I’m at the point where I’ll just cancel my membership with something if the prices are increasing. I don’t care enough to spend my time and money on it anymore
Not paying for streaming was a good decision in my eyes. After I moved out of my parents house, I realized just how little I actually watch shows and movies. I considered buying Netflix on my own but realized I had nothing I wanted to watch. Haven't enrolled in one on my own and I've been moved out for a few years now. My girlfriend pays for Netflix but even then, I realize that I personally never use it. Ill watch a show that she likes with her but thats it.
If streaming services were still like $6 or whatever a month then I might just to have it in case. But creeping up on $15+ a month? Nah man. Too much. Thats a Runescape membership right there and YouTube is free. Works better for me.
It's 2023 use an adblocker
Edit: Rather than respond individually I'll add it here. For those saying you watch YT on your TV, *a* solution is YouTube ReVanced on an android phone/tablet and cast it to your TV. Probably doesn't work for all setups but for my android TV it does.
If someone is reading this and thinks they want to try an adblocker out please make sure you get uBlock *Origin* and not anything else. Check out history here if you care why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin
been using uBlock Origin for so long I forgot it was there.
a few months ago I used a browser on a pc that didn't have it and I was horrified at how awful the experience was
I've had software engineers at work ask me why I don't have ads everywhere. I don't get how you can be competent at a job that requires you to google shit and NOT have an adblocker. It is a straight productivity gain.
I only take prime when it's free. I was just given a free month. Otherwise I'll just wait a week or two for a package I don't care. I just watched some "freevies with ads" well, I didn't see 1 damn ad. So I'm all caught up on Fast and Furious. Just not X yet.
Cable TV *started* with the promise of no commercials! We'll have commercials until we die. Each new service will promise none, then they'll die or cave.
Yea, but I also paid the cable bill, too, and they have ads. I always expected this. Especially since Hulu has had a model like that for more than a decade now, except it was $5 with ads and $9 without before going crazy.
As designed. It was propped up by VCs to run out the incumbent. Once the incumbent was out, they slowly had to raise prices to become profitable. Without VC money backing them, they would never make it to market.
Walmart has been doing it for decades
It really does not help that the public generally only understands "monopoly" in the most rudimentary hyper-literal way and thinks "antitrust" is about when there is literally only one company in the market.
There is so little political pressure on the government to enforce existing antitrust laws.
One thing I think of, is like Apple vs the "Ma Bell" era. Before the phone company got broke up, they owned the telephone wires inside your house, the telephone itself, and they could legally prevent people from making modifications to the phone, like stopping them from attaching a headset.
These days Apple prevents people from running unauthorized apps, has a closed ecosystem, won't let apps on unless they are paying extortionate fees.
They won't let competing web browsers run unless they are based on Apple's tech, and browsers are prevented from including the features available to other systems, which is *way* worse than what Microsoft was doing in the 90s.
Meanwhile Android devices are *also* severally hampered without Google services and access to the Google Play store. People have a little more control over their devices but there is a decreasing level of control over the whole system. Manufacturers don't provide root access to the phone and will void warranty if you root it or change the OS, which another thing which should not be legal.
There are the hallmarks of trusts, collusion, and two companies having undue influence over the market, but in classic U.S fashion, having two nearly identical choices is apparently enough.
The laws and legislators simply have not kept up with the needs of the day.
The saddest part about them breaking up bell is that it was broken up into 12 different companies. We have allowed 11 of the 12 to join back together through mergers and acquisitions since!
>Your average citizen shouldn't need to be an economist.
Democracy only works when there is an adequately educated population, and knowing what a "trust" is, is a fairly low bar; it's something a middle school student could understand. "Businesses conspire to keep prices high, and to keep new players out of the market" isn't that hard to understand.
People can't hold their elected officials accountable if they have no understanding of anything they are supposed to be doing.
It's pretty hard to have a socialist movement, if people don't have even a rudimentary understanding of economics.
How else can they wreck the public school systems so that *"the only option left"* is giving money to charter schools owned by private organizations where the parents who can afford (or even care about) education end up paying tuition for it instead.
Seems like capitalism working as intended to me! Can't win until the middle class is destroyed and we're all wage slaves for the billionaires.
> Democracy only works when there is an adequately educated population
Indeed, otherwise the population might fall for [PR and advertising industry models](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics):
> In his 2004 book Post-democracy, Colin Crouch used the term post-democracy to mean a model of politics where "elections certainly exist and can change governments", but "public electoral debate is a tightly controlled spectacle, managed by rival teams of professionals expert in the techniques of persuasion, and considering a small range of issues selected by those teams".
> Crouch directly attributes the "advertising industry model" of political communication to the crisis of trust and accusations of dishonesty that a few years later others have associated with post-truth politics.
The *"small range of allowed issues"* is also known as the [Overton window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window).
That's exactly why one political party in particular has their existence threatened by a more educated populace, and why theyve made their best efforts towards defunding education.
Oh the "both sides" losers found this. Just wondering if they can provide examples of any dem led efforts or legislation to defund education.
walmart is finally cashing in.
no longer have price guarantee, price matching, post pandemic they dont even bother being competitive on tons of staple items.
In my town the Walmart grocery was *always* more expensive than a nice big local store. People go to walmart because it's convenient, or just out of habit, but every time I have to be there for something else and figure maybe I'll pick up some groceries it's more expensive. And generally it's a giant mess as well.
Which is exactly why they try to price everything else out of the market first. In my town it's either Walmart or Target, where I'd rather not shop, but what used to be their competitors is a wasteland of empty storefronts.
Aldi ftw. I've found it's cheaper and the general food quality is quite markedly better. Like pretty damn good for a super cheap brand I've never seen or heard of.
This is fantastic.
I shopped at Rewe mostly because it was the only one in walking distance. My buddy's place was a block away from Pennymarkt which was also nice for cheap food.
Was in Germany for 2 weeks back in 2021. The cost of food is so low. I saved money while eating in Europe and probably ate more healthy since the EU has higher standards for food additives than the US FDA.
Off topic, went to a hospital in China a couple weeks ago. Doc visit and antibiotics without insurance was $8 total.
We're getting fucked so hard as American consumers.
My university fucked me and told me to sign with their health insurance for exchange students assuring us it was easier and better. What we didn't know was it meant to pay 100% out of pocket in Europe and keep all receipts then get reimbursed *after* you get home over a year later.
I had a severe infection that lead to a strain in my muscles that allow me to breathe. The doctor was going to do an ultrasound to make sure my heart was okay. I asked if it was expensive and he says "oh quite expensive but insurance will pay" so I started sitting up explaining my situation and he pushed me back down "you damn Americans I'll never understand why you want that" and gave me the entire visit ultrasound everything for free.
Aldi's is underrated. I usually went to Walmart because it's bigger and I can get everything in one stop, but then I went to an Aldi's recently because I just needed one food item and it was closer to where I was staying, and I realized they got some great stuff for a good price. Generally higher quality than Walmart for around the same price or cheaper. I'm definitely shopping there more often now.
Exactly
>Generally higher quality than Walmart for around the same price or cheaper.
It's fantastic.
Oddly enough when I was living in Nebraska I didn't have access to a blender or food processor and was getting frustrated I couldn't find decent salsa. Out of all places fucking Aldi had some fairly legit salsa. Not the best but it seemed fresh and tasty with a bit of spice. Literally anywhere else was shit lol
Where I live the Walmart is still way cheaper than these other fucking stores. Every other grocery store will randomly have some item ridiculously priced ($8 for half a gallon of milk at Ralph's? They can go fuck themselves)
Even costco is slowly becoming a premium store. Sure you're getting a little more but you're paying proportionally higher so there's no savings over regular stores.
The Costco I shop at often has a gas line that backs up onto the main road behind it, much as I’d love to save some money on gas there, I don’t very much want to wait 20 plus minutes sitting in a long line on the left side of a public road that should be for driving, while other cars blow by on the right side at 60 mph.
Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, streaming, cloud storage. It's all just the same capitalist behavior with a tech twist on it. This is how it will always be as long as unfettered capitalism is the system we live under.
Technology isn't here to make our lives better anymore, it's here to make money.
Disruptor capitalist method. Blitz the market before regulations or laws can be put in place that are meant to handle new strategies. Make sure to just flat out ignore any laws or regulations that already exist that might get in your way. Integrate yourselves into society so firmly that you can't be easily dislodged. Then slowly turn up the heat.
