Except this is capitalism, so any improvements will go disproportionately to the owners. This narrative of improvements for customers has been repeated for decades and it keeps being wrong.
I find it infuriating, but that's how the system's supposed to work. It's the definition of a monopoly and they're in the extraction phase. When there's no competition (and eventually there's always going to be a winner) you don't need to make good products anymore.
They've successfully indoctrinated whole generations to use Windows/Office. Here in Brazil using a computer was (probably still is) synonymous to using Windows/Office. Everyone had their pirated version of Windows and many don't even know that alternatives exist. When those people open companies they'll use what they know.
Software companies have to build for the most popular OSes and most can't justify anything else. Which then means most software only works on Windows and people can't leave it even if there are better alternatives (see Adobe). Finally, any non-closed computer comes with Windows so the cycle continues forever.
It rewards self-destructive behavior in favor of short-term gains. Shareholders have *zero* commitment to the companies they buy shares from and will happily switch their entire portfolios on a whim. It's essentially people chasing the new shiny thing every single day.
Let's not forget it's a known fact that people with insider knowledge will profit over everyone else.
How is that efficient in any shape or form?
> If they undercut the US companies and are willing to accept low returns on their investments, then the respective USA competition will be driven out of business by their investors, because there will be other sectors to invest in, with higher RoI.
You're basically explaining one of the reasons stocks are a horrible idea for distributing resources.
It has nothing to do with whether or not it's central or distributed, it's merely the incentives they create. It's essentially Goodhart's law on steroids.
Depends what you compare it with. I grew up in the post soviet union. That system allocated resources to various monopolies who were too big to fail. Turns out allocating capital based on who can make things that people want/need to buy, and do it with a profit, multiplies said capital way faster. From this point of view, over time your initial base grows into all kinds of industries etc. That's probably why the USA won the cold war.
Until your economy congeals into various monopolies who are too big to fail, and you lose the rematch because you're so busy counting beans you stop paying attention.
A bad system is still bad even if something else is worse.
> That system allocated resources to various monopolies who were too big to fail.
Like our banks today? Like OpenAI is trying to sell themselves as so the US government bails them out when they inevitably can't pay off their debts? Like all the other monopolies that are too big to fail?
I can't see the difference.
> turns out allocating capital based on who can make things that people want/need to buy, and do it with a profit, multiplies said capital way faster.
That assumes the stock market does that. It simply doesn't and history is proof. It's also a fact that free market capitalism has consistently done worse than before based on actual numbers.
I highly suggest you read 23 things they don't tell you about capitalism. It goes into a lot more detail and helps you understand things in a broader perspective.
If we want to improve our world we need to move past the faults of the current capitalist system and the soviet union. We need better incentives. Profit has proven to be too disconnected from actual value.
You mean the "license while they feel like it" kind of purchase?
If I could pay for individual TV shows and actually own them I'd definitely prefer that over the disaster we have today. Buying a blue-ray and ripping it is not very practical and it's by design.
Anti cheats are as much a marketing ploy as they're actual anti cheats. People believe everyone is cheating so it must be true. People believe nobody bypasses the FACEIT anti cheat so it must be true. Neither of those are correct.
Riot revels in this by marketing their anti cheat, but there are always going to be cheaters. And sooner or later we will have vulnerabilities in their kernel spyware. I much rather face a few cheaters here and there (which is not as common as people make it to be on high trust factor).
You think tournament organizers or pro players know the first thing about anti cheats? They buy the marketing just like everybody else.
The marketing works because online games get destroyed by cheats. Losing in online games can be full of “feel bad” moments, even without cheaters (network issues, cheesy tactics, balance issues). To think that your opponent won because they outright cheated just makes you wanna quit.
I’ve seen so many players saying “look you can own my entire pc just please eliminate the cheating.”
It would be great to see more of a web of trust thing instead of invasive anti cheat. That would make it harder for people to get into the games in the first place though so I don’t know if developers would really want to go that way.
To me the "web of trust" element frankly seems like the only viable solution. And in fact, its almost here already: https://playsafeid.com/
I predict that hacker news in particular will dislike using facial recognition technology to allow for permanent ban-hammers, but frankly this neatly solves 95% of the problem in a simple, intuitive way. Frankly, the approach has the capacity to revitalize entire genres, and theres lots of cool stuff you could potentially implement when you can guarantee that one account = one person.
The marketing works because of what I said: people are dumb.
Anyone that's not dumb will know (maybe after the heat of the moment) why they lost, but the vast majority of people will blame anything they can instead. Teammates, lag, the developers, etc. Cheating is merely one of these excuses.
> I’ve seen so many players saying “look you can own my entire pc just please eliminate the cheating.”
This entire idea is so dumb it makes my head hurt. You can't eliminate bad actors no matter how hard you try. It's impossible in the real world.
All these "if only we could prevent X with more surveillance/control" ideas go up in flames as soon as reality hits. Even if a single person bypasses it, we can question everything. Then all we're left with are these surveillance systems that are then converted into pure data exfiltration to sell it all to the highest bidder (assuming they weren't doing this already).
I applaud Valve for not going down the easy route of creating spyware and selling it as "protection".
And what exactly are grants then? Tariffs? All the lobbied laws that benefit specific corporations or industries? Aren't they state backed advantages?
Banks created their oligopolies and then who saved them when they fucked up?
Isn't Tesla a state backed monopoly in the USA because of grants and tariffs on external competitors? Isn't SpaceX? Yet nobody treats then as state backed.
I don't understand this necessity to put companies in a pedestal and hate on states. Capitalist propaganda I guess?
Market forces are manipulated all the time. This distinction is nonsense. Companies influence states and vice-versa.
I use i3wm and I have this issue with escaping mouse in CS2. I thought about using gamescope but never did. You mention you found a solution so would you be kind enough to share it?
That would definitely save me part of that hour you lost :)
But honestly, I'd trade that hour on linux a thousand times to not have to close another notification from Windows about this amazing new game they have for me to install. And I don't even have Windows 11.
Linux has quirks, of course, but every OS has them. People like to dismiss quirks on Windows because they're used to it, but a lot of the time they're worse than Linux's quirks.
> Fines are probably the best way to do that for rational actors
How can you say that after not only this instance but also all the other instances that showed how ineffective they are?
That also has the huge assumption that companies are rational actors. They're not. They're merely profit machines that'll do anything to achieve their goal.
More stock buybacks and subscriptions!
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