AlexanderTheGr8

há 10 mesesdiscuss

To add on: a 3% stock shift means that the search-engine deal was worth >=3% of the stock. That is massive free cashflow. In 2022, Google paid Apple $20B (full profit bec negligible costs) while Apple's total profit was around $100B. 20% of Apple's total profit came from Google's search deal. Based on this, I am sure the stock price worth would be much higher than 3% (actual numbers are complicated because stock price accounts for future growth of things).

AlexanderTheGr8

há 10 mesesdiscuss

Apple stock is up 3%, strongly implying that this ruling is good for Apple as well. That is in contradiction to a lot of folks saying that this ruling means Google won't have to pay Apple. While the terms of the deal with Apple will likely change, based on the stock price increase, Apple will likely end up with a different deal (if not better).

Another thing to note, contrary to some comments, is that Google is still allowed to make a deal with Apple to be the default search engine, but with extra rules.

``` Google also would be permitted to pay Browser Developers, including Apple, to set Search as the default GSE, so long as the Browser Developer (1) can promote other GSEs and (2) is permitted to set a different GSE on different operating system versions or in a privacy mode and makes changes, if desired, on an annual basis. ```

AlexanderTheGr8

há 2 anosdiscuss

> Fleecing them out of money is bad, but we can (literally) print more of it. Once someone is dead we can’t bring them back.

The math of my argument was that with money, you can save lives, i.e., prevent people from dying. I don't believe the govt can print as much as it likes without hurting the economy (and thus people) in some other way.

The core of my argument is that defrauding billions of dollars causes deaths of dozens of people indirectly. Is that better than directly causing a death? I am not accussing anyone; just asking what I think is an interesting question.

AlexanderTheGr8

há 2 anosdiscuss

Reposting one of my comments that wasn't particularly liked when i originally submitted it but i think becomes more relevant now.

``` I find such white-collar crimes very interesting because of the math between crime and punishment. For the crime that SBF is alleged to have committed, we can reasonably expect 20 yrs (he will be out in 10-12). But if he had committed a murder, he would be in prison for life (no parole).

Mathematically speaking, this implies that a life is worth more than fraud worth 8 billion dollars. We can make a very reasonable assumption that the govt can save 1 additional life using a million dollars (giving necessary treatment to drug addicts / suicidal people / etc). Out of the 8 billion dollars from SBF, government would have got at least 50 million dollars from taxes (this is a lower bound). Out of that 50 million, maybe the govt puts 10-20 million back for public good. So the govt could have saved at least 10-20 people from the money that SBF is alleged to have defrauded.

Based on the above, can we say that SBF indirectly killed 10-20 people? What would be the punishment for someone who kills 10-20 people? Surely more than 20 years.

This balance between the scale of crime and the severity of punishment can be very interesting. Should someone defrauding 2 billion dollars suffer twice the punishment of someone defrauding 1 billion dollars? What about 2 murders to 1 murder? What about numbers on scale that can change an economy (what SBF did)?

More fundamentally, is our legal system scalable? ```

AlexanderTheGr8

há 4 anosdiscuss

shameless plug : http://semanticvideosearch.com. Thoughts?

AlexanderTheGr8

há 4 anosdiscuss

How long before some stores don't accept cash? How long before banks do a background check (taking weeks) before giving you cash?

AlexanderTheGr8

há 4 anosdiscuss

> As the surface area of new software markets plateaus, tech will transition towards a consolidation era.

Do you think this is true? We are seeing more tech companies than ever before. But that could just be due to the pandemic and insanely high amount of money in the market.

If consolidation happens, innovation will plummet. This always happens. Any oil-based company hasn't innovated in 20 years. Most of the consolidated industries have little or no innovation.

As any product gets more complicated, consolidation does happen and innovation does plummet.

Think: 1) Web browsers: Ruled by Google and Safari now (+ Firefox so HN won't be offended, although they have 3.6% and it's going to keep declining over time). We have not seen any innovation in browsers in such a long time. 2) Operating Systems: Windows, Mac, and Linux haven't really done anything new in the last 5 years. Win+Mac just keep adding more "telemetry", but no innovation 3) Cloud: it's obviously really complex. It's consolidated. It's innovating today, but seeing the trajectory of browsers, OS and other products, innovation will stagnate there as well.

Should we just take it for granted that tech is supposed to be consolidated?

New fields in tech like crypto, mobile are still very active but are they also just moving towards consolidation?

AlexanderTheGr8

há 5 anosdiscuss

replace AWS with <cloud provider> and every bullet point is still True.

Every website (the Internet) needs to be hosted. If not on a cloud provider, you are going to have to host it yourself, which is a ton of more work and more points of failure. For cloud providers, point of failure occurs if you don't pay them. When you are hosting yourself, there are tons of points of failure (electricity, maintenance, etc.)

AlexanderTheGr8

há 5 anosdiscuss

I understand if we hoped antitrust action on Kindle (since they fought dirty and illegal against Barnes and Noble.)

But both AMZN "bazaar" and AWS are novel concepts invented by AMZN, and they have worked really hard to make them reality on such unbelievable scales.

Nobody thought of AWS for decades, until AMZN faced the systems problem and came up with cloud computing via AWS.

I understand taking action on AMZN acquisitions since they are reducing competition illegally. But AWS is an absolutely novel idea by them, and in my opinion, we have no right to take any action there. Also there is a LOT of competition in cloud computing by AZURE and GCP

AlexanderTheGr8

há 5 anosdiscuss

Long ago, there were 2 companies - one welcomed unions and the other stopped unions. The one which welcomed unions lost it's profit margin and the other "predatory" company kept it's profit margins and grew more aggressively and put the "good" company out of business.

After that entrepreneurs learned that you need to be ruthless to win in capitalism. Don't get me wrong, I support fair wages for all employees, no matter what they do. But in real life capitalism, only the most ruthless companies win (FB, AMZN), unless they have an amazing product (e.g. GOOGL)