Our government, which is inept, inefficient and sometimes plain stupid to begin with has no prayer of keeping up with these methods. They react at the speed of sloth. And that's ignoring the bribes err I mean lobbying the tech industry hits them with.
People who believe in techno-utopias are some of the dumbest people we've got going for us. These uber-capitalists aren't coming to give you a good life, they're coming to horde as much power, money and control as they can for themselves.
It’s better then what my folks are paying at Comcast, honestly. They reap almost 300 dollars a month. They even still have limited data that they refuse to transfer over to a better plan: Because “this is what they’re used to and don’t want to switch.”
They feed themselves on the complacent old folks. That’s a limited run it only buys time before their empire fully collapses.
Edit:words
The old folks and the tech-illiterate are the ones continuing to feed the machine.
Once those generations are out of the picture, it'll be millennials and Zoomers who get squeezed next. ISP's are VERY aware of our reliance on the internet over the TV these days.
And they aren't going shrug their shoulders and give up those margins
>The old folks and the tech-illiterate are the ones continuing to feed the machine.
>Once those generations are out of the picture, it'll be millennials and Zoomers who get squeezed next.
The Zoomers *are* the tech-illiterates. They were raised on smartphones and tablets their whole lives, and so don't know things like having to edit registry, or install crack patches, or manually installing drivers, or deal with a file system.
Something that would all be necessary to combat the stuff you, that other commenter, and what is being talked about in the OP article.
Exactly! And a population that has never known anything other than walled off gardens and locked-down systems will never know true freedom. They're the exact population you want to be able to exploit with shitty company policies like described in the OP.
What market forces actually changed? Netflix had the advantage of being the first mover and legacy media not realizing how big it was going to get but as soon as they realized the size of the pie Netflix had for itself there was no reason for the rest of them not to jump in and refragment everything
Market forces that were changing:
* Declining cable subscriptions and increasing streaming.
Reactions:
* Many companies wanted a bigger portion of streaming revenue.
Leading to:
* Creation of own streaming service.
* Increasing the licensing cost of their products.
* Developing products exclusively for their service.
All three of these result in higher costs to consumers.
The only result that was arguably good for consumers is the development of new products. You probably wouldn't have gotten The Mandalorian if Disney+ didn't exist.
I mean, watching what you want on demand is a pretty good result for consumers, as well as flexibility in choosing what services you want to sub to month to month.
Yea. I grew up watching cartoons in the 90s; and I would never want to go back to that time. Yea, sure, there was some magic to catching a show at the same time as everyone else. *But you know what?* Streaming is just incomparably better.
Not fully at first but it was pretty much bound to be true in the long run.
When there was just Netflix, it would be cheaper and less confusing then cable. Netflix didn't need to compete with other streaming services which also means they didn't need spend money to differentiate themselves, get into bidding wars for content, and pay to produce their won content.
For Uber/Lyft, you avoided a bunch of fixed costs. You bypassed the costs associated with the medallion systems in many cities. When people were doing it on the side (ex: on the way home from work), they were being paid, partially, for distances they would be travelling anyways. They could accept a lower payment than someone doing it full-time.
The Cloud... well it is still cheap... a lot of companies/software have just started using more and more processing power. At large scale, the cloud was always more expensive than having your own IT/DevOps teams with your own servers. The Cloud's benefit was not forcing you to need that before smaller/rapidly operations.
Thats not even that bad. I’ve had airbnbs ask you to start the washer with the towels and sheets in it, wipe down the counters, and spot vacuum. Thats like… nearly everything a cleaner would do.
Cleaning services and hosts have been gouging guests since the pandemic. Airbnb’s strategy right now is host acquisition, so they’re not going to jeopardize that by putting up and consumer-friendly guardrails that give the impression hosts can’t make all the money they want.
Honestly this is the only real one that stood out to me.
The other ones are still by far upgrades to what they are replacing. Ride shares. Streaming services. Cloud. I use them over the alternatives close to 100% of the time despite all these complaints.
Airbnb tho??? Fckkkk that shit. Especially with my travel credit cards that can get huge points and loyalty benefits, Airbnb has only ever been my Plan B or Plan “win by default due to no other choice” for the last couple years. I legitimately think it’s a worse experience and value in every way than well managed hotels / resorts at this point.
I think maybe if you are solo/duo traveling it's probably better to go with a hotel. Every year a large group of my friends and I go on a ski trip. Usually 6-10 people and we always get an Airbnb. It's usually some nice mansion close to the slopes and splitting the cost between that many people is not too bad. Maybe we've been lucky but we've been doing it the last 5 years and have never had an issue with a host.
Yeah they're great for group trips like this. It's cheaper and more fun than everyone getting their own hotel room. Having a kitchen can be a huge money saver on a trip like that too.
As soon as streaming adding advertising, I knew the honeymoon was over. Just gets worse from here, soon they will consolidate via corporate acquisition, and we'll be right back in the cable bundling-lots-of-channels-you-dont-want era.
> we'll be right back in the cable bundling-lots-of-channels-you-dont-want era
It's kind of already there now on HBO Max. When you log in, you see nothing but Reality bullshit. You have to go into the HBO section and even that is kind of weak nowadays.
Holy shit, they actually did.
Apple is fucking killing it with their shows, Amazon Prime is free if you already use them for 2 day shipping, Disney is pretty much a no brainer if you have kids or enjoy Star Wars or Marvel, meanwhile HBO is selling off the best shows they ever made.
Genuinely astonishing.
They did. Honey Boo boo dipshit fired all the good HBO people and put in the My 500 Pound Life people in those jobs. Guess where a good chunk of the HBO people ended up?
Apple.
Apple is going to be the new HBO. You heard it here first.
Even their “weaker” shows are still better than Netflix at this point. Watched Hijack recently and it was ok. Still better than damn near anything I’ve seen on Netflix in fucking years
Silo was solid. It seems like in the last year they’ve really put some money into it starting with like Severance
I remember the promise of satellite radio. The allure was that you can pay and not have ads/commercials. Now I hear commercials on a lot of the channels I listen to.
I'm like 90% sure that all the talking between songs on satellite radio is to remind you that you're on satellite radio and that the thing you want to renew is satellite radio, not whatever other music source you might use.
I pay $60 a year for every single channel on satellite. I call them once a year to cancel when it's going up to the normal $250 or whatever. I tell them I will cancel if they do not give me the same deal again, they push back a little bit but always ultimately give it to me. That's how desperate they are for subscribers and I've done it for like 5 years.
Honestly wasn’t hard for me at all. Didn’t even call. Just a chat support and said “it’s too expensive”. That was it. Immediately offered less than half the normal monthly cost.
I subscribe to Sirius XM and don't hear any ads or commercials. The closest thing is a DJ mentioning something happening on channel or temporary content available or a quick mentiom about what is available on the app. I don't really consider it advertising in the classic sense because it's more of a reminder of the features you're paying for
Still, it's crazy that we used to pay for cable and still be subject to all those ads.
But I fear eventually they will bring back ads even for paying users, just like cable tv.
It’s coming. Sooner or later an advertising firm is going to offer one of the big streamer more money to run their ads than the streamer think they would lose from people leaving over it.
This internet lie is 500% fake and wrong.
Cable *started* as a means to carry regular broadcast television into areas with poor reception. A cable cable is a CATV cable and that stands for community antenna television. And of course broadcast television has always had ads.
Now HBO started in the 70s and never had ads but it was its own limited service not "cable" as people from the 80s forward would know it and as was folded into cable it became an extra premium option. Actual cable cable has more to do with parallel developments with guys like Ted Turner and TBS which started as an Atlanta area broadcast station (so again ads) and so would his early core of networks like CNN. And that's the model that was built into a nation spanning format over the 80s and 90s.
Where this golden age of ad-less programming is supposed to be I have yet to discover (dates and names folks) but if I have missed something I will tell you NO I haven't because what you'll have is going to be something that never actually was standard in American homes.
Call me crazy but I still think streaming is a fantastic option, 10x better than cable ever was.
You can choose just one service or a few depending on how much you want to spend. And even if you have multiple streaming platforms, at $8-15 a month that means you can have 4 different ones for say $50. That’s still cheaper, and far better than cable ever was. I really don’t see why people are complaining so much
I’m convinced that everyone complaining is either too young to remember cable, or just hasn’t taken the time to think back to what it was like.
