FIFA's comical attempt to bribe him with a bauble might be a lot about them trying to persuade him not to do this, among other things that will mean nobody will want to attend games.
When we bought our first home, a townhouse, in the early 1990s the builder only sold to people that were going to live in said home. They helped save the down payment and made sure that utility payments (gas/electric) were under a certain amount each month (super insulated and heated with a hybrid hot water system). Bigelow Homes, they were on a few This Old House episodes in the 80s.
It would be nice to see that again, the new housing market is ridiculous now.
The issue is really felt more on the housing constrained markets. In these markets home prices weren't really very diverged from what we consider extremely low cost markets today very much. In the past 25 years, we've seen these low cost markets essentially stagnate or very hardly grow from 1990s prices, while high demand markets have gone up in price 4x or more in some cases over that time.
Now there are certainly high income buyers who can afford these 1-2-3-5 and up million dollar homes. But the very nature of who is a homebuyer is changing before our eyes in these places. The white collar office worker in 1990 who was buying in west la then is saddled with being a renter, because they only make $70k in west la. Their income hasn't 4x since 2000, not even close.
How does this change the makeup of who lives in the homes? Maybe that $70k worker would have shacked up with the home purchase, and had two kids to fill those spare two bedrooms, who go on to be enrolled in the school district, maybe work part time jobs, and hopefully stick around after and contribute to the regional economy. Instead, maybe that 3br home goes to a content creator, who uses one spare bedroom as a guest bedroom and the other spare for creating content. The school ends up short two potential pupils. The local economy loses two potential contributors, shops don't have anyone to hire and cut shifts and start a downward cycle of declining service and profit against rent increases until closure.
> Median age of ownership? Skews older now I'm guessing
First-time homebuyer (FTB) "average and median age stood at 36.3 and 33 years for the period Q3:24-Q2:25, and there has been minimal FTB average age change since either 2001 or 2021" [1].
ok lucky you but that doesn’t mean that the verge doesn’t have a paywall [0]
> Our original reporting, reviews, and features will be behind a dynamic metered paywall — many of you will never hit the paywall, but if you read us a lot, we’ll ask you to pay
I don't understand why this is a problem for some people.
It doesn't increase the price or impact your buyer experience in any way, so why do you care? If this blog post introduced you to a product you wanted to buy, why should you have a problem with the author getting a finders fee from the seller? Just seems mean-spirited.
These two statements have a very different impact:
1. I love product X and I won't get paid if you buy it too.
2. I love product X and I will get paid if you buy it too.
Money motivates people to claim they love a product or that a product is good, even if not true. It's a problem that has plagued the internet for decades.
Influence and power are far more intoxicating currencies than affiliate revenue.
And if someone complained "you're just publishing this helpful thing to become more influential in [community]," well, at some point we need to acknowledge incentives drive all behavior in one way or another.
Refusing the incentive doesn't make one per se virtuous.
I understand the need to disclose sponsored content. Or if the manufacturer had veto-power or any say in the content.
I even understand that it is good to tell if the product was given for free or the trip was paid, even when they had no say in the content.
But I don't understand why anyone would need "I use affiliate links" caveats. This is useless info wasting space and reading time akin to "this website displays ads in order to stay alive". What does writing this (otherwise observable facts) actually accomplishes? What benefits does it bring?
What is the difference between those scenarios and affiliate links? They are literally the same to me: kickbacks. And I agree they all are allowed, but should be disclosed. Why do you consider affiliate links an exception to that rule?
The difference is in the:
1. purpose of the mention.
2. Influence on the opinion.
Was it solely because the manufacturer gave sponsor money or was it because the writer is sharing his own personal opinions (and having affiliate links did not change the verdict)?
I don't see a problem people getting financially rewarded for helping people. Actually, I see as a positive. Nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to separately disclose.
In a similar vein as posting helpful videos on youtube/tiktok and not separately disclosing "when my content does well, I receive a cut from google/tiktok". Duuh.
3. I love product, but don't have an incentive to spend my time and sharing my experience for nothing.
It's not like this is an AI slop with no valuable unique information with the sole point of SEOing into visitors clicking on links.
The guy made his research, chose the best (not the most expensive, in order to maximize price) components and shared direct links (thus also making it easier for readers, who don't have only names that they would have to google themselves).
I see no problem in that so much so that I wouldn't even require a separate "I use affiliate links" caveats. This is useless info akin to "this website displays ads in order to be alive".
I used to be an Amazon affiliate, myself. I made a small amount of money with that program, by giving people Amazon links (with my affiliate tag) when I wanted to introduce an example of a particular product in a discussion where I thought it would be helpful.
I am no longer an Amazon affiliate. I no longer make any money with that program. I still give people Amazon links when I want to introduce an example of a particular product where I think it will be helpful.
Nothing has changed about the way I write or recommend gear, except for the present-day absence of an affiliate link. It was the same before I was an affiliate, it was the same while I was an affiliate, and it remains the same now that I am no longer an affiliate.
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"So why Amazon links when you could just link to the manufacturer's page instead," you may be asking?
That answer is simple: Because Amazon is consistent, accessible, and includes pricing.
Manufacturers' web pages too often have a profound tendency to be absolutely awful: It's a spectacle of moving images and flashing lights, noisemakers, pop-ups and fucking "SPIN THE WHEEL FOR A PRIZE!!!!" bullshit instead of -- you know -- information.
