I shall seize one of his yachts (probably metaphorically) and sail under the Jolly Roger when enshittification comes for Steam. Until then, it’s a pretty solid solution for buying PC games.
Steam Deck is also amazing, in that it’s as simple as a Switch to get playing but open enough through desktop mode to do so much more. As your customer, thanks for not treating me like a paste eating delinquent.
Something I've been worried about for some time. I mean, I hope his death isn't soon, but we all know whoever steps in is most likely to royally fuck it up.
I actually have hope for the company after he is gone. All they have to do is keep steam going and they win. They just print money. There is no reason to go evil and sell the company and go public. They just win.
Already moved on from Steam. Had 750 games there. Deleted the client and started GOG collection. No Galaxy client for me. No more cancer social media, achievements, friends.. just Offline installers and the satisfaction that I actually own these games now.
and he maintains a near monopoly because Steam is just a great platform for gamers, as Gabe has said:
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
and he's right! i almost never pirate video games because of their price, i can wait for a sale, there's a billion other games i can play in the meantime
when shit like Epic takes years to implement a shopping basket, and still have yet to recolour their payment page so it stops flashbanging gamers across the world, Steam doesn't even need to try very hard to be the best. The biggest changes on Steam in the recent years are what - updating the UI aged ago? adding a points system so people can get silly profile decorations as an additional reward for buying a video game? Steam has created a platform so good all they need to do is sit back relax, and think of what other sprinkles colour to add to the cake pie?
Steam has competitors, but the difference is Steam is for gamers, and most of their competitors is for money
god help us all if that ever were to change, the second Steam enshittifies the internet will implode
Steam recently the added the ability to easily record gameplay footage. They are also updating the family sharing system (that feature alone would probably never come to other platforms). They also continue to improve gaming on Linux. I don't remember how long it has been, but they massively updated the library with a lot of really useful features such as being able to select a friend and it'll show what games you have in common so picking a game to play with a friend is a lot easier.
Further back we see the remote play together feature added to Steam; I was hesitant to use it for a long time but as long as you and the host have a decent internet connection it works pretty flawlessly.
Their custom control settings and community sharing of the different controller schemes is incredibly helpful with some games.
Their review system is pretty good and always helpful to me when exploring for new games I haven't previously heard of. They have also seemed to try to keep the reviews more legit and less spammy/meme-y and more relevant to the actual game itself.
They also implement rules to keep game pages on the store less spammy, they had a big overhaul on the rules around thumbnails for games to keep text off of them because developers started overloading them with advertisements for other games.
They have also recently announced allowing for refunds on season passes when the developers take too long or never deliver on their promises they sold you on. This of course should have always been the case, but at leaat they're coming around. I also don't know if any of the other platforms make it as easy to get a refund as Steam does, but that's been around for a while now.
I believe there has also been a lot of work developing server side cheat detection so maybe one day we won't have to rely on client side anti-cheats so much. I also believe they recently made a change to their rules where if a game has a kernel/root level anti cheat that they have to flag that on the store page for the game.
Steam (Valve) actually seem to care about games and the industry in general and want to see the environment around gaming improve.
From my current view point Steam is an actual platform everyone else are just store fronts that provide no additional value to the consumer. So yeah, pricing is rarely the issue when it comes to piracy and Steam really shows how true that statement can be.
Additionally, most people don't realize that Steam doesn't force games to use DRM, that's purely up to the developers.
Yeah but they aren't doing anything to enforce that. They have market share because their product is good and everyone else's equivalent product sucks nuts. That's not a monopoly, that's the free market at work.
Well you haven't given any practical examples of how you think Steam is enshittified, so you've left people to draw their own conclusions and definitions.
No, I just don't see any point in adding nuance to my opinion when everyone is already shitting on me for it. Do you know how shitty it feels opening my inbox, excited to see folks to chat with, and it's just people getting angry about stuff I said? Why would I want to add context? Just so everyone can shit on me more? No, I'm good.
Then don't announce your random opinion into the void then?
If you're going to stand on the street corner and shout about how the world is coming to an end, don't be upset when people ask you to provide some evidence.