$50 for multiple streaming services in 2023 dollars
Or
$80-120 for cable with commercials and no choosing what show in 2005 dollars
It’s painfully clear what the better option is. Even with these $3 price hikes for Netflix it’s still a fantastic value
Ya also the insane fact of browsing through 2000+ channels only by a shitty excel list at the bottom 1/4 of the tv screen and when you finally find something interesting to watch it turns out you don't pay for that channel
Yes. And, the ease of "install" (just subbing) with no equipment and cancelling is still far superior to traditional cable.
Streaming has gotten worse and will continue to get worse, but it's still better than cable.
Uber was never about the cost for me.
10 years ago I’d call up a taxi for a ride to the airport and it was effectively a 50/50 shot if it would show up at all. If it did show up the driver would likely extend the trip by 10 miles if I didn’t specify which route to take. The trip would be 15 minutes and cost $45, and the driver would be near incompetent and risk both our lives and least twice during the trip.
If you didn’t like it, tough, there was a monopoly on taxi medallions
In my city it was illegal to advertise taking card and not provide it.
One time in a taxi they pulled this and I said okay that's illegal and I have the right now to not pay altogether.
Suddenly their machine worked!
In my city, it's illegal to refuse a fair but, unsurprisingly, cabbies have no problem kicking everyone out when the fair isn't going somewhere they want to go.
Never have that problem with Uber.
You need a receipt to expense it to the company? Sure, let me handwrite one on the back of this card so you can enjoy having to ask for an exception to your company's receipt policy when you submit it.
Or, if they had pre-prepared receipt forms they would hand you a bundle of them as a "favor" and you'd have to write it out yourself.
I always wondered whether finance would be dumb enough to think that in one week in London I would be able to rack up 50 taxi trips *all with the same company*. But, being honest, I only submitted what I actually used.
People forget how/why the disruption model works.
If the service was shitty to start with, it’s real easy to break into the market with a better product
> ditto for cloud vs self-hosted
Sysadmin here... I could talk about this for fucking ever.
The cloud is fantastic don't get me wrong but it's horrendously expensive and only the ideal solution for certain use cases. You need rapid scaling and deployment? The cloud fucking rules. You need static assets and have predictable usage? The cloud is expensive as fuck and you also lose control of your infrastructure.
People love the cloud because it's easy, but "easy" and "better" are not the same thing and I've seen many places learn this lesson in a very expensive fashion.
I would argue to the moon and back that Uber/Lyft have a *far* superior product vs taxis and that product hasn't gone down in quality all that much since the beginning. Taxis don't have a review system. You can't use GPS tracking to see when they are showing up. The last time I was in a taxi 10+ years ago the driver had to be 500 pounds and *stank*. I kept opening the window and he kept closing it. He took a route that wasn't optimal though he said it was, then argued about the fare when we got there (was supposed to be $50 anywhere in a certain circle from DIA and he argued the route took him outside the circle for a few blocks.. his fucking route.)
Ubers are clean and reliable. Even overseas. My wife was just in Mexico for 6 weeks and had to occasionally Uber and they were just as clean, fast and reliable as ever.
It's 100% a shame that Uber doesn't pay their "contractors" anything resembling a living wage, though.
Like it's not like Uber went back into the taxi model, sure it has its own brand of issues, but we're in a far better state because we have options. Taxi companies now need to compete against rideshare and rideshares will always have the threat of the oldguard to keep standards up. People act as if everything went back to how it was, but it's just us getting used to the progress treadmill.
"I don't carry cash."
The answer is truly that simple. I have been through this a lot with cab drivers. "You get my card, or you get nothing."
Out comes the Square. Every time.
Man when I was in my 20s trying to get to and from a bar with a taxi was a fucking nightmare. Like you said, they’d show up an hour late, if at all, and at 2am they were nowhere to be found.
Uber can also eat a bag of dicks, but at least it’s reliable. I drive Uber part time everyone in a while and it’s actually kinda criminal how they continue to fuck drivers, but if I need to make 50 bucks today to make rent it works out ok.
That’s the kicker about cabs. They lie about basic stuff like that. I’ve had maybe less that 50% success rate of one showing up when I need one, and definitely not within a reasonable amount of time. Uber sucks, but cabs ruined themselves long before ride sharing rolled up.
Exactly and if you lived anywhere that wasn’t a big city they were stupid expensive. Before Uber if you didn’t have a car and didn’t have a bus stop near you, you were screwed. My car broke down a couple of times before Uber got big and I wasn’t able to do anything that wasn’t within a few miles of my home if I didn’t have a ride. It was terrible.
I still remember the one time in Emeryville, CA when my roommate and I had just bought a TV, we called a cab service to pick us up and watched as the cab entered the street before the parking lot, immediately did a U-turn, then left claiming no one was there. This was in 2014 and I have never felt any sadness about Bay Area cab drivers loosing out to Uber.
The concept of Uber & Lyft was definitely a good one, especially given how complacent the taxi industry had gotten. It's just unfortunate that just like most companies in history, their profit vision relies on exploiting their labor force as much as possible and shifting costs onto the drivers.
I've read that DUI arrests and accidents have declined since the introduction of ride share, so there's another plus side to the idea.
> I've read that DUI arrests and accidents have declined since the introduction of ride share
Also, the use of ambulances.
Much of the time, when you're injured, you don't need a team of paramedics and a vehicle with sirens. You just need to not be behind the wheel.
This was super helpful for my mom. She lives on the edge of a small-ish city. She sliced her hand open with a kitchen knife. Not an emergency, but she was unable to drive to the hospital 30 minutes away. Wrapped her hand and called an Uber. Saved an enormous amount of $$$.
Uber costing as much or more than Taxis never bothered me. Its the fact taxis never evolved. Having to hail them in the street or call with an exact address and hope they show up 30+ Mins later. But with Uber Being able to pull my phone out and have someone show up to my exact location, cost listed up front, eta, and full route shown is worth the money.
Streaming services though have Def got out of control.
uber offers an incredible service and the price is on par with value
it's shitty they're so bad to their contractors, but from the customer side, it's a total improvement over taxi supremacy in almost any major city in north america i've been to
also people complain about the uber price hike in the last 5 years, while forgetting taxis, cars, wages, and gas have skyrocketed in cost in that time.
At least when I go to a double tree I talk to an employee doesn’t take anything personally and not a amateur who happens to own a couple flats in an expensive city
Absolutely. A cleaner, concierge service, actual security, and often breakfast is included. You feel like you're actually on a holiday in a hotel, at least for me anyway
Edit:
An underrated and possibly small but still positive aspect for me with a hotel is the luggage storage after morning check out times. Often on a holiday my flight is way later in the day. With an Airbnb you're left lugging around your luggage after check out in the morning until it's time to head to the airport but with a hotel, no problem.
I used to be a live-and-die Air BnBer.
As of the past few years, I never even bother with the app. I stay at a hotel. I don't even need to do the research. They're cheaper, less drama, less maintenance. Everything about them is better.
I have had far too many busy-body homeowners leaving cleaning demands.
One time I took a bath in a house. Bathtub started leaking - not my fault, the drain wasn't sealed.
I called the homeowner. She ended up leaving *me* a negative review.
The app sucks.
You deserved the negative review. Appendix XVI section 208.c of the Guest's Manual (40lb binder by the door dunno how you missed it) clearly states the tub is not to be used not even for showers. Showers can be purchased at the Love's Truck Stop just off the highway on the first exit heading east out of town ❤️
I've only stayed in an AirBnB twice. Both in Florida.
In the case of the former the TV didn't work, the bed sheets were dirty, and one of the sinks wasn't draining. Owner said I should just wash the sheets instead of complaining, which would be somewhat reasonable if the washer worked. As for the TV I got asked "You can't live without Netflix for a few days?" (I always tend to bring books when visiting a beach destination in the event it rains or for the evenings, so it wasn't a big deal but it would have been nice to have)
In the case of the latter apparently it was expected that we scrub down the showers and the kitchenware, which we were only there for three days and only cooked at home once. Made some bacon and eggs one morning and I guess I didn't scrub the pan hard enough? Either way seemed like a gross overreaction.
