I am only commenting from afar (haven’t been in the US since around 10 yrs ago, but consuming a lot of US centric information), but could it be that the US economy has simply become too extractional? In my eyes, healthy capitalism needs a balance between profit-seeking and customer-satisfying. And at least from what I read and hear, the balance is now gone, with consumers being nickled and dimed while the quality of products and services going down. I am thinking of all the hotel junk fees for example, or how airlines keep segmenting customers so everybody gets exactly the lowest level of experience they can cope with, while paying as much as possible.
I think so. There doesn't really feel like there are any "big names you can trust" anymore for mid-range things. It feels like there's only junk and expensive high-end. Its so tiring to shop for anything, having to look for every way a corner might have been cut.
As an cynical American, I view all publicly-traded companies as purely extractional at their core. Any positive customer experience is either coincidental or forced.
Sad! He (and Michael Arrington) were the first two tech bloggers I read religiously back in the web 2.0 days. Had Malik’s personal blog in my RSS feeds until now. It has been only a week or so since I read his last post.
I only use CC, to earn airline points (based in Sweden). But I always pay the entire amount due at the end of the interest-free period, so I never pay interest.
I also like the fact that using a CC comes with better buyer protection than debit cards.
I suspected he would lose when he was recently visited and supported by Vance. Nobody likes Vance (in Europe, and probably anywhere). Getting prominent backing by an unlikable character isn’t a winning strategy.
Also, the fact of faking a terror attack and everybody just shrugging it off as an obvious Russian false flag op. I think even Orbán understood at that point that the jig was up.
One thing that's surprised me over the last few years is how much Russia messes with global politics. It seems to seeping into public consciousness so instead of being seen as a bit of a conspiracy theory you now have the crowds shouting Russia out. I don't know if that'll effect other Russia backed projects like Brexit financed by Russia via Arron Banks and Trump, financed by the "We have all the funding we need out of Russia" stuff. It doesn't seem illegal but the voters may be getting fed up with it all?
I see canna.to on the list. Amazing, that site already existed when I downloaded MP3s in my early internet days, in 2000. And still looks pretty much the same.
I publish lots of newsletters containing links to startups, and these TLDs do tend to lead to occasional deliverability issues, with a higher risk of spam classification. So the anti-spam lists and algorithms share your perception of such TLDs being potentially dodgy.
Lots of promising AI startups from Sweden now are gearing up for global conquest (mostly AI apps though, there are fewer foundation & AI infra startups). The success of Lovable fuels this, plus the founder Anton Osika is friends with many of the other founders, so there’s a lot of mutual supporting going on.
Personally I truly, deeply hate AI summaries and so I strongly disapprove of Google’s latest moves into this territory. I know it’s not a comment with substance, but I think the more people express their aversion to this trend, the higher the chances of it not becoming the norm.
