I believe the FTC had a case years ago. But the market has moved on. YT took off backed by Alphabet capital. Tiktok took off withe Bytedance capital. There was a time when FB/IG/WA commanded most of social media. And Meta did use that clout in some pretty grotesque ways.
Prior to 2020, FTC would have had a much stronger case. But too little too late.
A large part is due to their approach to startup investing and chronic undercapitalization. GDPR is coming up 10 years now and the worries about it were overblown. What hasn't budged is Europe is very fiscally conservative on technology. Unless it's coming from their big corporations it's very hard to get funding. Everyone wants the same thing, a sure bet.
GDPR showed that once you are a ten-billion dollar company, your compliance team can manage GDPR enough to enter the market. For a startup, starting in the EU or entering the EU early is still extremely difficult because the burdens do not scale linearly with size.
This means that yes, US tech giants can sell into the EU, but the EU will never get their own domestic tech giants because they simply cannot get off the ground there.
My company did not retain customer data or retained very little. So compliance for us was very simple. If your business venture relies on that PII data you're going to have a hard time. And I'm not exactly sympathetic since I'm regularly getting notified from HaveIbeenPwned about another PII leak.
I'm not sure what you're looking for here. If your position is "it should be difficult to make a company that has PII" you won't get any significant AI or consumer tech companies in your jurisdiction. That's just reality, they use PII, they personalize on PII, they receive PII, that's how they work.
If that is your goal, OK, that's a choice, but then you can't say "oh GDPR fears were overblown". They caused exactly the problems people were predicting, and that's what EU leadership is now trying to change.
This notion that tech companies or even internet companies somehow fundamentally rely on PII is false and just an indicator of how normalized we've let unbounded and needless data collection become.
There are tons of business that can run without collecting any or extremely minimal PII. We already let the big companies take this data unnecessarily, let's not also let them brainwash us all into thinking unfettered surveillance is somehow essential to building a software business.
> If that is your goal, OK, that's a choice, but then you can't say "oh GDPR fears were overblown". They caused exactly the problems people were predicting
I feel like, there's nothing in my statement you can actually disagree with, so you're just expressing general frustration with the state of the world.
That's fine. You can set up aggressive PII laws, you're a big boy sovereign nation. But then you will not get domestic tech giants. That's not like, my opinion, that is the reality we are in.
I am describing that reality, and that the EU is unhappy with it, and your response is "Here's why we set up laws!". OK. I'm not sure what you are looking for here. We all know how you got here.
> reorient our education system away from performative progressive ideology and towards achieving practical results.
NCLB was cooked up by Republicans along with defunding schools, school choice, and the homeschooling. You are correct that it is performative but there is nothing progressive about the last 20 years of public education.
Starlink IPs are assigned to the closest ground station. I used Starlink during a transatlantic crossing. The first half of the trip our IP address was based in Madrid. At about 2/3 of the way it changed to a Virginia based IP. And as we got closer to the Caribbean a Miami based IP.
That would cause your active connections to break because the source IP changed entirely. Are you sure the IP changes abruptly, or they keep it for as long as the session is live? Though keeping the original IP would mean that, for example, if you are sailing around the world, you'd start getting worse and worse latency as all your data continues going to the original ground station which may be on the other side of the world at that point.
An interesting problem - I wonder what they truly do here. I suppose people expect interruptions with Starlink so doing an IP swap wouldn't be all that different to losing service due to obstruction for a few minutes.
IP addresses change all the time. It changes when connect to WiFi, it changes when enter new country, it changes when provider gives you new address. I cant tell if changes on mobile, it looks like mobile providers hand off to next tower, but there must be a limit of how far can go before routing breaks.
Everything retries cause there isn’t difference between new address or bad connection. Most of time we don’t notice cause not using device. Or because most connections are short lived.
I'm aware that the public IP changes when a phone (on which one hardly has much control over how things run anyway), switches from cellular to a WiFI network.