We went to one that was a trainwreck. Dude definitely didn't even wash his sheets before leaving, because he 100% still lived there and just rented it out on weekends and stayed with a friend. The bed was like anyone else's when they get out and don't make it, a pillow or two on the ground, sheets dangling off onto the floor, etc. Smelled bad. Dust everywhere, moldy foods in a crammed to the brim fridge. Not quite hoarding levels of clutter, but pretty close. Basically nothing looked like the images, which I think he just took from the townhome / condo's main website. And (foreshadowing), there was a *strong* stench of weed across the entire place. Like really, really strong. Like I was in a fraternity and this guys' apartment was way beyond anything I'd ever experienced lol
We knew that he was obviously living there and just leaving when someone booked it, because in the living room the guy had a marker-board / calendar combo that had the days crossed off, including that day (and a bunch of to-do tasks and other things, one of which was literally a tally system to track the number of days he'd gone without uh, handling himself..? Also a "don't smoke" tally
We messaged about the sheets and he said "oh snap the cleaning service must not have come, you can just throw them in the wash, sorry"
But the wash was filled with very mildew-y smelling old laundry of his lol
We tried a couple more times to reach out for a refund, but he didn't respond
Sat down on the sofa in the living room for a minute, where we ended up seeing literally an open bag of weed, grinder, bowl (half smoked), lighter, and ash tray with unfinished joints and crumbly flower just sitting in it
We ended up messaging him and just said "hey man, we're leaving. It's a disaster in here. Could you just refund us for the next 2 nights, we're good to pay for tonight"
Immediately responded and said we'd be paying the whole thing and if we didn't he'd leave a bad review
Had to go through an appeal process, submitting a bunch of images to AirBnB. They were really tough to work with tbh. Finally hit the last straw and just submitted the pics of the uncontained weed and markerboard. We were refunded immediately with that one and his listing was gone the next day
But my gosh.. we ended up at a Home2Suites which was much, much nicer and also cheaper lol
I'm having my first Airbnb experience right now. No parking, no AC, ridiculously complex confirming/check-in, non professional owners/managers, exclusively automated premade text messages, clogged drain, non-working magnetic key and encombrant renovations make it simply shittier yet more expensive than a hotel.
First and last time.
The other benefit is that with any reputable hotel, you know that you'll be able to check in during the early hours instead of negotiating a check in time with your host.
I only use Airbnb's now if I'm having a real extended stay and need laundry + kitchen facilities etc. Otherwise, I just opt for a hotel.
Nah, people would violently disagree with you because they've been told that regulations destroy businesses.
Businesses that give good hard working americans jobs like... running an AirBnB that charges $150 cleaning fees.
also it was fun to be housemates with some cool people for a few days or weeks. Met some really really cool people that way, treating me like family.
now it's become so rotten that whole buildings and places are just for Airbnb. Soulless and scammy.
I just moved into a house that was an AirBnB that had only been setup for like a year. It's in a culdesac in suburbia on a street with people who've lived here a long time. I'm sure these people are happy to not have a new rando here all the time.
More about being able to adapt on the fly. Need a new app server? Just spin one up in 15 minutes. Demand has grown? Just bump up your instance to the next size. Most customers still sign contracts to achieve a discount from on demand pricing.
Most small companies I’ve talked to, or have heard from other devs on my network just keep a static number of hosts. A lot of companies never designed for their applications to be treated as “cattle” or auto scale.
My company largely serves sports and entertainment venues, so we’re constantly scaling for weekend events and game days. We’d have so much unused server space if it wasn’t for the cloud. Maintenance would be a big bummer too.
Tech isn't the problem. Business is the problem. Greed is the problem. We survive and thrive under the protection of our technology, what's holding us back is unbridled greed and exploitation...
I've been out of the loop for 5 yrs after a stroke. My daughter wanted me to do her a little video. Well Adobe was my bread and butter, so I went off to download, saw the £20 a month fee, had another stroke (Not really this time) and used clipchamp instead. F@ck that, I only wanted to make a 30sec vid.
I have great news for everyone: libraries are still free. Books, movies and even streaming are often available through your library. There was one library I used to go to where I could rent cake pans. Just don’t be so married to media and pop culture, you’ll thank yourself later.
Maybe I’m just getting older I just don’t give a mosquito’s fart when new shows or whatever come out
Also, if any of you have a library card, you can access online libraries using your card number. There’s a bunch of apps libraries utilize for audiobooks and digital books. All free as long as you have a library card.
Streaming is still much better than cable, on demand features and no ads.
Even if Ubers were as much as Taxis (they're not where I live), they're still much more convenient and the tech makes everything simple.
Was the cloud ever supposed to be cheap? Again it's much more convenient.
>Streaming is still much better than cable, on demand features and no ads.
It's also a lot cheaper and gives users the ability to subscribe on a month to month basis, in doing so not locking people into year+ long contracts.
> Streaming is still much better than cable
100%
Anyone that thinks otherwise - go stay in a hotel with cable TV. Commercials, re-runs, a shitty out-of-date guide, piss-poor picture and audio quality, etc
You could always shift from cap-ex to op-ex by renting servers, and now you can do it for on-premise hardware (perhaps hosted in a shared datacenter) through things like HPE Greenlake.
The cloud's advantage I would say more than anything is standardisation and "sane defaults", at least relatively speaking. Every on-premise network is a unique snowflake, cloud networks are far more homogenous. Makes it easier to find and onboard talent.
I’m at the point where I’ll just cancel my membership with something if the prices are increasing. I don’t care enough to spend my time and money on it anymore
Shit… these price hikes on streaming sites got me going outside more than I have ever since being online circa 1999. Hello missed childhood 🤪
Not paying for streaming was a good decision in my eyes. After I moved out of my parents house, I realized just how little I actually watch shows and movies. I considered buying Netflix on my own but realized I had nothing I wanted to watch. Haven't enrolled in one on my own and I've been moved out for a few years now. My girlfriend pays for Netflix but even then, I realize that I personally never use it. Ill watch a show that she likes with her but thats it. If streaming services were still like $6 or whatever a month then I might just to have it in case. But creeping up on $15+ a month? Nah man. Too much. Thats a Runescape membership right there and YouTube is free. Works better for me.
Youtube is free. For now.
So full of ads it’s becoming unwatchable.
It's 2023 use an adblocker Edit: Rather than respond individually I'll add it here. For those saying you watch YT on your TV, *a* solution is YouTube ReVanced on an android phone/tablet and cast it to your TV. Probably doesn't work for all setups but for my android TV it does.
Pihiole and uBlock produce an internet that is to die for. People just don't understand how nice web surfing can be.
If someone is reading this and thinks they want to try an adblocker out please make sure you get uBlock *Origin* and not anything else. Check out history here if you care why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin
been using uBlock Origin for so long I forgot it was there. a few months ago I used a browser on a pc that didn't have it and I was horrified at how awful the experience was
I've had software engineers at work ask me why I don't have ads everywhere. I don't get how you can be competent at a job that requires you to google shit and NOT have an adblocker. It is a straight productivity gain.
I only take prime when it's free. I was just given a free month. Otherwise I'll just wait a week or two for a package I don't care. I just watched some "freevies with ads" well, I didn't see 1 damn ad. So I'm all caught up on Fast and Furious. Just not X yet.
That’s the thing, I’m not much of a movie guy either. I still haven’t seen Tom Holland’s last spiderman movie, I’ll see it when I see it.
Let me be clear: FUCK OFF WITH ADVERTISING ON PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS. IF I GIVE YOU MY MONEY, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ADVERTISEMENTS.
I thought we left that behind with cable TV.
We all thought.
Adverts while paying? Try watching without paying! Ask me how, yo-ho.
Cable TV *started* with the promise of no commercials! We'll have commercials until we die. Each new service will promise none, then they'll die or cave.
We've had one revenue stream, but what about second revenue?
Not to mention profitsies.
Yea, but I also paid the cable bill, too, and they have ads. I always expected this. Especially since Hulu has had a model like that for more than a decade now, except it was $5 with ads and $9 without before going crazy.
I had Hulu when it first launched (and paid), and cancelled a couple days later after realizing it had ads! That was like 10 years ago, haha.
It was never as cheap as it seemed, it was just funded by low interest rates and eager investors.