I'm not trying to suggest people shouldn't be allowed to respond negatively to an opinion. But I'm also allowed to not want to engage. Any "evidence" I provide is just going to get shot down. Everyone's mind is already made up on the topic. Steam can do no wrong, apparently. Despite the fact that I even said it's the best and that I like it, everyone just wants to attack for me for having the gall to suggest it's less than perfect.
It's not like I hate it. The criticisms are minor. I just don't want to get online and feel like I'm being interrogated. So no, I'm not going to "provide evidence." There are hills I'm willing to actually willing to argue about, but this isn't one. Life's too fucking short to explain my minor criticisms with the best digital PC game store when we all know everyone is just going to respond with things Valve does that are good and act like that magically erases the bad. Everyone's already been doing in this thread.
I experienced the same shit back with BG3 when the hype train was at critical levels. I'd talk about my frustrations that everyone said it was a "polished" game by talking about the bugs/UX difficulties I was experiencing. I'd get mocked to no end. Even then I'd always say the game is great and I'm loving it along every criticism. But people don't care. It's just tribalism. They see someone criticizing a thing they like and can't handle it.
So no, I'm not going to explain why I view Steam as an enshitified platform. Because it's pointless and I know everyone is already going to disagree and pile on even further. And it's a minor criticism.
I swear, it's like people are thinking I'm saying EGS is the bastion of Linux gaming or something because I said I have minor issues with Steam. It's just exhausting.
GoG is more enshittified than Steam (which really isn't enshittified). They spam emails now with random deals, like several emails a day with "(code for deal here) expires in 24 HOURS" and it's always some random shitty game.
Steam just send emails for when a wishlisted game goes on sale or releases, exactly what I want. But GoG has gone full unwanted spam with theirs, random games I've never seen before and no info about what game in the subject line so you have to open the mail to see. It's so shitty.
Any examples? AFAIK they improved a lot, especially in Linux space which I am very grateful for. I wouldn't be using Linux if it wasn't for steam. Although there are still a lot of things to complain about but if it wasn't better before then it isn't enshiftification by definition.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a marketplace that isn't enshitified in some way. Most are going to shove ads in your face which is shitty, but most people aren't going to recognize it as a bad thing because they're there to shop.
And you can't say advertising because of course there's going to be adverts up for games sold on the platform. I think most people would argue that if you go into a store, and then see a sign in that store, for something that is sold in the store, that's not advertising, that's just signage.
The goal of advertising is to try to convince you that you want a product or a service. But if you are already in the store you've already made the decision that you want that product or service, so by definition you can't be advertised to at that point.
I can see how you can say that about the Steam's UI in some spots, but not Steam as a whole. They have a great business model, as far as video games are concerned.
They have some of the highest paid employees, and they keep prices low.
What do you think a sausage is? They have always been animals scraps ground up and put into animal intestines. That's why people have been saying "you don't want to see the sausage being made" for 200 years.
Do you really expect hot dog sausages to be made from premium meat? They use the scraps that can't otherwise be used, same as chicken nuggets. This is a good thing. Those sausages and nuggets are perfectly fine to eat and we get to reduce waste.
Last I heard, their profits were nearly entirely from memberships. This was probably five years ago though. I don't know if their numbers have changed since.
I left reddit after the API fiasco and didn't return, but I remembered seeing this on Data is Beautiful before that, so I just looked it up for you. (My search query in DDG was "data is beautiful reddit Costco profit margins" and a few popped up; this was the most recent.)
Transcription: infographic states
Net sales +$77.4B
Merch costs -$69.2B
Membership fees +$1.5B
SG&A -$6.9B (Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses)
Taxes -$0.8B
I wish more companies had this mindset. If you treat your employees well and listen to their needs, they won't need to unionize. When they do unionize, it means they don't feel that they have been treated well and listened to.
It seems that the end result of this philosophy would be to treat your employees well!
If you have an employer that does the right thing, you should have a union that doesn't need to do much. But you should still unionise, because it's niave to think the company will always continue to behave that way. If anything, they naturally drift away from that state and it's only a matter of time until it changes. The union is about having a level playing field with the company when you need it.
