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RuanGacho posted:Listen, guys, I need you to take this seriously so I know how to feel about vacancy taxes. Presumably it would depend on the nature of the tax (when I tried for city council years ago I argued for fines to combat blight). You might wind up with a lot of Spirit Halloween stores where something stupid goes in just to fill the void. We had one storefront that rotated through a few businesses, one of which being named "hip hop clothing store" and owned/managed by what appeared to be an elderly chinese Mr. Rogers and that seemed to operate as a sort of "fell off a truck" Ross/TJ Maxx except more nonsensical and far, FAR less interesting than you're probably thinking. I do still have the neon parrot sign I bought for $50 after they got evicted. You'd also need to ensure the city/county is set up to actually handle the planning/permitting needs of things moving in. My city's permitting division is notorious for being exceptionally slow and incompetent; the current (hopefully permanent) tenant of hip hop clothing store space apparently had to directly appeal to the city council to intervene because the permits just languished. I've seen businesses come and go and a lot of the new tenants seem to take a weirdly long time to actually open.
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Jun 4, 2017 02:13
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MiddleOne posted:Just pointing out that this is hardly an unresolvable situation.
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Jun 4, 2017 23:25
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Nocturtle posted:Whole Foods is strange in that it's generally overpriced but their 365 product line items are (sadly) often among the cheapest options in my area. However Whole Foods fresh produce is super-overpriced so I don't see how this acquisition helps Amazon in the area where grocery stores maintain a large advantage over online shopping. I guess we'll see! My local Whole is reasonably priced on fruit/veg, highly competitive on dairy products, and expensive on meat. I live in an area with a lot of ag/dairy and a lot of that is organic, although my whole will also stock non organic if it's local. I suspect the pricing at a Whole is massively dependant upon local availability which seems... Not necessarily bad? I'm guessing part of what Amazon is getting is access to produce suppliers and an established network of locations to install the Amazon pickup spots where people who use Amazon are likely to shop.
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Jun 16, 2017 18:41
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Raldikuk posted:Prime video is pretty lame as far as included with prime for free content goes It'll lose it soon but they've had all of HBO sans GoT and a few other recent series for the last few years. And some of their originals are are really good. Plus random good movies/TV. As part of the combined Prime value bundle it's a great deal.
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Apr 21, 2018 05:46
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Shouts a man in a stained wifebeater across a thousand miles of blasted desert as meth smoke rises lazily from his trailer. Beachfront property ain't cheap, gotta make sacrifices somewhere.
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May 9, 2018 00:23
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exploded mummy posted:in the northeast almost all places are now using chip cards especially all the big chains In Northern California almost all my purchases are chip. I think the only places I shop that aren't are the local Peets coffee and a beer store. Even the used book store is chip. Edit: gas stations are all swipe, at least at the pump.
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Aug 2, 2018 00:44
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JustJeff88 posted:Keep in mind also that, quite recently, Amazon raised their price for Prime by $20 despite less products, especially non-Amazon products, actually benefiting from two-day shipping while also eliminating their substantial discount on new video games sold on physical media. There are probably other things that have become worse that I don't know about, but the games thing was the deal-breaker for me. Your example of prime is poor because prime comes with a suite of features that have wildly different value to individuals, and without knowing the costs of the various services extrapolating reasons for behavior becomes difficult. To you they reduced the value, but to my wife who does not play games or order small things she gets more seasons of Ms Maisel and some other reading benefits.
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Dec 26, 2018 22:05
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JustJeff88 posted:I would say that your response is poor because everything has different value to individuals, from use value to purely sentimental/nostalgic value to the relative value of $20 to various people. To someone poor, $20 is a big deal; to some rich prick, it's a trifle. If Amazon has added features to Prime that I don't know about that's another story, but to the best of my knowledge they have increased the cost of their service while further restricting the scope of its prime (no pun intended) selling point and removed a benefit that I and a fair few others used to enjoy and felt helped justify the price. Adding a bunch of other issues about Amazon doesn't make your example of Prime any better. My wife may be paying an extra $20/year but from her perspective Prime is providing more value than 20/year in new shows/books/other services. For you that may not be the case, although maybe you should investigate those services and their personal-to-you value. Ultimately, pointing at an opaque blob of services with multiple value tracks and saying that one value track going down while the cost increases is an example of "profit at all costs" is a poor example because to another person it just looks like resource reallocation to please a different set of desired customers, and which is probably going to happen in any economic system.
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Dec 27, 2018 00:36
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Also never pay full price or full price minus 15% for video games.