Your comments are more practical (and maybe aimed at a layman's use of Starlink) but I am talking about the theory of Starlink supposedly interrupting a perfectly-working connection in order to change your IP, which interrupts everything, by design of TCP/conntrack. Whether that operation is fatal or not due to retries or whatever else is not my point at all.
Also, ISPs at home don't randomly disconnect you to give you a new IP. They may give you a new IP when you disconnect and reconnect for other reasons, but they should never dump your connection on purpose just to give you a new IP for no reason. That's not good design at all, hence the question about how Starlink handles wanting to give you a new IP.
Who knows. I was busy sailing, cooking and fishing. One day my Google searches are Spanish prioritized, the next day they are American prioritized. Starlinks are relatively power hungry so we power it up, connect, gather weather and other tasks, and then power down.
What I do know is our IP changed depending on our geographic location.
While listening to Trevor Noah's podcast one of the topics they were discussing was South Africa. Apparently, the apartheid South African government never included Black South Africans in the census. That was how little regard they had for native South Africans they couldn't even be bothered to count how many fellow humans existed in their country. The new government was required to carry out a census in order to know how many MPs were going to be in parliament. And they were blown away by the count. Until then, it was just a guess.
So South Africans not having birth certificates or any birth records is the least surprising.
Native South African is a debatable word. You could argue that the Khoisan are the natives. But I doubt these are the affected populations that are the subject of this article. There were multiple migrations into South Africa, some from the south by the Europeans and some from the north by the Bantu. All around a 200-year primary window. Even today, the northern migration routes are still active.
They've been there over 2000 years, I think we can consider them native at this point.
European colonialists and apartheid justifiers try to shoehorn the Bantu migration as being just slightly before Europeans arrived when fossil records prove it was thousands of years prior.
Have you looked at a map? What would stop the oldest humans, who have been there hundred thousand years, from moving from the central African plans to anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa?
> They've been there over 2000 years, I think we can consider them native at this point.
> European colonialists and apartheid justifiers try to shoehorn the Bantu migration as being just slightly before Europeans arrived when fossil records prove it was thousands of years prior.
> What would stop the oldest humans, who have been there hundred thousand years, from moving from the central African plans to anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa?
The Khoisan have been in South Africa for 20,000 - 30,000 years.
While the Bantu-speaking groups brought advancements like agriculture, ironworking, and permanence settlements, they also displaced the original Khoisan peoples, pushing them from fertlie lands or hunting grounds. Raids or conflicts over cattle and territory also happened. Assimilation and intermarriage also occured, causing many Khoisan to lose their distinct langage and culture over time.
The Bantu people have been in the southern African region longer than the Roman empire has existed in continental Europe. So, why aren't they not considered native? No one considers the Roman empire not native to Europe.
I didn't say that explicitly, but you are right that I'm implying that it is customary to use "native people" to refer to the original occupants of a territory, not subsequent waves of humans.
For context:
a) Khoisan (20,000 - 30,000 years)
b) Bantu-speaking groups (1,500 - 2,000 years)
c) white South Africans (300 - 400 years)
I guess you could say that there is a "degree" of nativeness, where a > b > c, but I would question the motives for doing so.
> No one considers the Roman empire not native to Europe
That's drawing arbitrary lines to suit your argument. Nobody would claim that the Romans were native to Gaul, for example.
I'm trying to understand what is the reason behind your points, but am struggling to do so. The less generous interpretation of your angel is that you're trying to say that white South Africans or Indian South Africans or Chinese South Africans are less native than black South Africans or that black South Africans are more native than the Khoisan. I don't know that you are saying this, but your argument does seem to point in that direction and is divisive, FWIW.
I never brought up who is considered native. The intermediate poster brough that up.
>> Native South African is a debatable word.
There has been a recent right-wing movement in South Africa to politicize the Bantu migrations to minimize the impact of European colonialization and ultimately apartheid.