Unionize it's not only about raising your working conditions. It's about helping other to raise theirs. If you have better conditions you can tell other business owners that what the Union is asking, you already have it. One less point where they can grab themselves.
To be fair, he's not really wrong, meaning that they've failed to take good enough care of their people, and my understanding is he didn't stand in the way of one forming...
“I came to [Sinegal] once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends,’” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 interview with 425 Business. “And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’”
CEO of Ben &Jerry's. They are not just posting the black square on their insta and then moving on, like half their posts are about fighting inequity, encouraging people to vote for actual human rights, openly pro abortion, pro immigrant rights, pro black rights, pro women's right, about fighting climate change etc. they are walking the walk, conservative dollars be damned
I don’t love ever setting any people or corporations on a pedestal. Nevertheless this is reassuring behavior to see amidst all the Starbucks, AirBnB and Re/Maxes of the world.
It's a shame they don't fully move to vegan ice cream
Edit: When the very base ingredient of their ice cream is based on exploitation and torture, how much are their initiatives really worth? It's virtue signalling at its best
Plus I'm yet so see someone giving a valid reason as to why they shouldn't. Just tell me you don't care and I'll move along
Why should they? I have no problem with people being vegan and I have no problem with vegan food being provided as an option but I don't think vegans have the right to dictate to everyone else how they live their lives.
A. Ben & Jerry’s moving to exclusively vegan ice cream is in no way forcing people to live their lives a certain way. Recipes are not protected by copyright law so anyone can make and sell ice cream however they want.
B. The dairy industry wreaks havoc on the planet. It would benefit everyone if the dairy industry disappeared or at least shrank
It would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream (which may not be their preference) or switch to another brand (which also may not be their preference). What you're saying is that you want people to have fewer options.
If you want to make an argument against that, you can do that in your head. You seem to be good at making up things you want other people to say, so you don't need me for your imaginary argument.
You could just say “no.” I was curious how far your logic would go because you said, and I quote, “it would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream or switch to another brand”
Like, dude, come on. You have to hear how ridiculous that sounds. Nobody is forcing anybody to eat ice cream. And also, though this is just coming from my experience, I’ve never met anyone who exclusively likes Ben & Jerry’s. Bad ice cream is almost always better than no ice cream so I would challenge you to find someone who would be upset about needing to eat ice cream that was created by any brand other than Ben & Jerry’s.
Humans are literally forcing animals to live and die by their life styles. The only ones forcing anybody here are humans.
There is no sound reason as to why B&J doesn't fully move away from non-vegan ice cream. They've proven that they can produce vegan flavours, that they cost them the same (probably less even), that they taste well enough for them to remain among the flavours they offer. It's just stigma and prejudice that leads to people shutting off completely when veganism is even mentioned.
Realistically, like be frank with yourself for a second and don't resort to a kneejerk reaction: would you mind if your ice cream was vegan? It's a luxury item, it's a sweet, so it's not essential. Most sweets you eat are vegan already. What's one more? Plus, you end up helping a bunch of animals.
What we're talking about is finding the lowest common denominator of what can be considered acceptable by the general populace, It is not about becoming the best version of ourselves.
Let's not muddy the waters by making this about something other than basic human decency.
He didn't kill anyone by denying them insurance or anything like that tho. Just took a commission on every game sold on Steam, a platform nobody's forced to use.
And by running a casino that rakes in millions of dollars off kids. I can appreciate the positives he's done with Steam, but I'm not about to ignore the negatives.
Loot boxes are effectively gambling as there is no guarantee on what you'll get. People in general can get addicted to the rush of getting that rare item the first time (which is usually what happens with a first open to get you hooked) and then either buy more loot boxes or the keys to open them.