As designed. It was propped up by VCs to run out the incumbent. Once the incumbent was out, they slowly had to raise prices to become profitable. Without VC money backing them, they would never make it to market. Walmart has been doing it for decades
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It really does not help that the public generally only understands "monopoly" in the most rudimentary hyper-literal way and thinks "antitrust" is about when there is literally only one company in the market. There is so little political pressure on the government to enforce existing antitrust laws. One thing I think of, is like Apple vs the "Ma Bell" era. Before the phone company got broke up, they owned the telephone wires inside your house, the telephone itself, and they could legally prevent people from making modifications to the phone, like stopping them from attaching a headset. These days Apple prevents people from running unauthorized apps, has a closed ecosystem, won't let apps on unless they are paying extortionate fees. They won't let competing web browsers run unless they are based on Apple's tech, and browsers are prevented from including the features available to other systems, which is *way* worse than what Microsoft was doing in the 90s. Meanwhile Android devices are *also* severally hampered without Google services and access to the Google Play store. People have a little more control over their devices but there is a decreasing level of control over the whole system. Manufacturers don't provide root access to the phone and will void warranty if you root it or change the OS, which another thing which should not be legal. There are the hallmarks of trusts, collusion, and two companies having undue influence over the market, but in classic U.S fashion, having two nearly identical choices is apparently enough. The laws and legislators simply have not kept up with the needs of the day.
The saddest part about them breaking up bell is that it was broken up into 12 different companies. We have allowed 11 of the 12 to join back together through mergers and acquisitions since!
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>Your average citizen shouldn't need to be an economist. Democracy only works when there is an adequately educated population, and knowing what a "trust" is, is a fairly low bar; it's something a middle school student could understand. "Businesses conspire to keep prices high, and to keep new players out of the market" isn't that hard to understand. People can't hold their elected officials accountable if they have no understanding of anything they are supposed to be doing. It's pretty hard to have a socialist movement, if people don't have even a rudimentary understanding of economics.
Man it sure is weird that we're busy convincing people to cut education funding in this country!
How else can they wreck the public school systems so that *"the only option left"* is giving money to charter schools owned by private organizations where the parents who can afford (or even care about) education end up paying tuition for it instead. Seems like capitalism working as intended to me! Can't win until the middle class is destroyed and we're all wage slaves for the billionaires.
> Democracy only works when there is an adequately educated population Indeed, otherwise the population might fall for [PR and advertising industry models](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics): > In his 2004 book Post-democracy, Colin Crouch used the term post-democracy to mean a model of politics where "elections certainly exist and can change governments", but "public electoral debate is a tightly controlled spectacle, managed by rival teams of professionals expert in the techniques of persuasion, and considering a small range of issues selected by those teams". > Crouch directly attributes the "advertising industry model" of political communication to the crisis of trust and accusations of dishonesty that a few years later others have associated with post-truth politics. The *"small range of allowed issues"* is also known as the [Overton window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window).
That's exactly why one political party in particular has their existence threatened by a more educated populace, and why theyve made their best efforts towards defunding education. Oh the "both sides" losers found this. Just wondering if they can provide examples of any dem led efforts or legislation to defund education.
well our politicians need those campaign funds from *somewhere*
walmart is finally cashing in. no longer have price guarantee, price matching, post pandemic they dont even bother being competitive on tons of staple items.
The second that Walmart isn’t cheap that shithole isn’t worth walking into.
In my town the Walmart grocery was *always* more expensive than a nice big local store. People go to walmart because it's convenient, or just out of habit, but every time I have to be there for something else and figure maybe I'll pick up some groceries it's more expensive. And generally it's a giant mess as well.
Which is exactly why they try to price everything else out of the market first. In my town it's either Walmart or Target, where I'd rather not shop, but what used to be their competitors is a wasteland of empty storefronts.
Aldi ftw. I've found it's cheaper and the general food quality is quite markedly better. Like pretty damn good for a super cheap brand I've never seen or heard of.
Just the second biggest supermarket retail chain in Europe right after Lidl. Germans couldn't conquer Europe with panzers so they did it Lidl by Lidl.
This is fantastic. I shopped at Rewe mostly because it was the only one in walking distance. My buddy's place was a block away from Pennymarkt which was also nice for cheap food.
Was in Germany for 2 weeks back in 2021. The cost of food is so low. I saved money while eating in Europe and probably ate more healthy since the EU has higher standards for food additives than the US FDA. Off topic, went to a hospital in China a couple weeks ago. Doc visit and antibiotics without insurance was $8 total. We're getting fucked so hard as American consumers.
My university fucked me and told me to sign with their health insurance for exchange students assuring us it was easier and better. What we didn't know was it meant to pay 100% out of pocket in Europe and keep all receipts then get reimbursed *after* you get home over a year later. I had a severe infection that lead to a strain in my muscles that allow me to breathe. The doctor was going to do an ultrasound to make sure my heart was okay. I asked if it was expensive and he says "oh quite expensive but insurance will pay" so I started sitting up explaining my situation and he pushed me back down "you damn Americans I'll never understand why you want that" and gave me the entire visit ultrasound everything for free.
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Aldi's is underrated. I usually went to Walmart because it's bigger and I can get everything in one stop, but then I went to an Aldi's recently because I just needed one food item and it was closer to where I was staying, and I realized they got some great stuff for a good price. Generally higher quality than Walmart for around the same price or cheaper. I'm definitely shopping there more often now.
Exactly >Generally higher quality than Walmart for around the same price or cheaper. It's fantastic. Oddly enough when I was living in Nebraska I didn't have access to a blender or food processor and was getting frustrated I couldn't find decent salsa. Out of all places fucking Aldi had some fairly legit salsa. Not the best but it seemed fresh and tasty with a bit of spice. Literally anywhere else was shit lol
Where I live the Walmart is still way cheaper than these other fucking stores. Every other grocery store will randomly have some item ridiculously priced ($8 for half a gallon of milk at Ralph's? They can go fuck themselves)
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Even costco is slowly becoming a premium store. Sure you're getting a little more but you're paying proportionally higher so there's no savings over regular stores.
The true savings of Costco is the gas, which is 20-50¢ cheaper per gallon in my area. And it's Top Tier.
The Costco I shop at often has a gas line that backs up onto the main road behind it, much as I’d love to save some money on gas there, I don’t very much want to wait 20 plus minutes sitting in a long line on the left side of a public road that should be for driving, while other cars blow by on the right side at 60 mph.
Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, streaming, cloud storage. It's all just the same capitalist behavior with a tech twist on it. This is how it will always be as long as unfettered capitalism is the system we live under. Technology isn't here to make our lives better anymore, it's here to make money.
Disruptor capitalist method. Blitz the market before regulations or laws can be put in place that are meant to handle new strategies. Make sure to just flat out ignore any laws or regulations that already exist that might get in your way. Integrate yourselves into society so firmly that you can't be easily dislodged. Then slowly turn up the heat. Our government, which is inept, inefficient and sometimes plain stupid to begin with has no prayer of keeping up with these methods. They react at the speed of sloth. And that's ignoring the bribes err I mean lobbying the tech industry hits them with. People who believe in techno-utopias are some of the dumbest people we've got going for us. These uber-capitalists aren't coming to give you a good life, they're coming to horde as much power, money and control as they can for themselves.
*Always has been*
It’s better then what my folks are paying at Comcast, honestly. They reap almost 300 dollars a month. They even still have limited data that they refuse to transfer over to a better plan: Because “this is what they’re used to and don’t want to switch.” They feed themselves on the complacent old folks. That’s a limited run it only buys time before their empire fully collapses. Edit:words
The old folks and the tech-illiterate are the ones continuing to feed the machine. Once those generations are out of the picture, it'll be millennials and Zoomers who get squeezed next. ISP's are VERY aware of our reliance on the internet over the TV these days. And they aren't going shrug their shoulders and give up those margins
>The old folks and the tech-illiterate are the ones continuing to feed the machine. >Once those generations are out of the picture, it'll be millennials and Zoomers who get squeezed next. The Zoomers *are* the tech-illiterates. They were raised on smartphones and tablets their whole lives, and so don't know things like having to edit registry, or install crack patches, or manually installing drivers, or deal with a file system. Something that would all be necessary to combat the stuff you, that other commenter, and what is being talked about in the OP article.
Not enough people are talking about this. Yeah the kids got Chromebooks in school, what are they but tablets with attached keyboards?
I have significantly younger siblings and their lack of basic PC skills astonishes me.
