lastpingstandin

I worked for Amazon on a team that touched this, and I can confirm this is basically true.

For recommended products, Amazon's algorithm prefers widgets that generate more revenue (which sponsored products has a huge advantage with), and thus those products typically get ranked higher.

If there was some grand conspiracy here, wouldn't it make more sense to release a working front end, and do whatever evil machinations / rigging behind the scenes...

Intentionally releasing a broken app is an idiotic excuse for a conspiracy.

I'm pretty sure caucus votes are public anyway, it's not a secret ballot.

You can't really rig votes even with an app. Hanlon's razor probably applies here; never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

I seem to recall that the reason marketing costs seem high relative to R&D is that large firms typically acquire much smaller firms, small firms which invested a ton of money developing a drug but without the means of distributing it.

When a company like Pfizer acquires said company, none of the R&D spending of the smaller company gets absorbed into Pfizer's balance sheet.

In 2006, the pharma entire industry spend 12 billion in marketing, but 58.8 billion on r&d. Simply looking at individual large companies' doesn't do this justice.

http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/marketin...

India's hunt for illegal immigrants is transparently aimed at the country's Muslims. Any suggestion otherwise is just wrong.

The government, over the last few years, has subjected many of its citizens to a bureaucratic nightmare to prove their citizenship. In many cases, all it takes to be declared a foreigner is for a neighbor to file an "objection" letter, which amounts to nothing more than an accusation. From there, the onus is on you to prove your own nationality to the nightmare that is India's legal system.

Under India's new citizenship law, Hindus (and members of most other religions) swept up into this mess can simply petition for citizenship. Conveniently for the current government, Muslims cannot.

Agreed.

I recall people were talking about turning back to piracy in response to the fragmentation of streaming services.

Disney plus will cost around 7 dollars a month, Netflix costs 13, HBO costs 15. This is about 23, 45, and 50 cents per day respectively.

Yet this change was enough to cause some people to angrily proclaim that they'll go back to illegally downloading movies and tv shows.

> targeted psychological manipulation to you

This seems exceedingly hyperbolic. With advertising, we can enjoy many services free of charge.

Using google as an example, google maps, search, android, etc all provide tremendous value to their users while being ostensibly free. Without revenue, they simply wouldn't be able to exist.

This isn't some moral position, it's an economic one.

ISP's make money with the data they gather. Once you remove that as a revenue stream, it'll naturally increase the prices those companies are willing to charge.

The tax breaks used to encourage electric vehicles is almost entirely paid for through fossil fuel exports.

While I appreciate any move towards better sustainability, let's not forget that Norway is effectively exporting its emissions.