Yeah this is something that everyone always seems to forget about this. If you get a lootbox in, say, Overwatch or Fortnite then you will pay out a fiver to open it or else it will never be opened. End of story, Blizz/Epic want their key money. *
You can open an infinite amount of Counter-Strike crates for free forever, by interacting with community marketplace. Unopened crates can be sold to other players. Steam Cards can be sold to other players. Good skins that you pull from your crates can be sold to other players sometimes at absurd prices that can finance another 200 crates. All without ever spending a dime of real money. Sure, Steam Cards and unopened crates may only sell for 5c apiece, but you get a steady stream of them for free just for playing the game, and that stream doesn't dry up. It is perfectly feasible, if a little slow, to flip those into crate keys to loot your boxes.
And THAT'S the difference that makes me take notice. Sure, they still want you to shell out five bucks for crate keys, but an alternative path has been provided. And Steam makes money on marketplace transactions too, so they aren't about to get rid of that option.
* I figure it should be noted here, that these are outdated. I went to double check myself as I remember this from Overwatch 1 and it would seem that neither OW2 nor Fortnite still use loot crates of that style. So to be honest I actually can't think of any games that are still up and running that still use keys & crates in this way. The gamer outrage might have actually gotten us somewhere for once.
Yeah, he's getting kids to play at a virtual casino that has absolutely no chance of returning and financial winnings, but he's not taking millions of dollars off of kids. Considering those kids have the ability to own a gaming computer, I'm assuming the vast majority of that money comes from their parents. I don't condone the kids gambling, but he's not taking hard-earned money from kids that are in need and leaving them broke.
At the highest minimum wage in the world (Denmark @ USD$44,252/year), it would take just under 22,598 years to earn (11.2 Jesuses-ago)
If a Dane earning min wage were to work 24 hrs/day non-stop, it would take them just under 4,977 years to earn (2.46 Jesuses-ago).
Billionaires have all that money even after their expenses. It's their "savings account", but their savings account makes much more interest than ours because they are actually invested in the market. If they need money beyond their regular pay, they use their investments as collateral for loans with interest rates lower than investment returns. They're making money even if they are spending it.
A billion dollars is never "a bit greedy". It is always a failure of the system to regulated exorbitant wealth through effective taxation and fair market economic policy.
When did I compare those two things as being equally as bad? What the hell is with this black and white stance in my replies, absolutely wild to see people defending a man owning 1 billion dollars in yachts.
This CEO, Gabe Newell, and (if he was still alive) the founder of Little Caesars, who, if I recall correctly, secretly paid for Rosa Parks apartment until her death.
The founder of Little Caesars was a typical magnate developer who bought up much of downtown Detroit and let it rot until he received tax incentives to build, and kicked out many low income residents from apartments he let sit until they got city money. His family continues this tradition. The Rosa Parks thing is the only good thing I've ever heard of that man and his family do.
Couple of British examples of what should be the standard for modern business:
Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds (hifi store in the UK), seems like one of the better capitalists around. He signed over majority control of the company to an employee trust when he turned 60, donates 15% of their profit to charity, runs a nonprofit dedicated to exposing corporate tax avoidance, campaigns against zero hours contracts, and devotes company resources to promoting unsigned bands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Richer
James Timpson recently stepped down as CEO of Timpson, another UK retailer that specialises in things like key cutting, shoe repairs, passport photos etc. He made it company policy to hire people who had been to prison and help them get back on their feet, and his campaign for prison reform saw him step down from the company to become Minister for Prisons in the current government. The company has a "Director of Happiness" who is paid to keep the front line staff happy, resulting in policies like getting the day off work on your kid's first day of school, compassionate leave for the death of a pet, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpson_(retailer)
Timpsons apparently has really interesting business models.
A friend of mine has worked on a few of their conferences, and apparently it's both fascinating and they come across as a genuinely wholesome business.
It's a franchise, but the franchisee (ie the shop) has complete control over what they sell and what services they provide (I dunno if there are any guard rails). So if they want to offer dry cleaning, they can. If they want to offer phone repairs, they can. If they want to only partially offer something, then they can rely on the Timpsons service network to provide the actual service (so dry cleaning without owning dry cleaning equipment).