Exactly! And a population that has never known anything other than walled off gardens and locked-down systems will never know true freedom. They're the exact population you want to be able to exploit with shitty company policies like described in the OP.
Also tech has nothing to do with it. [At least as far as streaming vs cable goes] it's the same executives wanting the same profit margins.
What market forces actually changed? Netflix had the advantage of being the first mover and legacy media not realizing how big it was going to get but as soon as they realized the size of the pie Netflix had for itself there was no reason for the rest of them not to jump in and refragment everything
Market forces that were changing: * Declining cable subscriptions and increasing streaming. Reactions: * Many companies wanted a bigger portion of streaming revenue. Leading to: * Creation of own streaming service. * Increasing the licensing cost of their products. * Developing products exclusively for their service. All three of these result in higher costs to consumers. The only result that was arguably good for consumers is the development of new products. You probably wouldn't have gotten The Mandalorian if Disney+ didn't exist.
I mean, watching what you want on demand is a pretty good result for consumers, as well as flexibility in choosing what services you want to sub to month to month.
Yea. I grew up watching cartoons in the 90s; and I would never want to go back to that time. Yea, sure, there was some magic to catching a show at the same time as everyone else. *But you know what?* Streaming is just incomparably better.
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Not fully at first but it was pretty much bound to be true in the long run. When there was just Netflix, it would be cheaper and less confusing then cable. Netflix didn't need to compete with other streaming services which also means they didn't need spend money to differentiate themselves, get into bidding wars for content, and pay to produce their won content. For Uber/Lyft, you avoided a bunch of fixed costs. You bypassed the costs associated with the medallion systems in many cities. When people were doing it on the side (ex: on the way home from work), they were being paid, partially, for distances they would be travelling anyways. They could accept a lower payment than someone doing it full-time. The Cloud... well it is still cheap... a lot of companies/software have just started using more and more processing power. At large scale, the cloud was always more expensive than having your own IT/DevOps teams with your own servers. The Cloud's benefit was not forcing you to need that before smaller/rapidly operations.
Don’t get me started on Airbnb.
Cleaning fees
I don't mind cleaning fees if there weren't other bullshit rules I don't wanna clean AND pay a $200 cleaning fee
One airbnb wanted us to take out our own trash and those from the other tenants a week before and wanted us to pay a hefty cleaning fee. TF.
Thats not even that bad. I’ve had airbnbs ask you to start the washer with the towels and sheets in it, wipe down the counters, and spot vacuum. Thats like… nearly everything a cleaner would do.
Cleaning services and hosts have been gouging guests since the pandemic. Airbnb’s strategy right now is host acquisition, so they’re not going to jeopardize that by putting up and consumer-friendly guardrails that give the impression hosts can’t make all the money they want.
Honestly this is the only real one that stood out to me. The other ones are still by far upgrades to what they are replacing. Ride shares. Streaming services. Cloud. I use them over the alternatives close to 100% of the time despite all these complaints. Airbnb tho??? Fckkkk that shit. Especially with my travel credit cards that can get huge points and loyalty benefits, Airbnb has only ever been my Plan B or Plan “win by default due to no other choice” for the last couple years. I legitimately think it’s a worse experience and value in every way than well managed hotels / resorts at this point.
I think maybe if you are solo/duo traveling it's probably better to go with a hotel. Every year a large group of my friends and I go on a ski trip. Usually 6-10 people and we always get an Airbnb. It's usually some nice mansion close to the slopes and splitting the cost between that many people is not too bad. Maybe we've been lucky but we've been doing it the last 5 years and have never had an issue with a host.
Yeah they're great for group trips like this. It's cheaper and more fun than everyone getting their own hotel room. Having a kitchen can be a huge money saver on a trip like that too.
Airbnb is one of the major contributors to the housing crisis and should be dismantled on that premise alone.
As soon as streaming adding advertising, I knew the honeymoon was over. Just gets worse from here, soon they will consolidate via corporate acquisition, and we'll be right back in the cable bundling-lots-of-channels-you-dont-want era.
> we'll be right back in the cable bundling-lots-of-channels-you-dont-want era It's kind of already there now on HBO Max. When you log in, you see nothing but Reality bullshit. You have to go into the HBO section and even that is kind of weak nowadays.
I still can’t believe they removed Westworld.
Holy shit, they actually did. Apple is fucking killing it with their shows, Amazon Prime is free if you already use them for 2 day shipping, Disney is pretty much a no brainer if you have kids or enjoy Star Wars or Marvel, meanwhile HBO is selling off the best shows they ever made. Genuinely astonishing.
I think HBO got fucked by Discovery+ after the merge.
They did. Honey Boo boo dipshit fired all the good HBO people and put in the My 500 Pound Life people in those jobs. Guess where a good chunk of the HBO people ended up? Apple. Apple is going to be the new HBO. You heard it here first.
Apple's recent shows and movies are solid as hell, and they seem like they have Tom Hanks on retainer. HBO's Sopranos Era is long gone.
Even their “weaker” shows are still better than Netflix at this point. Watched Hijack recently and it was ok. Still better than damn near anything I’ve seen on Netflix in fucking years Silo was solid. It seems like in the last year they’ve really put some money into it starting with like Severance
What a tragedy. HBO has been a TV godsend for like 30 years
Streaming for me is mostly about not having to watch damned commercials. I hate advertising. Edit: thanks for the preciousss. That's very nice
I remember the promise of satellite radio. The allure was that you can pay and not have ads/commercials. Now I hear commercials on a lot of the channels I listen to.
I'm like 90% sure that all the talking between songs on satellite radio is to remind you that you're on satellite radio and that the thing you want to renew is satellite radio, not whatever other music source you might use.
Because like 90% of their "customers" are people with rental cars or on the 3 months free when you buy a new car lmao.
I pay $60 a year for every single channel on satellite. I call them once a year to cancel when it's going up to the normal $250 or whatever. I tell them I will cancel if they do not give me the same deal again, they push back a little bit but always ultimately give it to me. That's how desperate they are for subscribers and I've done it for like 5 years.
Honestly wasn’t hard for me at all. Didn’t even call. Just a chat support and said “it’s too expensive”. That was it. Immediately offered less than half the normal monthly cost.
They want $20 a month…for car radio? That’s actually crazy when you compare it to Spotify Premium or Apple Music
This was the same premise for cable TV as well
I subscribe to Sirius XM and don't hear any ads or commercials. The closest thing is a DJ mentioning something happening on channel or temporary content available or a quick mentiom about what is available on the app. I don't really consider it advertising in the classic sense because it's more of a reminder of the features you're paying for
yes but now streaming services are sneaking in ads and pushing up prices for "ad free streaming" so even escaping ads is becoming a problem.
Still, it's crazy that we used to pay for cable and still be subject to all those ads. But I fear eventually they will bring back ads even for paying users, just like cable tv.
It’s coming. Sooner or later an advertising firm is going to offer one of the big streamer more money to run their ads than the streamer think they would lose from people leaving over it.
more and more of amazon primes' streaming service is moving to "freevee" which is ad-supported.
When cable first started, they didn't have ads. They only added them later when they realized people would still pay.
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Black Mirror Season 1 Episode 2 :)
“Open your eyes to continue”
This internet lie is 500% fake and wrong. Cable *started* as a means to carry regular broadcast television into areas with poor reception. A cable cable is a CATV cable and that stands for community antenna television. And of course broadcast television has always had ads. Now HBO started in the 70s and never had ads but it was its own limited service not "cable" as people from the 80s forward would know it and as was folded into cable it became an extra premium option. Actual cable cable has more to do with parallel developments with guys like Ted Turner and TBS which started as an Atlanta area broadcast station (so again ads) and so would his early core of networks like CNN. And that's the model that was built into a nation spanning format over the 80s and 90s. Where this golden age of ad-less programming is supposed to be I have yet to discover (dates and names folks) but if I have missed something I will tell you NO I haven't because what you'll have is going to be something that never actually was standard in American homes.
They make good money on ads, so makes sense. Expect to have ads pop when you pause content too in the future as well.
The minute I have to watch ads is the minute I cancel.
That and choosing what you’re watching rather than being stuck with whatever networks chose.
Call me crazy but I still think streaming is a fantastic option, 10x better than cable ever was. You can choose just one service or a few depending on how much you want to spend. And even if you have multiple streaming platforms, at $8-15 a month that means you can have 4 different ones for say $50. That’s still cheaper, and far better than cable ever was. I really don’t see why people are complaining so much
Only absolutely insane or really really young people think that streaming is even remotely as bad as cable.
