vacri

What counts as 'foreign' to LA? An investor from SF? From outside CA? From the east coast?

There are multiple factors driving up housing prices in New Zealand (and Australia as well), and foreign buyers are a significant contributer (just not the sole cause).

Keep in mind that there are single cities in China where the population matches the entirety of Australia, and is five times that of New Zealand. There's a lot of cash floating around our budding new superpower, so...

> Why not just allow more or denser housing to be built?

Neither of those things are "existing housing". Foreign cash can still be used to build new housing.

> As it is, barely a day goes by without "Twitter" being mentioned in national news.

What are you talking about? Before Trump was a thing, Twitter was routinely mentioned in the news. It was the lazy source of react quotes: "Today, X tragedy happened in town Y. 'UnrelatedPerson' on twitter said 'what a tragedy'".

The name is more prominent now, sure, but it already was routinely reported in the news.

Yeah, patreon should shut [1] down, because otherwise kids might incorporate the lessons learned and just engage in space battles with their spaceships all willy-nilly.

So am I. You didn't seriously think I was suggesting we outlaw minimum wage jobs?

Fair enough, I just took it from here, which doesn't list the specific processing fee. https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606125-How-...

It's a bit rich that you require me to provide proof to back up my claims, but are happy to settle for 'plausible' in the article. Why am I held to the stricter standard? How can I disprove something where no solid claims are made in the first place? The article claims that Patreon cutting out that section of their business has made people afraid they're literally going to die as a result, and you think that's extremely plausible?

Only 3 days ago I mentioned I was getting tired of this current fad to dismiss commentary by demanding proof

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15529895

> So your point is that you think the claim is wrong?

In any case, I think there's some truth to what they say, but it's ridiculously overblown (hence "stretching the truth" above). They played the 'social duty to society's vulnerables' pretty hard, and yet plenty of those content creators are not vulnerable. Nor disabled. Nor are PoC. Nor are LGBT. Why do we assume PoC and LGBT are more vulnerable by default here? Where should the line of social responsibility be drawn? Should Patreon be shamed into a business model they don't want because of a single person who fits the 'vulnerable' description? 10 people? 100?

> When someone asks for evidence, they don't necessarily need citations. You could just refer to something they already know, and provide a logical argument from there.

Maybe that's the case in the lunch room in an academic department, but it's definitely not the case in internet forums. When someone demands evidence on a forum, they don't mean "walk me through it", they mean "show me the external source that supports it". They mean 'evidence' like a lawyer or a historian would use the term, not 'logical reasoning'.

It's the same with driving skill - the bulk of people think that they're better than average drivers.

> In contrast, people typically do not "lawyering" for recreational fun.

Indeed, it's the opposite - industry bodies have to mandate pro bono work, which wouldn't get done otherwise.

Software development is a craft, not fully art and not fully engineering. It definitely is not science.

One company I work for rejected a candidate based on Github - he'd cloned some repos and stamped his name on it, and claimed they were his. The hiring tech smelled something fishy, and the candidate said that he worked with these various other repos on the backend. Hiring tech reached out to the owners of several repos, and none of them had heard of the candidate before.

Github was used in this hiring process to reveal a fraud - a different 'success' story to others commenting here, but it definitely birthed 'a meaningful question' or two.

> The anti-PC crowd immediately latched onto these few sentences and now HN top upvoted thread is all about how the letter made the HN crowd feel uncomfortable.

I'm pro-PC and have routinely come out in defence of the concept here on HN. Last year there was a rash of MRA crap on HN, and I was arguing against it regularly. I also have no problem with porn itself, and view it myself. Now, all this being said, the opening paragraph in the article is ridiculously overwrought and childish. It reeks of tribal politics - if you can't understand why "the other side" never accepts what you have to say, it's because of hyperbole like this. It's the left-wing's version of "Won't somebody think of the children" that gets stuck everywhere it can, regardless of veracity[1]?

Keep in mind that this is what the letter is basically implying: "Patreon has to support pornography because blacks/queers/disabled people will die if they don't". As someone else pointed out, it's positioning Patreon to be painted as a bigot if they don't back down. Patreon can't put in a rule saying "pornography is okay, but only if you're PoC/disabled/homosexual", so what the letter is actually demanding in real terms is full support of pornography. Did you notice that just like Patreon and the Supreme Court, the letter author did not provide a clear definition of pornography versus adult content, to perhaps guide Patreon? Since it's a fuzzy line no matter where it's drawn, the only way to satisfy the author is to allow porn outright.

The author is free to make those claims - business is business, and stretching the truth is pretty normal when your business is under siege - but we shouldn't be taking the comments on face value and defending them. They should be scrutinised like any other business missive.

> These sentences correctly show that this change disproportionately affects some (minority) communities.

The sentences claim it. They don't show it, correctly or otherwise.

> When cis white men get threatened with losing their livelihoods by over-active PC campaigners, do you complain that the fact that they are cis white men features in the story?

How often do those stories come up? Which livelihoods are being lost by over-active PC campaigners? But yes, here on HN if an article does lead off with a sob story, usually someone will complain, particularly if it's long-form journalism. Hell, people routinely complain about sensationalism in article titles here, often without even visiting the link.

--

[1] Possibly the most remotely-detached of these arguments I've seen so far: in my home state, the right-wing party argued against a new public holiday with "won't somebody think of the children". One more public holiday than the next state over > businesses will go there instead > your children won't have jobs. Seriously. "Won't somebody think of the children" used against a public holiday...

I think you're grossly underestimating the work involved in being a payment handler - even just the legal work alone would be crushing. It certainly isn't going to be a side-business for a lone developer.