The management teams delegate authority but retain responsibility and we have only 2 rules:
Look the part
Put the money in the till
And apparently they look after their staff really well. Actually good/useful perks & benefits. In addition to the compassionate leave you've mentioned, I'm sure my friend said something about timpsons owning some property that they allow their staff to book for free (like free accomodation for holidays). Or maybe they do block bookings of stuff, or something. I wasn't hugely paying attention tbh.
Craig Jelinek the (CEO of costco until recently) was always considered a good guy for putting his employees first and concentrating on keeping a high bar for product quality.
For actual clarity, Craig Jelinek stepped down in 2023. Ron Vachris is the current CEO. Not sure if there's been any negative policy change since then though.
Privately owned at least means they aren't slaves to their quarterly reports. Every time a company goes public, they're subject to the delusion of infinite growth in a finite system.
Really depends on the ownership structure. Backbiting private boards composed of kids and grandkids of founders that are just trying to claw as much out of their inheritance as possible are just as toxic. Coops are about the only thing I can respect.
In fairness SpaceX isn't run by Musk, which is why it's actually doing constructive things and not getting into culture war arguments every 15 minutes.
Same with their frozen pizzas? I had never bought one before, then saw they were on sale the other day and figured I'd try them. Think it was 4.99 a piece. (Bogo 9.99) The pepperoni and ricotta one wasnt bad. The sourdough wasn't very decipherable, but better than many cheaper pizzas. The 5 cheese I can't speak for... As I overcooked it. The timer went off and I checked it, said to myself the cheese could melt a bit more and closed the oven. Saw the bottle of strawberry wine I was making didn't look like it was bleeding air properly next to the sink and decided I should slowly turn the cap to drain the pressure and let the fermentation continue. (Have gallons of strawberries I froze left over still from spring that I grew). Turned the lid a bit and it of course exploded so much worse than I expected. Ceiling, floor, cabinets and everything within 10 feet got hit. I went to the bathroom and took my shirt off washed myself, started cleaning up the mess and cleaning the ceiling, cabinets and finally the floor when I remembered, oh shit the pizza.... Yeah. The cheese was melted by then.. just a bit darker than intended
Seconding this, Paul Newman was probably the best person to ever come out of the state of Ohio.
He co-founded Newman's Own, a food company which donates all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2021, these donations totaled over US$570 million. Newman continued to found charitable organizations such as the SeriousFun Children's Network in 1988 and the Safe Water Network in 2006.
honeypot is an enticing ... thing that you use to gain an advantage over someone. I'm implying the facebook open source stuff is bait and they harvest something from you, be it data, legitimacy or something else.
... and actually gets their company to support it. My previous employer would only use FOSS when possible (good). But they refused to financially contribute to those projects (BOO!).
Any CEO that is willing to part with 50% or more of their wealth before they die and not to their family or close friends, should be good. No idea about names
Bill Penzey would be safe in my book. Penzey's spices are a fantastic product, but he's an activist who very vocally supports equality, respect, and human dignity.
Shortly after the election I received a blanket from them with a very kind note. Apparently they had a promotion where you could submit the name and address of someone who is struggling and could use a hug. I have no idea who nominated me, but I'm so grateful. Penzey's didn't change any money for this, which is crazy to me.
I just went to the website and was my attention was first on the link "About Republicans". An essay on the current fall of the Republican party and why they don't believe in them anymore. I think they deserve some of my money.
You will be well rewarded with a quality product, too! It's so good, even my MAGA mother in law is on their mailing list. If you enjoy the essay About Republicans, you'll likely also love their emails. They have great sales, too. The weekend before the election they offered half off almost everything in their stores if you mentioned the promotion, and I got a free coffee mug, sticker, and sample product. They offered me two mugs because my partner came with me, but I didn't want to be greedy.
An essay on the current fall of the Republican party
This has been going on since at least the 2000s and possibly earlier, that's the point at which I started paying attention to US politics. It was even noted in the Newsroom which I think is circa 2012
I loved going into the Penzey's near me. Just about every spice you could ever need, and my store had an entire section dedicated to different types of cinnamon from all around the world. The people that worked there were all super nice and helpful too, it was always a joy going in there. Unfortunately that location didn't survive COVID 😢
Their emails are amazing. And the spices are very very good. I need to get some more of their vanilla. It was on sale, I think it might still be for today.