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Dec 27, 2018 00:38
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JustJeff88 posted:Quark, I just wanted to say that I understand where you are coming from. I think that, while the problem raised isn't extreme right now, you are justifiably concerned about Amazon's position of power and how things can devolve quickly. The thing that people don't realise is that Amazon is no longer a part of the market - if they were, they would only sell Amazon-brand products - they are the market and are in a position of power that will, as is the nature of capitalism, be abused for their benefit to the detriment of everyone else, including their "partners". No, instead you decided to stamp your feet and get pouty while making tangential complaints about Amazon, instead of doing the smart thing and admitting that your example was poor and finding a much better one. Here, I'll even do it for you using video games: Amazon used to be very competitive on video game pricing (AmazonTony days) but over the years as competition has dwindled and customers became entrenched into defaulting to Amazon for shopping it's obvious that Amazon now only feels the need to, at best, match the price of a competitor instead of competing for my business.
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Dec 27, 2018 20:30
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Raldikuk posted:Absolutely. A price increase might be justified (bean counter wise at least) to keep up with costs and thus maintain the current level of quality provided. Netflix isn't in the best position here either because they keep relying on very expensive originals that they don't even have the rights to while being boxed out of exclusives for non original stuff. So it is definitely becoming more expensive for them to offer even reduced quality offerings. As a consumer I understand those realities but I also understand that the marketing they have behind the price increase is bs. Of course saying they need to charge more to provide less isn't the best marketing campaign so I don't even fault them for that. But I don't shed any tears for them either as I stop giving them my money. One good thing about Netflix though is their customer service workers apparently have no retention incentives because they didn't hesitate to cancel and give me a credit (both crediting previous month and giving me access to an additional month since apparently their system can't prorate??) That's why prime is a bad example of Amazon misusing its market position or otherwise being a danger at their size: prime has so many different elements that isolating one diminished value can't possibly account for anything, and you constantly saying that Netflix and Prime video offerings are worse doesn't make that necessarily true. As for a more "raw" benefit, as a consumer I feel I get better value from Prime through savings and coupons at Whole Foods, which is my closest grocery store (and I am well aware that supermarket utility varies wildly by region and recognize I get certain unique benefits where I live) and has historically had much better goods for very little more than other "normal" competitors provided you aren't buying holistic crystal soap or prepared food. I do think certain elements of Whole Foods have become worse post-Amazon, but some have stayed the same and others have improved, and as a "what's on sale this week" cook the savings (or at least ease of access to savings through the app) do seem to be worth more than $20/year, even though this week's deals are kinda cruddy. Lots of services go up in price just to maintain their value. Many services go up in price and shift value around. I'm certain some of my state park fees and taxes are going to pay for fire recovery in other state parks that I will never in my life use, but I'm not cursing the state for depleted value even though they actually have a monopoly on those particular locations and hold huge structural control over competing park systems and services.
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Dec 28, 2018 01:55
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Raldikuk posted:Do you think Amazon would have shelved marvelous mrs maisel had they not increased the price? This doesn't seem like the best example of Amazon increasing the quality of their services to correspond with a price increase. It sounds like bog standard happy with the service. Which is fine, I don't think I ever suggested that no one would find the service worth the money. I took issue with the idea that Amazon has made their services better while doing so, and given that the prime (ha ha) example here is that amazon released its 2nd season of a show they bought the 2nd season for in 2017 (which also went on to win a ton of awards) for their video service which centers around having movies and tv shows I think that demonstrates the point. If the true value that has been added is the 2nd season of marvelous mrs maisel, you would have been able to get that without the increase. Really what is being said is that amazon had underpriced their service compared to the value that you perceived from the offerings, and that is perfectly reasonable. Plenty of people will be in the same boat where they feel that way (I'm one of them...but only because I am on the student version), but that isn't them adding value, it is them capturing it. I'll also note that you neglected to address Whole Foods Prime, which I think started after the price increase and has provided more than $20/year in value. Further, while at the gym (another hotbed of wild fluctuating cost/value), I remembered Twitch Prime gives me free games and gewgaws - while some games are old, last week they gave away The Messenger, a fairly popular new release currently on sale for $14, and the combined game value since June, even accounting for some games being old or games I already own, is easily greater than $20. quote:Same with Netflix; it's fine if you enjoy the service and the shows; what I made fun of is their advertising that they needed to do so in order to provide new shows and movies and them using the little rascals as an example of the quality hits I can enjoy. Yes, I understand that there likely exist people who agreed that adding the little rascals is worth extra money per month. Fundamentally though, they've kept the service at similar levels while increasing the price. Inflation and such is an argument for that too, but it isn't what they sold the increase on. But again, I don't blame them for marketing on the idea that they needed to increase their prices to offer me such great titles as the little rascals, but the reality is that they saw an opportunity to make more profit and they did so. Funny tho how the price increase corresponds to record profit levels (doubling net margin YoY) and demolishing investor expectations. A coincidence I am sure. And again, it is fine for them to make a profit, but why assume that a price increase is actually being used to increase quality? re: Monopoly - the state has a huge amount of power to allow or deny new parks from opening through a variety of regulatory mechanisms and ownership of surrounding lands.