If being uncomfortable while working was to be made illegal, there'd be few minimum-wage jobs left. From burger-flipping to call centers, people do it because they have to, not because they want to. Coercion is a different kettle of fish, but being uncomfortable at your work is a pretty normal state of being.

The whole first paragraph is completely overbearing. "Quick, pull in every non-mainstream group we can think of, and then describe them all as literally in fear of death from an ambiguous policy about fringe content. Oh, and of course all these people rent off landlords so nasty that they won't accept a single delayed rental payment and they'll end up homeless if that happens". It's completely indefensible hyperbole.

5% is a pretty small middleman 'take'. I agree with the 'you shouldn't rely on an independent entity you don't have leverage over', but not because they're taking a cut.

It's not government puritanism, it's because pornography payments take place in the shadier parts of the spectrum, where there's a hell of a lot more fraud.

Why are demographics not defined by their sexuality (disabled, PoC, english-second-language) more likely to make sexual/nudity content, and hence be more affected by this issue?

I'm big on egalitarianism, but I'm not keen on co-opting unrelated groups in order to make your case sound more important.

Not 'intelligence', but 'capability'. There are plenty of intelligent-but-not-capable people out there, and plenty of capable-but-not-highly-intelligent folks as well.

The US's corralling of the Cherokee into camps predates the First Boer War by 40-odd years (1830s).

Still, I find it hard to believe that the 'concentration camp' is that recent an invention.

This is the truth of it. The gaming system in use is less important than the game world and the story you're telling.

When has google misled about how it makes its money? It's been pretty upfront about the tradeoffs and how googlestuff is paid for.

This kind of argument has been going on for well over a decade at this point - to suggest that google isn't honest and open about its business model at this point is simply choosing to be willfully ignorant.

I've given you plenty of well-known examples of Apple behaving badly. This isn't to say "Apple is the Devil", but that they're not this shining knight that some people paint them as. They behave dishonestly when it suits them as well.

Here's another example: tax evasion. Apple is the doyen of tax evasion. Is it legal? Yes, but stretched to the limit. Is it honest? Nope; it requires fiscal shennanigans, and they're not afraid to throw their weight around to keep things cosy for themselves. If they truly were honest, they'd pay their taxes, like the general public expects of good citizens.

It does increase size a little, as you need to account for the extra thickness used to make the compartment wall and the inside wall of the battery pack. Additional constraints are that these compartments generally have to be straight-walled; you can't realisitically 'build through and around' a modular compartment like you can with an inbuilt component.

> Google is the cheaper alternative.

Google and Apple charge the same amount for maps, music, apps, mail, and operating systems. Google isn't seriously in the hardware game - it had a couple of smartphone handsets, but mostly left it to other manufacturers. Google does not make miniservers, desktops, general-purpose laptops, all-in-ones and so forth. Other companies do, and google does not set their prices. Google does not dictate that a smartphone must sell for $X.

So no, Google is not the "cheaper alternative". Their software sells for the same price, and for the most part other companies sell the hardware.

So, where is Ghana's local cheaper alternative to Apple? Come on, you started this free-market claptrap that every locale has the ability to make a Silicon-Valley-quality giant, so where is Ghana's?

> Very few people will pay even little extra for Apple's privacy-oriented devices

This whole 'privacy' angle is a very recent development in Apple's history. It wasn't much of a notable issue before.

I didn't say Apple was obliged. I said Apple didn't care about that user.

> Have you seen any cases where Google has done this?

I haven't seen any case where Google has sent in the police to raid someone's house and confiscate their stuff. I haven't seen any case where Google has manipulated the legal system to claim rights over "black oblong with curved corners". Google doesn't have a history of taking things other people have done and then claiming that they were first to market. I haven't heard people complaining of Google designing planned obsolescence to drive future sales. I haven't heard of a case where Google designed their antenna incorrectly, and then blamed the users for "holding it wrong".

Apple is a very successful company and has broken a lot of ground, but calling them "honest" is horseshit. Don't mistake "a greater focus on user privacy" for "an honest business model". They're orthogonal things.

> If Google wasn't dumping prices, there would be a local cheaper alternative

Apple's not dumping prices. Where is Ghana's local cheaper alternative to Apple?

> The only way to stay afloat is to sell with hefty premium like Apple does

There are plenty of other companies that are surviving without the hefty premium Apple charges. Apple managed to reach $200B in liquid cash assets; clearly their path is not "the only way".

> Apple doesn't care about "elite". They charge price they see fair and provide their services to anyone who can pay that price.

... how do you think elitism works?

s/Apple/High-priced lawyers/, to see how empty that argument is against elitism.

> Between Apple and Google, you think APPLE'S business model is the harmful one?!

Google provides services to everyone in the world. Apple provides services to the social elite, and only them. A person of moderate means living in Ghana? Apple doesn't care about you; you may as well be invisible.

> I'm actually not sure I can even name a tech company with a business model as simple and honest as Apple's.

Because sending in the swat team when you think a journalist has a preview model of your doohickey is "simple" and "honest"? Apple does the same sort of shady stuff as any other BigCorp, they're just better at making things look fashionable, so people tend to give them a pass on it. After all, this is the same corp that patented the black oblong with rounded corners. There is nothing 'simple' about Apple's business model.

> Telling people it was insecure did not make it insecure - it was already insecure.

It's a common tactic for burglars to look for when homeowners are going on holidays. The homeowner being on holiday makes the house less secure, but the information that that particular house is less secure is of benefit to the burglar.

Security isn't a binary state.