Also there's sometimes pictures of pets in the emails.
My company's owner/CEO can stay, gives us all sizeable profit share bonuses.
During covid people didn't get layed off, even though there was no work. Sure hours were reduced, but work was found around the shop to keep people busy as much as possible.
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
Great games but sadly working conditions at fromsoftware were not the greatest. Sure this is another country we're work life balance is different then in Central Europe but the pay was not good given how much work is was and how successful the studio got.
But to give credit where it is due, AFAIK there have been significant wage increases.
Maybe all CEOs get a yearly review. If they are good, they continue working. If something doesn't add up, they get to choose to quit or they get executed right on the spot by placing their head between two large metal plates. The top plate is then dropped from 3 stories high.
Spains Mercadonas CEO. They follow a very respected model where the consumer is the first priority, then the employees. Works great and they still make a shitton of money. Things like closing sundays because employees should have a life, etc. Employee rotation is super low.
Spains Mercadonas CEO. They follow a very respected model where the consumer is the first priority, then the employees. Works great and they still make a shitton of money. Things like closing sundays because employees should have a life, etc. Employee rotation is super low.
BTW in Spain all shops stay closed on Sundays except on a few rare occasion every year on a few sectors, but reading what you just wrote maybe some of them still work on Sundays...
I have read the links. It seems that it's not as nice as they paint it.
However, it seems normal that in an organization that size, things will not be perfect, or even near, but it does seem that they are better than most. They are the chain that pays their employees the highest salaries, for example. If you have 105.000 employees, it's a given that some will have problems at some point. About the DANA thing: I'm going to guess that store managers had much more to do than the company.
It seems that on the whole they are better than most other chains in that respect.
Some of the links you post go against your arguments, and some are from media which is not local, as you mention, but based in Argentina, and which has had court rulings against them for publishing fake news.
BTW, stores in many regions in Spain open several Sundays during the year, and in Madrid, all Sundays, except Mercadona.
I think you don't get it. Juan Roig is a far-right piece of shit that exploits everyone and everything he can. He fired a worker for eating a fucking croquette that was headed to the trashcan.
I'm not even going to bother answering your claims that are just that, claims with no proof of anything of what you just said. The links on my previous post where just a really quick search and are also about stuff that happened in the last maybe 30 days or so.
If you try and look for news about employee conflicts with Mercadona, or their really aggressive commerce practices with their suppliers (while trying to avoid all the covert advertising bullshit on every single one piece of mass media) you will find out the real shit they are and the big piece of crap that Juan Roig in particular is, but sometimes it finds it's way on the news, even if they have to deliberately delete the logos because of bad press...
There is a reason why everyone says Mercadona doesn't advertise their product on TV or magacines... of course they don't, it's all covert advertising, "this is the new mercadona cream that everyone is talking about", "this new mercadona piece of shit will save you hundreds this winter"... and bullshit like that, try it, try google it and see what comes up.
All media wants to get their money from them, so GL trying to get the word out with their abuses and malpractices, but it's there and if you try, you will find out that they are a big piece of shit.
The YouTube video linked in a reply to the parent comment does a good job of explaining but the short version is that he signed over the company to a charity that his family controls to avoid a tax payment.
There’s basically nothing charitable about it because it literally enshrines political power within his family forever as the charity structure allows political donations to be made through it.
The video also makes the point that you can never accidentally find yourself a billionaire. At some point you’ve fucked people over to get and keep yourself a billion+ dollars.
Where are the CEO's that lead with fair income distribution and implement company policies that follow the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Finnish labor laws and lifestyles?
Management is a skill. You can collectivize property relations and keep the positions of Capital Managers. Moreover, in underdeveloped sectors, Markets are a good way to rapidly develop a framework that can then be folded into the public sector and centrally planned by the degree to which it has developed.