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Dec 28, 2018 04:54
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DrNutt posted:I have two arcades in my town, but man I would love for someone to put up an old school internet PC club for gaming. I used to go to a place that had like 8 pcs hooked up in a lan and they hosted cs tournaments all the time. To face off against your fps opponents, in the flesh, what a time to be alive that was. My mall seems to have something like this now. I haven't gone in (I only see it because the dying Sears means I can't go through it to leave) but it looks like a wall of flatscreens playing fortnight or BLOPS or whatever with couches in front. quote:I totally get that, but I'm not talking about customer perceptions or the profit these stores are making. This was a commentary on commercial finance and how it plays into dying malls, and how the game is played as I understand it from friends who are commercial developers/owners. They are always looking for their next loan, and price per square foot is the key metric so they will play games with that. The American Eagle that used to take up 2000 sq. ft? Just put up a partition wall and have the shells-guled-to-frames seller occupy the front 200 sq. ft at 10% of that rent. DONE. This math somehow works out for now. Even when the partition wall doesn't really exist in many cases.
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Jan 24, 2019 06:42
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My local sears husk would be perfect for a whole foods (and CVS or Walgreens), as the sears opened up next to the downtown area and a transit mall. Yeah, there are two other wholes within 3 miles, but there are no grocery stores in the downtown core besides a grocery outlet. Or we can gurgle out tired whole paycheck memes like it's 2009.
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Apr 10, 2019 19:01
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Is 2009 the last time you were in one? Most of what they sell is roughly the same price and of better quality than the local safeways barring ultra-bargain bin stuff that grocery outlet or Trader Joe's already captures. Meat, cheese, and bakery are probably the three "pricey" items but they also pull (partly) from our local bakeries/dairies.
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Apr 10, 2019 19:26
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pseudanonymous posted:I've never heard a claim even remotely this high. I know I've seen that claim from devs but it's been a while (like over 5 years), and the impacts of piracy to a given developer are going to be near-random due to the genre, quality (real or otherwise), market saturation, DRM unbreakability, platform, etc. Saying piracy has no effect is dumb, as is saying it has a huge effect, because the particular entity impacted will change and I'm not sure if there's a way to reliably translate pirated copies into theoretical purchased copies.
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Jul 16, 2019 06:41
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm just assuming that they know very little about computers, the internet, video games, and buying habits, and are also lying through their teeth. No, it was more like "we sold 10k copies of our game and there are 30k high scores from different users". You're being really weird about this.
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Jul 16, 2019 17:02
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Raldikuk posted:Even if it were true that having 30k high scores from 10k copies implied 20k pirate users (plenty of confounds that would suggest, no, probably not for instance someone creating multiple users, reselling the game which isn't pirating but also not an original sale, etc), that says nothing about if they would have actually purchased the game if they weren't able to pirate it. https://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/22/indie-developer-sells-300000-copies-game-finds-1-million-pirated-copies/ https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/22/4647240/the-indie-game-that-144-android-users-bought-and-50000-pirated
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Jul 17, 2019 04:31
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FCKGW posted:Fry's is seriously just too drat big. It came from a bygone era where computers and tech were new and exciting with lots of variation and also a little complicated. You could go to Fry's and browse a bunch of different motherboards from literally 30 different manufacturers. All kinds of weird niche PCs, goofy PC peripherals like fan speed control boxes and giant gently caress-off Antec EATX cases that could store 4 CD-R drives. It was a destination store that you had to experience. You could head out on a Saturday and just spend hours browsing neat stuff. Part of what makes this conversation interesting, and also probably highlights the cause, is how people are describing Fry's. Go back 20 years and what you really have is a real-world "old" Newegg before Newegg existed, in a space big enough to hold Newegg. Need some CD-Rs? Fry's has a box of 100 with jewel cases for a buck a pop, holy poo poo what a good deal. Want a hard drive that isn't Western Digital (this is back when Seagate was a top-brand and not owned by Maxtor)? Go to Fry's and you'll see brands not carried by CompUSA at good prices (like 1/3 the price of other places), and without having to go through mom'n'pop stores with bad pricing and services. Hell, it even has a big returns desk! Where does that fit today in a landscape where service-heavy Best Buy has seemingly shifted to consume one chunk of that market (plus is the "last man standing) and internet/Microcenter eats the other chunk? People are calling it a giant Best Buy/Circuit City but that's not what it started as, and it's not what they were good at.