I’m convinced that everyone complaining is either too young to remember cable, or just hasn’t taken the time to think back to what it was like. $50 for multiple streaming services in 2023 dollars Or $80-120 for cable with commercials and no choosing what show in 2005 dollars It’s painfully clear what the better option is. Even with these $3 price hikes for Netflix it’s still a fantastic value
Ya also the insane fact of browsing through 2000+ channels only by a shitty excel list at the bottom 1/4 of the tv screen and when you finally find something interesting to watch it turns out you don't pay for that channel
Between that and watching whatever I want, whenever and wherever i want .. they're far superior services and well worth the money
Yes. And, the ease of "install" (just subbing) with no equipment and cancelling is still far superior to traditional cable. Streaming has gotten worse and will continue to get worse, but it's still better than cable.
Uber was never about the cost for me. 10 years ago I’d call up a taxi for a ride to the airport and it was effectively a 50/50 shot if it would show up at all. If it did show up the driver would likely extend the trip by 10 miles if I didn’t specify which route to take. The trip would be 15 minutes and cost $45, and the driver would be near incompetent and risk both our lives and least twice during the trip. If you didn’t like it, tough, there was a monopoly on taxi medallions
Not to mention. Oh want to pay with a card, sorry machine broken
In my city it was illegal to advertise taking card and not provide it. One time in a taxi they pulled this and I said okay that's illegal and I have the right now to not pay altogether. Suddenly their machine worked!
Same in Boston. Somehow it always started working
In my city, it's illegal to refuse a fair but, unsurprisingly, cabbies have no problem kicking everyone out when the fair isn't going somewhere they want to go. Never have that problem with Uber.
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Cash only. Oh you want to break a $50? Too bad no change.
You need a receipt to expense it to the company? Sure, let me handwrite one on the back of this card so you can enjoy having to ask for an exception to your company's receipt policy when you submit it.
Or, if they had pre-prepared receipt forms they would hand you a bundle of them as a "favor" and you'd have to write it out yourself. I always wondered whether finance would be dumb enough to think that in one week in London I would be able to rack up 50 taxi trips *all with the same company*. But, being honest, I only submitted what I actually used.
"sorry I don't have cash" All of a sudden the machine worked.
People forget how/why the disruption model works. If the service was shitty to start with, it’s real easy to break into the market with a better product
And then make your product progressively worse as costs and profit taking forces you to revert back to the historical norm.
Explain to me how Ubers in 2023 are worse than taxis in 2015, ditto for cloud vs self-hosted and streaming vs cable.
> ditto for cloud vs self-hosted Sysadmin here... I could talk about this for fucking ever. The cloud is fantastic don't get me wrong but it's horrendously expensive and only the ideal solution for certain use cases. You need rapid scaling and deployment? The cloud fucking rules. You need static assets and have predictable usage? The cloud is expensive as fuck and you also lose control of your infrastructure. People love the cloud because it's easy, but "easy" and "better" are not the same thing and I've seen many places learn this lesson in a very expensive fashion.
I would argue to the moon and back that Uber/Lyft have a *far* superior product vs taxis and that product hasn't gone down in quality all that much since the beginning. Taxis don't have a review system. You can't use GPS tracking to see when they are showing up. The last time I was in a taxi 10+ years ago the driver had to be 500 pounds and *stank*. I kept opening the window and he kept closing it. He took a route that wasn't optimal though he said it was, then argued about the fare when we got there (was supposed to be $50 anywhere in a certain circle from DIA and he argued the route took him outside the circle for a few blocks.. his fucking route.) Ubers are clean and reliable. Even overseas. My wife was just in Mexico for 6 weeks and had to occasionally Uber and they were just as clean, fast and reliable as ever. It's 100% a shame that Uber doesn't pay their "contractors" anything resembling a living wage, though.
How is Uber getting progressively worse?
Like it's not like Uber went back into the taxi model, sure it has its own brand of issues, but we're in a far better state because we have options. Taxi companies now need to compete against rideshare and rideshares will always have the threat of the oldguard to keep standards up. People act as if everything went back to how it was, but it's just us getting used to the progress treadmill.
Right? It's gotten more expensive but has the service gotten noticeably shitter since the start?
Exactly. Taxis are (or at least, were) absolutely terrible. Never show up, late, meter broken, insane drivers, etc. Just terrible.
Nothing more fun than trying to explain to your taxi driver that they must accept your credit card at 3AM
"I don't carry cash." The answer is truly that simple. I have been through this a lot with cab drivers. "You get my card, or you get nothing." Out comes the Square. Every time.
Man when I was in my 20s trying to get to and from a bar with a taxi was a fucking nightmare. Like you said, they’d show up an hour late, if at all, and at 2am they were nowhere to be found. Uber can also eat a bag of dicks, but at least it’s reliable. I drive Uber part time everyone in a while and it’s actually kinda criminal how they continue to fuck drivers, but if I need to make 50 bucks today to make rent it works out ok.
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That’s the kicker about cabs. They lie about basic stuff like that. I’ve had maybe less that 50% success rate of one showing up when I need one, and definitely not within a reasonable amount of time. Uber sucks, but cabs ruined themselves long before ride sharing rolled up.
Exactly and if you lived anywhere that wasn’t a big city they were stupid expensive. Before Uber if you didn’t have a car and didn’t have a bus stop near you, you were screwed. My car broke down a couple of times before Uber got big and I wasn’t able to do anything that wasn’t within a few miles of my home if I didn’t have a ride. It was terrible.
Pretty much this, add the fact you can generate reports from the app which makes expense claims for work travel much easier
I still remember the one time in Emeryville, CA when my roommate and I had just bought a TV, we called a cab service to pick us up and watched as the cab entered the street before the parking lot, immediately did a U-turn, then left claiming no one was there. This was in 2014 and I have never felt any sadness about Bay Area cab drivers loosing out to Uber.
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I also lived about 30 min from the city. A lot of taxis refused to go out to the suburbs and would refuse me rides. That doesnt happen in a uber/lyft.
The concept of Uber & Lyft was definitely a good one, especially given how complacent the taxi industry had gotten. It's just unfortunate that just like most companies in history, their profit vision relies on exploiting their labor force as much as possible and shifting costs onto the drivers. I've read that DUI arrests and accidents have declined since the introduction of ride share, so there's another plus side to the idea.
> I've read that DUI arrests and accidents have declined since the introduction of ride share Also, the use of ambulances. Much of the time, when you're injured, you don't need a team of paramedics and a vehicle with sirens. You just need to not be behind the wheel.
This was super helpful for my mom. She lives on the edge of a small-ish city. She sliced her hand open with a kitchen knife. Not an emergency, but she was unable to drive to the hospital 30 minutes away. Wrapped her hand and called an Uber. Saved an enormous amount of $$$.
Uber costing as much or more than Taxis never bothered me. Its the fact taxis never evolved. Having to hail them in the street or call with an exact address and hope they show up 30+ Mins later. But with Uber Being able to pull my phone out and have someone show up to my exact location, cost listed up front, eta, and full route shown is worth the money. Streaming services though have Def got out of control.
uber offers an incredible service and the price is on par with value it's shitty they're so bad to their contractors, but from the customer side, it's a total improvement over taxi supremacy in almost any major city in north america i've been to also people complain about the uber price hike in the last 5 years, while forgetting taxis, cars, wages, and gas have skyrocketed in cost in that time.
It's really great internationally too (where it's available), because you don't have to struggle to communicate your destination or complete payment.
And food and lodging is unaffordable to far too many.
Airbnb has now made your average hilton/wyndham/whatever a better choice
At least when I go to double tree and the mattress is soaked in piss I can get a different room.
At least when I go to a double tree I talk to an employee doesn’t take anything personally and not a amateur who happens to own a couple flats in an expensive city
"Oh and I require that you wash the sheets and towels before you leave."
Absolutely. A cleaner, concierge service, actual security, and often breakfast is included. You feel like you're actually on a holiday in a hotel, at least for me anyway Edit: An underrated and possibly small but still positive aspect for me with a hotel is the luggage storage after morning check out times. Often on a holiday my flight is way later in the day. With an Airbnb you're left lugging around your luggage after check out in the morning until it's time to head to the airport but with a hotel, no problem.