Do we need Capital Owners? No, we don't need any. We will still need managers and directors of Capital, even within Communism, ie Central Planners. If the question is how many Capitalists do we need, the answer is 0. If the question is how many Capital managers and planners do we need, the number is much higher than 0.
none of them. you don't need a CEO to keep a drink at $1 a can. I know it's a meme but y'all libs will go too far with it and coopt it into "awww we can't hurt Elon musk he's too uWu smol bean" by the weekend. I saw what you did with brat summer.
Bill Gates is a massive piece of shit. Don't let all the propaganda he puts out there fool you. When you start looking closer at his so-called charity work it's not nearly as pretty as you might think.
Something I think is extremely fucked up in general is that if you have millions to throw at a pet cause, you will disproportionately benefit your cause over other causes in a non-democratic manner. That means that every individual and organization involved in fields related to your pet projects are incentivized to focus on your pet projects over others. Because you have so much money, you basically individually shape public policy.
...over 80 per cent of WHO’s funding relies on “voluntary contributions,” meaning any amount of money given freely by donors, whether member states, NGOs, philanthropic organisations or other private entities.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone is responsible for over 88 per cent of the total amount donated by philanthropic foundations to the WHO. Other contributors include the Bloomberg Family Foundation (3.5 per cent), the Wellcome Trust (1.1 per cent) and the Rockefeller Foundation (0.8 per cent).
So yeah, it's great that they donate so much... but that also means they can stop donating... so they have control.
Didn't know about the charter school thing. Charter schools are such bullshit. The idea is that we're going to get kids from public schools in impoverished areas into better schools... by causing the public schools to get LESS money?
The number one thing hurting education since the beginning of the system is the way it is funded. It is funded from property taxes collected in the school's district. So inevitably, poor areas get shit schools and rich areas get nice schools. It should instead all get pooled together nationwide and then handed out based on the number of students at each school.
Charter schools and private schools do nothing but hurt. Anyone feel differently? I'm usually open to having my mind changed.
Enthusiastically in agreement that funding of school districts and regional equity is a major problem. Funding is likely problem #1, but I think the problems with funding are more complex than just property taxes.
Concentrating poverty also creates poor areas and exacerbates the problem. It's so frustrating that there are so many NIMBY assholes that don't want affordable housing near them.
I think that you don't understand the value of billions of dollars. He can do whatever he wants "for himself" with just $0.1BN. The rest is just a mental hoarding disease IMO.
They love buying companies, patents and so on, just because. Maybe they miss thst rush when they "earned" their first billion or something and, like a junkie, wants to feel it again.
Where on earth did you read he's giving away money?
For example, researchers don't want "his money" because there are so many strings attached that whatever you discover, now it's under Bill Gates ownership.
To be clear, I'm not "simping" for Bill Gates. No one becomes a billionaire ethically and I don't feel the need to defend him as a person. But I also don't just read a random comment on a website from some nobody without any evidence backing up their claim spouting any such nonsense they want, so I simply asked you to be more specific with your criticisms.
For what it's worth, replying to such a request with the kind of hostility you showed doesn't make me any more likely to take you at your word. You don't come off as knowing what you're talking about, so I don't think you're going to convince many people. Have a good day.
Some of that propaganda is in the form of material help to people around the world. Like sure, he's not great, no question. But if every other CEO funded global healthcare to the extent he did to whitewash their own problems, I wouldn't complain. Sure his charity work is by no means ideal, but even the ugly charity he does actually winds up saving lives.
In camp "BG still has 4240000x times more money than me".
Not to mention he executed the "trolley problem meme" by killing a million to save a million. Now, he did not literally kill people (unlike some other CEOs I've heard about), but he did fuck over a ton of people, all in the name of "Business" (which is PR/propaganda for "greed").
Bill Gates' net worth has grown substantially despite his philanthropy, rising from $126.8 billion in early 2023 to $156 billion in December 2024.
Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, Gates actively opposed patent waivers and influenced Oxford University to privatize its vaccine through AstraZeneca rather than keep it open-source. He pushed for maintaining intellectual property rights through COVAX, despite public funding supporting vaccine development.
