Capitalism is driven by the idea of a free market, where competition and the law of supply and demand determine prices, production, and distribution. Manipulating you to buy stuff you don’t need is the result of human greed, not capitalism. That’s such a monothink way of seeing the world.
Imagine living in a small town in the middle ages. You’re growing corn, your neighbour has a chicken farm, then there’s also a bakery, blacksmith etc. Say you now need nails. Where do you go? To the blacksmith obviously. Does he just give them to you? No, he wants something in return. Well you offer corn because that’s what you have plenty of but what if he doesn’t want corn but wants eggs instead? Well you can go to your neighbour and ask if he would like to trade some eggs for corn which you could then further trade for nails. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn’t, but that’s still a bit of an hassle. That’s why people came up with money. You can just sell your corn, get cash, buy those nails with sad cash and the blacksmith can then go buy eggs with that. That’s capitalism.
Capitalism is the concentration of society around capital, hence the name capital-ism.
Here’s a definition of capital:
: a stock (see STOCK entry 1 sense 1a) of accumulated goods especially at a specified time and in contrast to income received during a specified period
also : the value of these accumulated goods
(2)
: accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods
(3)
: accumulated possessions calculated to bring in income
set capital and land and labor to work
—G. B. Shaw
see also VENTURE CAPITAL
b
(1)
: net worth : excess of assets over liabilities
(2)
: STOCK sense 2a
see also CAPITAL GAIN, CAPITAL STOCK, EQUITY CAPITAL
c
: persons holding capital : capitalists considered as a group
d
: ADVANTAGE, GAIN
make capital of the situation
e
: a store or supply of useful assets or advantages
So Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about free market, workers, ethics, consumers, nation, environment etc, only about capital. Which is why Capitalism is good for the stock holders, yet bad for everyone else. Because stock holders will do anything for their capital.
Medieval communities did not engage in capitalism or any sort of internal market economy. Your assumption is that history defaults to a modern western mindset where everyone is highly individualistic and only interested in themselves. Yes you would give your neighbor eggs because you know theyll give you nails. Its called a “gift economy” by historians. Anyone who didnt help the community would be ostracized
This is not what is happening. Google offers you a tier with advertising for free. If you’d prefer to not have the ads, you can pay a small fee, get no ads and also steam every song ever. I truly don’t see the controversy.
It’s literally cheaper than a beer for a full month of this service, but people would rather spend hours of their time tinkering with settings instead. Personally, I don’t have that kind of time.
If I’m not mistaken, the “tinkering” necessary in uBlock Origin would take much less than the time you took to type out your comment. And no, it doesn’t cost less than a beer.
You have a point, but the problem goes far beyond ads vs. no ads. There is definitely a lot of controversy, and you simplify choose not to see it, but don’t try to act like everyone else is just too dumb or too poor to see things your way when neither of those are true.
If I’m not mistaken, the “tinkering” necessary in uBlock Origin would take much less than the time you took to type out your comment.
I did not say that applying today’s partiucar fix would take hours. For however long this fix works works. I said “people would rather spend hours of their time tinkering with settings instead.” Of course I use ublock myself, the web is appalling without it.
As to the price of beer, that may be an Australian thing. But if you manage to get a schooner (425ml/15 oz) at a public bar here for less than $10, you’re probably drinking something crap.
You have a point, but the problem goes far beyond ads vs. no ads. There is definitely a lot of controversy, and you simplify choose not to see it, but don’t try to act like everyone else is just too dumb or too poor to see things your way when neither of those are true.
I see what people are complaining about. They’re acting like they are being forced to visit the website. A website that sits behind one of the largest and most responsive network/web clusters on the planet. A website that is somehow referencing over an Exabyte of storage, geographically redundant and presumabely being backed up. I work in this industry, on a network with over 1,000 servers and my mind boggles at how much infrastructure that takes. I couldn’t begin to estimate what is behind that simple YouTube web front page.
Somehow, the controversy is that Google has the gall to want to recoup some of these costs. It costs a fortune for just the hardware. Then add the bandwidth. Then somehow they’re paying content creators to put popular videos on the platform. And they offer it all to you for free in return for watching some ads. Or alternatively, you pay $10 to not watch ads.
I see what you mean on that last point, but I think their profits are just insanely above what the average company’s looking at, which is probably why it seems like so much at face value.
Just the data alone that they’re complaining on almost everyone out there would more than make up for what they spend. It’s most likely why Facebook and others are also free.
As far as being forced to visit, there really aren’t many alternatives on the same level to where you can really say someone can easily do without. It’s what they wanted in the first place, so it’s not like this wasn’t something they weren’t planning for ahead of time.
