zipiridu · HackerTrans

4 years agodiscuss

Web3 has great potential by changing the incentive structure of the internet. Think of it like socialism vs capitalist. Each has their strengths but taken too far both can be bad. I think the current state has taken it too far on the socialism scale so we've ended up with a very shitty internet, just like you end up with shitty products in a completely socialist economy. It might take a while to play out but we might get much higher quality digital content over time this way.

zipiridu

4 years agodiscuss

Facebook is facing competition from TikTok and will have a very hard time breaking their momentum. Always go long Google and short Facebook.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

Yes, compounding interests in the people in power to keep propping up the markets.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

Given that a huge transfer of wealth to the rich happened over the last two years, I expect businesses that cater to them to boom.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

I used to think this was definitely a bubble, but I've become less sure after reading about the amount of debt the US has and the ways it can pay it. The easiest way the US can pay its debts is through inflation. Given that, the fed will likely keep printing money. People know this and therefore put their money in things that are safer than cash, which is guaranteed to lose purchasing power over the next decade. At 2% inflation that is something like %10 over 10 years, but at current rates you could lose >50%. This is especially true in assets, which is what people with lots of money want to own. So while the price of food might only go up 10% per year, the price of assets could go up much more than that, and that is not included in CPI calculations. This is like a financial crisis but only for people who don't own assets, since they won't be able to get into the game. At least in 2008 everyone but the banks suffered, this time it might be everyone but the rich.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and I really hope I am because I was saving to buy a house. However this time things are different than previous bubbles because every asset type, even cash, is risky.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

Watch Ray Dalio's videos on the long term debt cycle and how the economy works in general. Another interesting topic is what is called the "fourth turning" which sort of says that major changes happen around once a human lifecycle. We are going to have some major economic changes in the next decade, but no one knows how that will look. I think it's 50/50 whether it's violent or not.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

If this is true, unless they get fined in the order of $200B it won't matter and whoever made the decisions will get promoted within both companies. Snapchat lost ~25% of their market value and other companies that did not collude probably also lost a lot.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

The "fraud economy" was democratized in the last decade but it has always existed. Previously you needed to be rich, powerful, and well connected to have media companies cover your business/product. Now you can buy fake engagement, reviews, upvotes, etc with a few click so everyone does it. If you don't do it you will be outcompeted by the ones who do. I've experienced this myself. I tried buying ads and writing organic posts but got little traffic on a site I wanted to promote. Then I decided to spend a few hundred dollars on fake upvotes and my ROI was easily 20x better than on ads. I had to be a bit more careful so it wasn't too obvious but I learned that these dark patterns work. I've heard of similar tactics used by unicorn startups in their early stages at much larger scale. The reviews weren't trustworthy before either, it's just more obvious now.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

IIRC takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts, so I'd be more interested fatalities per trip. An intercontinental plane ride would cover more miles than I drive in a year which makes the per mile stat meaningless to me. I think it would still be in the plane's favor but probably not as significantly. And in that case if you're a safe driver (healthy adult, doesn't drink or do drugs, doesn't speed, etc) it might skew in favor of driving since I'm sure some groups are much higher risk.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

I don't understand why people leave AWS to join Google Cloud only to replicate the environment they were trying to escape.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

I've changed my mind on this a few times, but I think schools or creditors should have some duty to not give out loans of this magnitude to 17-year olds with little to no financial literacy. The same way that a bank would not give you a huge loan with bad credit. Schools should also be extremely upfront about this type of financial information.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

I have a similar story for internet. I tried to cancel my Xfinity (Comcast) internet service through the online chat. After being transferred several times, the person said they will do it but then disconnected right after they said that. I had to restart the process and in the end they told me I had to call. So I called and finally was able to cancel after they wasted hours of my time.

I will never use Xfinity/Comcast again in my life if I have a choice and will try to make sure everyone knows how shitty they are. Unfortunately they have monopolies in many areas and can be as shitty as they want, but if you have a choice I recommend never using them.

I can't believe that in 2021 these tactics are still legal. It's also stupidly shortsighted because in the long term I'm pretty sure they lose money by making everyone hate them. If it was easy to cancel, I would happily sign up again in the future without giving it much thought and would think positively of the company.

Edit: I also want to add that I was paying extra to not have a contract so I could easily cancel.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

If there were more companies where you could work 3-days a week with 60% pay without requiring any special approval, I'm sure they would improve retention and attract a lot of candidates. It seems like this would work well with the move towards part-time remote setups that many companies are trying out now. FAANG companies pay their employees very well but their average tenure per employee is still very low.

zipiridu

5 years agodiscuss

At Google you start with an initial large grant that vests over 4 years. For example, let's say you get 400k as stock that vests over 4 years and 100k as salary to make math simple.

So you get 200k the first year, and at the end of the year you get another stock grant that vests over 4 years. Let's say you get 80k.

The second year you get 220k (100k salary + 100k stock from initial grant + 20k from first year's grant). Let's say you get the same 80k again.

If this process continues, the fourth year you get 260k, but on the fifth you will get 180k. Typically what happens is that unless you get promoted 2 times in those 4 years, your salary will decrease substantially on your fifth year.

I've simplified things a bit, but that's the general gist of it.

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