're a much more crushing force if you look at their actual market, online retail. But I don't think there's much appetite for anti-trust action in the US, even considering Trump's current attempts at doing something.
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Oct 16, 2018 06:01
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Amazon has not done any of that yet. Amazon has been squeezing suppliers for years.
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Oct 16, 2018 06:38
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Telling your supplier "Sell us widgets for $X or we'll stop buying them" is allowed. Telling your supplier "Stop selling widgets to competitor.com or we'll stop buying them" isn't. Amazon does the first one, but doesn't do the second one as far as I know
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Oct 16, 2018 07:42
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Oct 16, 2018 08:34
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LeoMarr posted:Someone will break up these trusts. I doubt trump will. Down the road if we see more and more retail collapses amazon could hit monopoly level and get broken into pieces. Just how would you break up a Amazon? It's primary business is a ecommerce platform with huge network effects and first mover advantage. Like what rational way could you possible turn the Amazon retail business into multiple competitors?
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Oct 16, 2018 08:51
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MiddleOne posted:Amazon has been squeezing suppliers for years. Every large retailer does. Walmart’s whole business plan is squeezing every penny from suppliers.
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Oct 16, 2018 11:44
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KingFisher posted:Just how would you break up a Amazon? Amazon has many internal divisions, splitting some of those off into separate business entities doesn't necessarily create many new retail competitors (because AmazonFresh doesn't compete with AWS) but it would reduce the strength of the Amazon corporation's bargaining position. I'm not personally suggesting that that should be done but it'd be a somewhat effective way of splitting them up
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Oct 16, 2018 11:49
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Demanding the split up of amazon because sears closed seems really weird, like sears was a bigger market dominator/monopoly for longer than amazon ever has been or ever will be. It only seems like the wholesome olde timey neighborhood store being pushed around by the big guy because it's from a long time ago. This is like someday your grandkids shedding a tear that walmart is closing. Sears owned the tallest building in the world and people lived in sears brand houses for a while.
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Oct 16, 2018 13:39
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Amazon is about 5% of the retail market. This sounded insane to me, but it really is 5% of the retail market. But according to this techcrunch article it's quite a different story online. The figures are kind of weird to compare though as I'm sure "e-commerce" sales includes Prime Memberships themselves and various other digital content. Maybe even server time? https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/ Edit: For clarity, this is just a post highlighting how shocked I am at Amazon's share online, and how small that slice is compared to the whole of retail. This is not a cheap semantic shot. im depressed lol fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 14:20
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