> There has been a recent right-wing movement in South Africa to politicize the Bantu migrations to minimize the impact of European colonialization and ultimately apartheid.
Has there? I was in South Africa twice earlier this year and didn’t see anything in the news or in public. Do you have a reference that illustrates what you have in mind?
Tires, brakes, and windshield washer fluid are the only regularly replaceable parts on an EV. My last ICE car, also that age, required oil, tires, coolant flush (100k miles), transmission (100k miles), water pump, thermostat, timing belt, and tensioners. And lots and lots of filters.
So, either you were really lucky with ICE or extremely unlucky with EVs.
Yes, my ICE required those things, but not including tires, those other things were only like 1/3 of the total maintenance costs. The ICE components ran under 5 cents per km and the non-ICE components ran over 9 cents per km.
I don't see that I was especially lucky with the ICE components, I did all the scheduled maintenance plus some other misc things (water pump x2, bad transmission bushing, etc.) (Oil and filters just don't add up to all that much - I followed the maintenance schedule using high mileage synthetic and high-mileage filters and the total cost was under $100/year at a dealership.)
I also don't see that I was especially unlucky with the non-ICE components, I've got a 13-year sample size of steady, unremarkable maintenance to tires, paint, brakes (these always corroded from salt before they wore down, so no real EV savings to be had on brakes), misc trim pieces, etc. Looking at my Excel sheet of maintenance, I'd expect these costs to be higher on nearly any EV, just because the ICE was a cheap econobox with cheap parts (e.g. tires were small, TPMS sensors were cheap, only 4 lug nuts, etc.), and any newer vehicle is going to have more parts that need replacement/repair, and those parts are going to be more expensive.
1. Parent included brakes, but I think brakes should be on the “ICE only” list. EVs maybe use brakes 5% of the time. Maybe less. (And I don’t buy corrosion from salt causing more wear than friction.)
2. The only thing left are tires and washer fluid. I’m not convinced that these make up 2/3 maintenance costs. All of the fluids — oil, coolant, transmission — plus components that wear down/need replacing (alternator, transmission) — there’s no way these are only 1/3 of all maintenance.
1. As I said, both time I needed to replace the brakes on my ICE it was due to corrosion, I’d have been in the same scenario with an EV.
2. Oil/coolant/transmission just don’t add up to much. Oil was $100/year, there was like one other fluid-related and one transmission related service over 13 years. There are many things other than tires and washer fluids (though tires are a fairly large line item) checking my spreadsheet for non-ICE-specific costs, there’s paint maintenance, general cleaning costs, a seatbelt receptacle, a cruise control buttons, roof exterior rubber trim, a headrest, a window switch, washer fluid spray nozzles, lug nuts, wiper blades, shocks, struts, door weather stripping, rivets holding the front plastic splashguard on, headlight bulbs, headlight buffing, washer fluid reservoir cap, replacement speaker, turn signal switch, windshield repair, backup light switch.
“According to the office, internal-combustion-engine-powered (ICE) vehicles cost $0.101 per mile to maintain. [..] Full battery electric vehicles, on the other hand, are much, much less expensive to run and maintain, coming in at just $0.061 per mile.”
That lines up fairly closely to my experience - their EVs still have about 60% of the maintenance costs of ICE vehicles.
Brakes are almost never used on most EVs, you're likely not going to need a single replacement before the battery dies. I've only ever change tires and cabin filters.
Some EVs do have maintenance items beyond tires/brakes/washer fluid. The maintenance schedule for my Lightning, for example, has the first real maintenance at 125K -- for flushing the battery coolant. Fortunately it's the same standard coolant they use for all their cars, and trivial to flush.
Wiper blades, cabin air filter(s), 12V battery, refrigerant dryer, suspension. Arguably drive unit oil. Very good idea to lubricate moving parts, hinges, apply protection to weather stripping, exposed steel on underbody.
