Hi dang. Can you tell me why all my comments are automatically dead? I've sent a bunch of emails to [email protected] asking about this but haven't gotten a reply to any of them.
Soros was long Facebook and Alphabet in the 13F filing before he gave his speech and was long Alphabet in the 13F filing that covered the period in which he gave his speech [1][2].
Hi dang. Can you tell me why all my comments are automatically dead? I've sent a bunch of emails to [email protected] asking about this but haven't gotten a reply to any of them.
>We are (rightfully) concerned about silencing voices or communities. But our commitment to free expression makes us disproportionately vulnerable in the era of chronic, perpetual information war. Digital combatants know that once speech goes up, we are loathe to moderate it; to retain this asymmetric advantage, they push an all-or-nothing absolutist narrative that moderation is censorship, that spammy distribution tactics and algorithmic amplification are somehow part of the right to free speech.
>We seriously entertain conversations about whether or not bots have the right to free speech, privilege the privacy of fake people, and have Congressional hearings to assuage the wounded egos of YouTube personalities. More authoritarian regimes, by contrast, would simply turn off the internet. An admirable commitment to the principle of free speech in peace time turns into a sucker position against adversarial psy-ops in wartime. We need an understanding of free speech that is hardened against the environment of a continuous warm war on a broken information ecosystem. We need to defend the fundamental value from itself becoming a prop in a malign narrative.
This is key and why Europe is in a much better position to actually deal with this, specifically Germany. The German constitution expressly allows the state to defend liberal democracy with illiberal policies [1]. Germany doesn't need to deal with abstract and academic debates over free speech because they had more pressing concerns, like how to denazify the country and prevent history from repeating.
Sidenote: it's super annoying that all my comments are automatically dead. If @dang or anyone else can tell me what the heck is going on I'd appreciate it (no one has replied to my emails to [email protected]).
>The rent seeking point from Stratechery is taken directly from Apple's own earnings calls where they are now measuring their success based on revenue from this rent-seeking instead of on devices sold.
I don't follow how talking about it on earnings calls makes it "rent seeking". The App Store cut has only gone down since it was launched (for subscriptions after a year).
>And Facebook elected to move its corporate nexus to Europe to tax dodge.
I don't think their HQ is in Europe but they probably have subsidiaries in Ireland, Netherlands or Luxembourg (like everyone else) for tax purposes. In any case, I don't think that would change anything in terms of avoiding privacy scrutiny.
A few months ago Bloomberg published a story which I'm 99% sure was directed by Facebook PR, in-line with their strategy being reported on in this story [1][2].
Also can any mods tell me why all my comments are dead?
>“We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.” (Mr. Cook’s criticisms infuriated Mr. Zuckerberg, who later ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s.)
I can't get enough of the Apple-Facebook beef. Also kind of a "cut off your nose to spite your face" kind of move from a security perspective.
It's kind of absurd that any company has to make a specific arrangement with Amazon in order to protect their brand. Nike reached a similar deal with Amazon [1]. Last year's ruling by the ECJ allowing luxury brands to block sale of their goods on online retailers might have led to this deal between Apple and Amazon [2]. Apple probably used that ruling and a similar deal they made with Walmart/Jet to gain leverage with Amazon [3].
Apple's unit sales for iPad were declining YoY for a few years (after rocketing out of the gate) before they stabilized. iPhone unit sales have been more or less flat for the past 3 years (with YoY declines against comps). They still reported units during that period.
It's possible that they've decided to stop reporting unit sales because they're anticipating that they'll decline from here, but it's unlikely considering that this has already happened and they reported them anyway. The actual reason why they've stopped reporting units is because they're retraining the shareholder base to look at Apple and the ecosystem of products holistically.
>Amazon inked a similar partnership with Nike last year that allowed both companies to reduce counterfeits on Amazon and gain stronger control over unauthorized third-party sales of Nike products.
I still find it absurd that brands need to make direct deals with Amazon for them to police fakes.
Bloomberg had a report earlier this year saying they'd have ARM Macs in 2020, which makes sense given that lines up with the work they're doing in Marzipan now [1]. They're also making gains in the legal fight to crack the Qualcomm business model, so that means ARM Macs could have cellular at the same time [2][3].
Almost all of Apple's security features are invisible and by default and don't get in the way. They're striking the balance between user experience and security.
It will force the market to stop viewing them as a hardware company like Dell or HP and instead view them as the ecosystem company they are. That's why they're doing it.
Intel's gross margins are high enough (especially on the higher end chips) that it makes sense for Apple to design their own chips for Macs. Rumors are pointing to 2020 for when it will first happen.
Macs could then be cheaper and better than the competition (or significantly more profitable).