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Dec 2, 2019 08:23
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Zanzibar Ham posted:I recently installed Transformers: Devastation off Steam (that's 2 years after it was pulled from the store) since I bought it before it was removed, is that not how it works with every game pulled from the store? That's normally how it works, gog isn't special in that. I think PT and maybe one other thing were full on disappeared.
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Dec 15, 2019 19:24
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story sometime in the 60s with a minor plot point where portable music players small enough to be worn as jewelry got invented! ...and then they were banned as public nuisances, because he predicted the MP3 player but not headphones. This is not a relevant post but I love that fact so much. The way I'm reading this is that he was still prescient because I constantly run into people listening to loud music either from their phones or a Bluetooth speaker. Like, when I'm hiking.
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Dec 16, 2019 20:45
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Of all the things that exist it feels like "enamel pins" is a weird place to draw a line on being a real stickler for "buy american" compared to any other random thing. Why would it be important to manufacture specifically enamel pins in the US? Presumably the enamel pin factory in the US won't take your 5000 pin order, produce 15000 pins, and then toss the extra 10000 pins on Amazon at a lower price. And that's not even getting into marketplace confusion tactics. It's not that enamel pins are unique, but they are an example of a good that may contain significant creative labor which gets completely wiped out due to mass production being possible. Counterfeit textiles would be another example although that crosses into the insanity world of fashion. Like, if I spend years designing the world's greatest iron metal rod puzzle (those kitschy puzzles that are obnoxiously difficult) I would hope to be able to be rewarded for my creative labor, not have knick knack stores around the world get flooded with the Offical Zakkack Brain Teaser of Learning Benefits. Zachack fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jan 16, 2020 |
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Jan 16, 2020 18:23
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luxury handset posted:in practice often the mall structure itself is repurposed into some kind of civic use. the real traction comes when you dig up the whole sea of parking lots around the mall and build on that land The extremely centrally located mall in my city would be a perfect location for the county to relocate a lot of their various agencies to from their current scattered approach and would open up a lot of land for other development. I get the appeal of thinking about apartments but when I think of malls I don't think of something efficiently laid out for residential use given the seeming tendency for malls to have a sort of "bendy" interior and a lot of open areas (which could be easily repurposed into conference rooms/meeting areas for gov business).
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Apr 16, 2020 18:26
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QuarkJets posted:A store exclusively for a rapidly shrinking middle class I don't think that's accurate, my impression of Nieman Marcus is that it's for lower upper class or maybe upper upper middle class. Above Nordstrom and other equivalent stores and where the shopping experience would start to get a little unusual.
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Apr 20, 2020 07:17
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Government should not be run like a business but the IT problems in my experience are not fully explained by that particular philosophy taking hold. I think a big part of the problem is that the expectations for technology are moving much, much faster than government can really react to (often due to laws meant to deal with other things) plus the inability for government to "go under" and as a result having to support legacy data (let alone platforms or processes) well past an expiration date. Add to that the standard bureaucratic slowness, slower hiring, etc and it's just a disaster. Like, my agency requires submittals using a specific piece of software, and the law specifies the version of that software. If that software suddenly isn't compatible with Windows 20 then you have to go through an entire regulatory process, including broad economic impact, public comment/response, etc, just to require updated software (which then goes out of date in a month).
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Dec 1, 2020 23:55
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Bar Ran Dun posted:
I feel like that this could only be true if shoppers were highly cognizant of and constantly acting on those price reductions, and even then would require much broader sale adjusting than I've ever witnessed. I tend to shop sale goods because I can cook and work with whatever, but even then it's probably only about a third of purchases I'm making on any given grocery trip. I could maybe see this on a narrow range of low-perishable goods, but not meat/dairy/produce or even a lot of staples and "more lasting" things like booze. And imo I think those latter perishable categories are the modern middle class signifiers, not chips and soda. "The good eggs" prices are what I hear gripes about, not Pepsi.
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Dec 26, 2023 22:13
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