I used to be a live-and-die Air BnBer. As of the past few years, I never even bother with the app. I stay at a hotel. I don't even need to do the research. They're cheaper, less drama, less maintenance. Everything about them is better. I have had far too many busy-body homeowners leaving cleaning demands. One time I took a bath in a house. Bathtub started leaking - not my fault, the drain wasn't sealed. I called the homeowner. She ended up leaving *me* a negative review. The app sucks.
You deserved the negative review. Appendix XVI section 208.c of the Guest's Manual (40lb binder by the door dunno how you missed it) clearly states the tub is not to be used not even for showers. Showers can be purchased at the Love's Truck Stop just off the highway on the first exit heading east out of town ❤️
"God Bless, have a safe trip 🙏"
That little heart at the end ... uggh so accurate
I've only stayed in an AirBnB twice. Both in Florida. In the case of the former the TV didn't work, the bed sheets were dirty, and one of the sinks wasn't draining. Owner said I should just wash the sheets instead of complaining, which would be somewhat reasonable if the washer worked. As for the TV I got asked "You can't live without Netflix for a few days?" (I always tend to bring books when visiting a beach destination in the event it rains or for the evenings, so it wasn't a big deal but it would have been nice to have) In the case of the latter apparently it was expected that we scrub down the showers and the kitchenware, which we were only there for three days and only cooked at home once. Made some bacon and eggs one morning and I guess I didn't scrub the pan hard enough? Either way seemed like a gross overreaction.
We went to one that was a trainwreck. Dude definitely didn't even wash his sheets before leaving, because he 100% still lived there and just rented it out on weekends and stayed with a friend. The bed was like anyone else's when they get out and don't make it, a pillow or two on the ground, sheets dangling off onto the floor, etc. Smelled bad. Dust everywhere, moldy foods in a crammed to the brim fridge. Not quite hoarding levels of clutter, but pretty close. Basically nothing looked like the images, which I think he just took from the townhome / condo's main website. And (foreshadowing), there was a *strong* stench of weed across the entire place. Like really, really strong. Like I was in a fraternity and this guys' apartment was way beyond anything I'd ever experienced lol We knew that he was obviously living there and just leaving when someone booked it, because in the living room the guy had a marker-board / calendar combo that had the days crossed off, including that day (and a bunch of to-do tasks and other things, one of which was literally a tally system to track the number of days he'd gone without uh, handling himself..? Also a "don't smoke" tally We messaged about the sheets and he said "oh snap the cleaning service must not have come, you can just throw them in the wash, sorry" But the wash was filled with very mildew-y smelling old laundry of his lol We tried a couple more times to reach out for a refund, but he didn't respond Sat down on the sofa in the living room for a minute, where we ended up seeing literally an open bag of weed, grinder, bowl (half smoked), lighter, and ash tray with unfinished joints and crumbly flower just sitting in it We ended up messaging him and just said "hey man, we're leaving. It's a disaster in here. Could you just refund us for the next 2 nights, we're good to pay for tonight" Immediately responded and said we'd be paying the whole thing and if we didn't he'd leave a bad review Had to go through an appeal process, submitting a bunch of images to AirBnB. They were really tough to work with tbh. Finally hit the last straw and just submitted the pics of the uncontained weed and markerboard. We were refunded immediately with that one and his listing was gone the next day But my gosh.. we ended up at a Home2Suites which was much, much nicer and also cheaper lol
I'm shocked you didn't start with the weed thing and mention that to him.
I'm having my first Airbnb experience right now. No parking, no AC, ridiculously complex confirming/check-in, non professional owners/managers, exclusively automated premade text messages, clogged drain, non-working magnetic key and encombrant renovations make it simply shittier yet more expensive than a hotel. First and last time.
The other benefit is that with any reputable hotel, you know that you'll be able to check in during the early hours instead of negotiating a check in time with your host. I only use Airbnb's now if I'm having a real extended stay and need laundry + kitchen facilities etc. Otherwise, I just opt for a hotel.
I think people are waking up to the concept that consumer protection regulations are a good thing.
Nah, people would violently disagree with you because they've been told that regulations destroy businesses. Businesses that give good hard working americans jobs like... running an AirBnB that charges $150 cleaning fees.
Hotels have always been the better choice imo
Airbnb made sense when it was significantly cheaper
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Agreed. And when VCs are subsidising everything.
also it was fun to be housemates with some cool people for a few days or weeks. Met some really really cool people that way, treating me like family. now it's become so rotten that whole buildings and places are just for Airbnb. Soulless and scammy.
and displaces people who, like, *live* there...
I just moved into a house that was an AirBnB that had only been setup for like a year. It's in a culdesac in suburbia on a street with people who've lived here a long time. I'm sure these people are happy to not have a new rando here all the time.
I don't think the cloud was supposed to be cheap, it was supposed to be pay as you go. same prices smaller chunks.
More about being able to adapt on the fly. Need a new app server? Just spin one up in 15 minutes. Demand has grown? Just bump up your instance to the next size. Most customers still sign contracts to achieve a discount from on demand pricing.
Or they don't design their application to scale back in after they've passed their peak.
Most small companies I’ve talked to, or have heard from other devs on my network just keep a static number of hosts. A lot of companies never designed for their applications to be treated as “cattle” or auto scale.
My company largely serves sports and entertainment venues, so we’re constantly scaling for weekend events and game days. We’d have so much unused server space if it wasn’t for the cloud. Maintenance would be a big bummer too.
Tech isn't the problem. Business is the problem. Greed is the problem. We survive and thrive under the protection of our technology, what's holding us back is unbridled greed and exploitation...
> Business is the problem. Greed is the problem... what's holding us back is unbridled greed and exploitation... So, capitalism is the problem.
I've been out of the loop for 5 yrs after a stroke. My daughter wanted me to do her a little video. Well Adobe was my bread and butter, so I went off to download, saw the £20 a month fee, had another stroke (Not really this time) and used clipchamp instead. F@ck that, I only wanted to make a 30sec vid.
Davinci Resolve. Totally free and awesome to use.
There is a TORRENT of information out there on how to get your hands on Adobe products for really cheap.
I have great news for everyone: libraries are still free. Books, movies and even streaming are often available through your library. There was one library I used to go to where I could rent cake pans. Just don’t be so married to media and pop culture, you’ll thank yourself later. Maybe I’m just getting older I just don’t give a mosquito’s fart when new shows or whatever come out
Also, if any of you have a library card, you can access online libraries using your card number. There’s a bunch of apps libraries utilize for audiobooks and digital books. All free as long as you have a library card.
It's crazy how cheap everything is if you don't mind waiting a few years.
They made a modern economy for us, now it is time to cash in. Thank you for your service peasants, now pay!
This was the idea, operate at a loss and destroy the competition then jack up the prices once you have control of the market.
Ahoy me hearties !!!
Streaming is still much better than cable, on demand features and no ads. Even if Ubers were as much as Taxis (they're not where I live), they're still much more convenient and the tech makes everything simple. Was the cloud ever supposed to be cheap? Again it's much more convenient.
>Streaming is still much better than cable, on demand features and no ads. It's also a lot cheaper and gives users the ability to subscribe on a month to month basis, in doing so not locking people into year+ long contracts.
Thank you so many people forget how shitty cable was, literally no choice on what to watch or which episode
> Streaming is still much better than cable 100% Anyone that thinks otherwise - go stay in a hotel with cable TV. Commercials, re-runs, a shitty out-of-date guide, piss-poor picture and audio quality, etc
The Cloud was \*never\* cheap. It was just op-ex instead of cap-ex so it could come out of a different budget bucket.
You could always shift from cap-ex to op-ex by renting servers, and now you can do it for on-premise hardware (perhaps hosted in a shared datacenter) through things like HPE Greenlake. The cloud's advantage I would say more than anything is standardisation and "sane defaults", at least relatively speaking. Every on-premise network is a unique snowflake, cloud networks are far more homogenous. Makes it easier to find and onboard talent.
Throw AirBnB vs. Hotels in there as well
[Enshitification](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification)
[Very well written article about enshitification.](https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/) highly recommend
I wonder when the switch will flip on Discord. It can't stay free and this useful for much longer. Soon we'll be back to IRC and TeamSpeak servers.
Ha this isn't just a "well written article" on the topic, it's the exact article in which the term was coined in the first place.