I'm reminded of how many patents that were due to expire after their 20 year lifespan got renewed simply by adding "using the internet" tacked on at the last minute.
I remember a report about either SF or LA converting a parking lot to safe place for homeless and the mayor going on TV to show how proud they were this was a solution. I was flabbergasted. Because in no way would my SE coastal sensibilities regard this as any fucking solution to homelessness. It was literally a parking lot full of tents for the homeless.
As a former resident of France, here are the headlines I observed through the years:
The wealthy abandoned France in 2000 and moved to Switzerland.
They abandoned France in 2009 and moved to... Switzerland.
They abandoned France in 2014 and moved to... Russia.
They abandoned France in 2020 and moved to... USA.
For nearly 2 decades there has been this steady rollout of the news saying the wealthy will abandon there socialist-democratic country for somewhere else. But most of them tend to stick around. A few abandon their dumb project and find their way back even.
Literally this. Studies repeatedly show this is an empty threat by the rich, because their wealth is intrinsically tied to the economy of their country of residence in most cases and therefore readily taxable while being difficult to move. This is why they bluster that they’ll leave: because they know they cannot, without forfeiting far more than they’d lose via higher taxation.
Even in the US, the wealthy threaten to leave if their favorite politician doesn’t win an election. I’m like, “exactly which $30T economy will you and your money be moving to?”
Exactly. It’s a scare tactic that relies on a misunderstanding of the prisoner’s dilemma and believing that they hold all the power.
In reality, the wealthy consistently learn that cooperation is better than betrayal, either through cooperation against a common enemy (like WW2), or bloody violence (like the Coal Wars).
It’s very much a “we’re not trapped in here with you, you’re trapped in here with us” kind of mindset, at least while we exist solely on a single planet (and even should we colonize Mars or elsewhere, it’ll take decades for such a separation to be feasible). People and governments just have to remember that we willingly abdicated that power to the wealthy in the first place, and we can take it back if desired.
Good news for the wealthy, though, is that the working class generally doesn’t seek lifestyles of mega mansions and ultra yachts so much as a decent home, healthy work/life balance, and time off for hobbies and/or family, all of which is pennies to provide.
Although wealthy foreigners in Switzerland were (and still are I believe) negotiating their taxes directly with the cantons. Wealth tax might not have applied to them if they qualified.
The ultrawealthy have been exiting SF, LA, NYC, and Chicago for decades now. Not sure how many are left in those cities since every election cycle brings doom and gloom that the wealthy will abandon those states for sure, this time.
Most recently during COVID, when many a VC exited SF and NYC to Florida with loud caterwauling about how the cities were completely over and Miami is where it's all going to be at going forward.
Nearly every single one has quietly crawled their way back into those respective cities. Agglomeration effects baby!
Listen, I am sure there is some level of taxation at which the rich will in fact decamp and go somewhere else, but empirically we are nowhere near it, nor does it appear that any of the mainstream proposals (either for increased high-bracket tax rates or wealth taxes) get anywhere near it.
For example, MA instituted a 4% surtax on all incomes over $1M and... and the population of payers actually increased 25% since instituting it[1].
> and the population of payers actually increased 25% since instituting it
This was obviously going to happen when you have a static number and inflation keeps going up. Inflation between 2022 and 2025 has been huge. Perhaps not 25% huge, but a large part of this "growth of payers" is just due to inflation.
This doesn't remotely begin to compute. Inflation is a measure of prices of goods and services, not of incomes. There is no reason to believe that high inflation results in higher nominal incomes.
Heck the opposite is true - it's why high inflation is so despised, specifically because prices outrun income growth.
What does it even mean that an ultrawealthy person would "leave" a city? One not unreasonable interpretation is that they would no longer have standing to promote their own interests there at the expense of the rest of the population. As a non-billionaire myself this sounds like a pretty good idea to me; what's good for billionaires is often not so good for everybody else.
Prior to 2020, FTC would have had a much stronger case. But too little too late.