It’s a tough situation, I don’t know that I wouldn’t do the same thing in youtube’s place, but I don’t think simply accept what the big Corp tells us is the best path either.
How did manipulation to make you buy specific shit become so accepted?
Because that’s the goal of capitalism
That’s deep.
Capitalism is driven by the idea of a free market, where competition and the law of supply and demand determine prices, production, and distribution. Manipulating you to buy stuff you don’t need is the result of human greed, not capitalism. That’s such a monothink way of seeing the world.
Imagine living in a small town in the middle ages. You’re growing corn, your neighbour has a chicken farm, then there’s also a bakery, blacksmith etc. Say you now need nails. Where do you go? To the blacksmith obviously. Does he just give them to you? No, he wants something in return. Well you offer corn because that’s what you have plenty of but what if he doesn’t want corn but wants eggs instead? Well you can go to your neighbour and ask if he would like to trade some eggs for corn which you could then further trade for nails. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn’t, but that’s still a bit of an hassle. That’s why people came up with money. You can just sell your corn, get cash, buy those nails with sad cash and the blacksmith can then go buy eggs with that. That’s capitalism.
Capitalism is the concentration of society around capital, hence the name capital-ism.
Here’s a definition of capital:
: a stock (see STOCK entry 1 sense 1a) of accumulated goods especially at a specified time and in contrast to income received during a specified period also : the value of these accumulated goods (2) : accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods (3) : accumulated possessions calculated to bring in income set capital and land and labor to work —G. B. Shaw see also VENTURE CAPITAL b (1) : net worth : excess of assets over liabilities (2) : STOCK sense 2a see also CAPITAL GAIN, CAPITAL STOCK, EQUITY CAPITAL c : persons holding capital : capitalists considered as a group d : ADVANTAGE, GAIN make capital of the situation e : a store or supply of useful assets or advantages
So Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about free market, workers, ethics, consumers, nation, environment etc, only about capital. Which is why Capitalism is good for the stock holders, yet bad for everyone else. Because stock holders will do anything for their capital.
Medieval communities did not engage in capitalism or any sort of internal market economy. Your assumption is that history defaults to a modern western mindset where everyone is highly individualistic and only interested in themselves. Yes you would give your neighbor eggs because you know theyll give you nails. Its called a “gift economy” by historians. Anyone who didnt help the community would be ostracized
You just described the free market, not capitalism.
This is not what is happening. Google offers you a tier with advertising for free. If you’d prefer to not have the ads, you can pay a small fee, get no ads and also steam every song ever. I truly don’t see the controversy.
It’s literally cheaper than a beer for a full month of this service, but people would rather spend hours of their time tinkering with settings instead. Personally, I don’t have that kind of time.
If I’m not mistaken, the “tinkering” necessary in uBlock Origin would take much less than the time you took to type out your comment. And no, it doesn’t cost less than a beer.
You have a point, but the problem goes far beyond ads vs. no ads. There is definitely a lot of controversy, and you simplify choose not to see it, but don’t try to act like everyone else is just too dumb or too poor to see things your way when neither of those are true.
I did not say that applying today’s partiucar fix would take hours. For however long this fix works works. I said “people would rather spend hours of their time tinkering with settings instead.” Of course I use ublock myself, the web is appalling without it.
As to the price of beer, that may be an Australian thing. But if you manage to get a schooner (425ml/15 oz) at a public bar here for less than $10, you’re probably drinking something crap.
I see what people are complaining about. They’re acting like they are being forced to visit the website. A website that sits behind one of the largest and most responsive network/web clusters on the planet. A website that is somehow referencing over an Exabyte of storage, geographically redundant and presumabely being backed up. I work in this industry, on a network with over 1,000 servers and my mind boggles at how much infrastructure that takes. I couldn’t begin to estimate what is behind that simple YouTube web front page.
Somehow, the controversy is that Google has the gall to want to recoup some of these costs. It costs a fortune for just the hardware. Then add the bandwidth. Then somehow they’re paying content creators to put popular videos on the platform. And they offer it all to you for free in return for watching some ads. Or alternatively, you pay $10 to not watch ads.
I see what you mean on that last point, but I think their profits are just insanely above what the average company’s looking at, which is probably why it seems like so much at face value.
Just the data alone that they’re complaining on almost everyone out there would more than make up for what they spend. It’s most likely why Facebook and others are also free.
As far as being forced to visit, there really aren’t many alternatives on the same level to where you can really say someone can easily do without. It’s what they wanted in the first place, so it’s not like this wasn’t something they weren’t planning for ahead of time.
It’s a tough situation, I don’t know that I wouldn’t do the same thing in youtube’s place, but I don’t think simply accept what the big Corp tells us is the best path either.