I've heard that consumers have a lot more power in the US compared to where I live. They will not tolerate things like bad product or service quality or prices that don't make sense, and that's how they teach sellers the rules. Why doesn't this translate to "job consumerism"? Regardless of what the law says, an employer will learn that if you treat your employees like shit, you will have no employees.
Apparently you're right. I thought enshittification was limited to digital goods but I see the scope has grown since I last checked, without much of a fight on the side of consumers. Hopefully this will pave the way for companies that care to eventually make a comeback.
The appetite to buy at the lowest possible price annoys me to no end. If you want anything remotely non-crap, its price goes up to still make a profit with the lower demand. That high price in turn further reduces demand for quality items, and reduces the number of people willing to supply quality items. We're at the point where anything non-crap has become a rare specialty item that comes at an extreme price.
This is, most likely, another outcome of the wage stagnation and lack of any fit-for-purpose consumer protections in North America.
Not to take credit from anyone else who helped save the passengers including his own life, but I think he's the real hero since everything depended on his one act of unlocking the door.
Why this is not automatized yet? The plane fell 5 Km in no time and nobody can add a line in the software to assure that the door unlocks automatically if the pilots try to crash the plane?
Hijacker in cabin shoots the inside of the plane to depressurize it. Pilot has to dive to rapidly equalize pressure. Door unlocks and the plane is hijacked at gunpoint.
This is but one of myriad scenarios. "Why not just X" ignores the amount of thought that has to go into security design on aircraft.
> ignores the amount of thought that has to go into security design on aircraft.
They clearly didn't have this case covered.
I assume that there are several pressure sensors inside of the plane, and that its value could be checked real quick by a computer just in case. Lack of pressure plus descending, confirm with both pilot and non cabin personnel, normal pressure plus descending and unresponsive pilot: unlock.
More likely they considered it and determined it to be a remote enough chance relative to a passenger being the hijacker that keeping the door locked was the better default. A LOT of things have to happen correctly (or incorrectly depending on perspective) for a fully trained pilot to decide to and successfully attack the other pilot and take down the aircraft.
Just one. This reminds me the old joke of the $100000 safe password device and the $5 wrench.
The inconvenient truth is that passengers are not the most dangerous people in a plane. Pilots are. They have in their hands the bigger weapon, and know how to drive it to a target. This is not the first time that a pilot goes rogue and locks the cabin, and we are exactly in the same point. Waiting for a stroke of good luck.
What has changed since the last time where they promised to review the protocols?.
If the people at charge can't imagine the possibility of a pilot being given the option of "you die, or you and your entire family dies", or forgot about the suicidal pilot a few years ago, then they really need to quit their jobs.
I guess the answer to the second question is "if there's a business case", and the answer to the first is the same, so probably no. Life has made me a tad cynical... :)
It all boils down to whether the product (code , documentation, whatever) is polished, easy to understand and works as advertised. Beyond that, I don't give a rats ass about whether the intelligence that created it was human or artificial
They get upset when others try to exert control over them for making their own informed choices.
It’s plainly un-American to have speech governed by a committee. Thankfully, the IAU has no authority over me. Why won’t people leave me alone over my decision to not tether my own positions about how I use my own native language to the whims of the IAU? It’s as if we have thoughtcrimes now, with vigilante irritators at the ready.
I don't necessarily agree with the parent comment, but I think the angle might be one of utilitarianism, i.e: when caught, both should be put on trial and punished if found guilty, but the current focus of society to put more energy into catching one type over another is misguided as far as what will be best for society in general.
Again, not saying I agree with that philosophy, but the logic is valid.
Agreed. Unfortunately some religious inclinations can be just as tedious as pure mechanistic rational inclinations, even if they are consistent. Fortunately, these are not the only two options available. The future that the article points to is not necessarily only bad news - it might be the uncomfortable truth required to transcend our limiting beliefs.
Call me naive but I think dark patterns are a short term strategy for winning and I'm optimistic that in the long run they will be replaced with those that are more respectful and oriented to the greater good (granted, the long run might take more time than one hopes for).
Given that the pendulum can sometime swing back fast enough to be able leverage it, it might be a good time to focus on models that are both open weights and economically viable to run to build the next great thing.
> [...] dark patterns are a short term strategy for winning and I'm optimistic that in the long run they will be replaced with those that are more respectful and oriented to the greater good
This is definitely not the way most software has been going in the past decades. It's rather the opposite: Companies play friendly to obtain a user base, then start applying more and more dark patters to further increase their profit. Facebook, Evernote, Instagram, Komoot... The list goes on and on.
I don't think that's the economical definition of monopoly. It's not about 1 single actor owning the market but rather about unilateral change. Obviously a single actor owning 99.99% will be able to shape the market ... but also one owning a lot less, e.g. 30% if even if they don't collude with another actor owning e.g. 21%.
what you are describing sounds like an oligopoly not a monopoly. A company cannot realize monopolistic benefits without > 50% control of a market. That's not to say there aren't benefits to a large market share, but they are different and we have different terms for them.
US law sets the breakpoint for when a company is considered a monopoly at 30% of a market. It's never actually enforced, of course, but may be worth noting.
Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages. In addition, that leading position must be sustainable over time: if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power.
>A company cannot realize monopolistic benefits without > 50% control of a market.
I don't think that's true at all. Why 50% specifically? This is not about political votes or anything like that. It's about being the largest player by a margin, usually.
Huge difference while both are competing. But it’s a huge risk in a market with such high cost of entering. If either divests then it rapidly degrades.
I can’t think of any example in which it has gone like this, but some in which it has: The most prominent in my mind would be software transitioning from “of course you get the code so you can extend it yourself” to what we have today (please correct me if I’m wrong about this, I’ve only read about it).
Users at large (individuals and companies alike) don’t care much about a freedom taken away when a product is a few % better than another, so the biggest player sees if they can get away with it. And once they do it, everyone else does too.
It’s been well thought out and edited but it’s clearly written by AI, and it was obvious long before “load-bearing”. Still - it makes an important point well and is worth reading.
If every use of AI was like this, I perhaps wouldn't have this slight allergic reaction to it, but as it stands, this voice and rhythm has become associated with bad lazy grifting writing.
Reader here. Thanks for creating this. Totally resonates with my own thoughts, so if I'm wrong at least I have company :-)
I do have a suggestion for those who object to this line of reasoning: Follow the 5 why's to try and get to the source of your own reasoning and see whether it still makes more sense - in the sense of whether you end up adding to the common good