But all a person really needs as a jumping-off point is basic information. A description, some photos, and a realistic price is a good start.
That latter set is really all that Amazon provides. And that kind of simplicity is useful to me.
My ultimate motivation when I link a product is to be helpful to others. Affiliate or not, linking to Amazon furthers that goal of mine in ways that sending clicks to some Web analog of the Vegas Strip cannot ever accomplish.
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"So if you're so [euphemism], then why aren't you an affiliate anymore," you may wish to ask next.
That answer is also easy: Several years ago, Amazon demanded that I submit of all of my social media information in order to maintain participation in the program. I was not OK with doing this, so I ignored that demand. They subsequently kicked me out.
> Isn't that assumed nowadays that every link to a marketplace is an affiliate link?
Other people doing something wrong is seldom a good reason to do it wrong yourself.
My own personal pettiness: If an article declares the existence of affiliate links, I'll use those links more often than not. If they don't, I'll make an effort to revisit the links without the affiliate IDs. If an article presents both affiliate and non-affiliated links, I will generally use the former, and I'll trust the writers opinions a little more than otherwise. I actually keep a separate browser for buying things once they have been researched, to slightly inconvenience the tracking of me generally, so I won't be linked by “last affiliate” tracking unless fairly decent profiling is in action (which it won't be: sellers won't make that much effort just to pay money out to affiliates), only if I copy over the affiliate-id decorated link (or the original source article and click the link in that environment).
Social enforcement is probably all we can get, but yes, they should be disclosed. I'ma a fan of using 'affiliate link' as the anchor text, but it might offend one's html sensibilities. A brief one sentance blurb about commisions before the affiliate links start is sufficient.
It's sad to see its decline. I started reading right around 2000 and even noticed that it started to decline even as early as 2008, after and around some of its redesigns. I know I quit regularly stopping around there probably around that time too.
Yup, around 2008 is when I noticed that many of the Slashdot front page submissions were discussed on this new site called Hacker News 1-2 days prior, minus the trolling and the comedy threads. It was a pretty easy switch at that point.
Yup, me too. What’s funny is that your slashdot account can make friends (or enemies!) with other accounts, and there’s a limit of 200. Sometimes I spot comments of friends I made like 20 years ago.
I don't disagree per-se, but this is the sort of thing which happens when only a few businesses exist in a commodity market with high entry costs. IOW, it's not great, but it is predictable. See: Oil.
There is a zero lower bound on the interest rate. Excess capital means negative returns on capital. The money system can't express the state of the real world so either companies close down until the yield is positive, or the companies pass on the artificial minimum price onto the consumer. In both cases, the real world is forced to match the state of the money system.
Being shocked that companies try their best to deal with the bad cards they have been dealt with should be expected. The money system simply cannot express the concept of surplus capital or abundance. Positive interest means capital is scarce, so capital must be made scarce even if there is abundance.
Before you come up with the argument that the interest rate is supposed to reflect a market property and therefore does not force itself upon the market, remember that I said that there is an artificial restriction in the money system that prevents the state of the real market to be expressed. The non-profit economy has never had a chance to exist, because our tools are too crude.
The non-profit economy includes resilient production with slight/minor overproduction.
Think about how stupid the idea of a guaranteed 0% yield bond is (aka cash). The government obligates itself to accept an infinite amount of debt if the real return on capital would ever fall negative. No wonder it has an incentive to inflate the value of the bond away.
I wonder how long it will take for China to flood the market with state-of-the-art modules. It's a pretty decent opportunity for them. They probably can hasten the build of new fabs more than many other nations.
But my guess is that this shortage is short-lived (mostly because of the threat above). There's no OPEC for tech.
Those semantics hide that game studios keep using Windows workstations, developing Windows games, creating kernel drivers, targeting Windows users as customers, and it is up to Valve to make those games run on SteamOS.
Seems like you moved the goalposts pretty far... Consumers using Linux has shot up pretty dramatically this year, at least in my social circles. I count at least a dozen, non technical friends who decided to drop windows. That number has been zero a year for decades.
Game devs working in Linux is always a lagging indicator. Once there's a market share, they'll go there. Once it's the preferred os for people, you'll be able to develop on it. Games is already an incredibly risky market sector.
Instead, I encourage you to look at blender. It's gone through a "cute hobbyist/prosumer tool" phase and is now in the mega million dollar movies and games use it as their primary tool. Desktop Linux is on a similar curve thanks to Valve. If enough people start using it at home, industry will flip over.
Nope, they are still on the same spot, Proton isn't Linux gaming, is making Windows ecosystem available on Linux, because Valve has failed to provide enough value for game studios to target SteamOS natively.
Blender was a commercial product that became FOSS, with an existing customer base.
People using Linux as their desktop OS are using desktop Linux. What binaries they run on that OS doesn't change what OS they are running.
You've developed a "No true Scotsman" definition for desktop Linux that seems far from the common understanding that "if you use Linux as your OS on your desktop, you are a desktop Linux user".
If you feel your definition of purity tested "only Linux binaries or it doesn't count as a Linux desktop" is better, I'm not going to tell you you are wrong, just expect that you have a definition significantly out of the norm and will have a challenging uphill battle in getting others to adopt it.
Does most of the work to keep a Linux desktop developed? That's an incredible claim and needs a source. You might be able to convince me that most kernel developer impact comes from that community, but not the OS.
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