Thats a good criticism but the CEO he put in charge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation went against him and supported waiving the patents anyways, which Biden and the WTO went ahead and did regardless.
His argument against the TRIPS terms was that it wouldn't actually increase production, that every facility capable of producing vaccines was doing so regardless of the patent's costs especially given that they only had to worry about intellectual properties when importing to countries where the patent is held.
He was wrong, I give you that, I think there is no room to be penny pinching and arguing when even 1 more vaccine could have saved lives. However, that doesn't even come close to offsetting the number of lives he has saved or improved by handing out vaccines and medicines for free across Africa. The vast majority of Gates' opponents are generally not fond of Dark Skinned people.
Watching people totally fall for Gates’s incredibly shallow face value self image propaganda bullshit is wild to me. FUCK that guy, so hard. One of the biggest reasons we have enshittification today is this one man.
My boss checks in on me occasionally with directness, and did so the other day:
"viva, how's it going?"
"I want to fight Bill Gates."
This is understood to mean, "windows is fucked. My computer is fucked. All of this massive, utterly brutal buttfucking inconvenience could have been avoided at some point, and now isn't, because [our company] bought so hard into Microsoft's "business solutions" that there's no turning back, and because of the nuances of the problems you've asked me to solve, I am facing said brutal buttfucking inconvenience, and I'm mad about it."
Apologies for detailing the conversation, but I have noticed the implementation and configuration of MS products (something MS has no control over) really impacts their usability. For example, I worked at a soulless corporation that managed to set up PBI and ADO so there was no live feed of data (and they only allowed for the web version of PBI, which reduces functionality substantially). They were also so far behind on Office versions that the employees didn't know more than one person could update a file at a time. There are all sorts of very real reasons to dislike MS, but I do wonder how many people dislike them because of a stupid configuration.
Also I don’t understand how you can defend a man who convinced a bunch of people to not give away the COVID vaccines for free. This is not the actions of a humanitarian. It’s the actions of a monster.
Behind the bastards did a series on Bill Gates. It was a pretty big eye opener for me. All their sources are cited on their podcast. The info is out there if you want it.
“In fiscal year 2020 (October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020), the US government allocated $51.05 billion US dollars in economic and military assistance to foreign countries. Of this total, $39.41 billion dollars was spent on economic assistance, $25.64 billion of which was dispersed by USAID.”
Yes, that there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire. I wonder what the computing landscape would look like if M$ hadn't spent three decades buying and closing every up and coming competitor they had.
I've noticed that some people really don't like Africans. I believe there's even a word for such behaviour, don't remember which one right now though...
Terrible bank, like most that aren't credit unions, they have over leveraged tens of billions against individual account balances and been a leaky sieve in tech security.
I have no idea why most people don't use credit unions. I guess just ignorance. My "overdraft fee" is "keep at least $50 in your savings account and we won't charge you one."
No, there is no fee (well maybe if you overdraft like $500, I don't know). They don't take money out. I'm not sure how that works out. I guess they figure if you have that money in there, you're going to transfer it before you overdraw?
Convenience. I have accounts with BofA because they're three blocks from my house. It's them or Wells Fargo, who are a little further, and then the nearest credit union is a 10m drive. So convenience. I also have USAA, but having zero branches in my state is kind of a pain.
I hate BofA, but I opened my first credit card with them 19 years ago and I value my stupid credit score for some reason, and so I have to keep it forever.
Do you physically go to the bank that often? I can't remember the last time I had to go into the credit union. Well over a year. Everything outgoing is on automatic payments and I can deposit any check I get with my phone.
I get a lot of checks and I've had issues with mobile deposits here and there, and they're a huge headache. Having a bank that I can toss checks into the ATM and say "your problem now" solves the issue. I also get things notarized once or twice a year, but that's just extra. But yeah, twice a week, I drop the kids and hit the bank on the way to the grocery store in the morning, ezpz. It is strictly convenience and nothing more.
Video game industry will collapse in on itself when Gabe Newell dies, and enshittification creeps into Steam.
I shall seize one of his yachts (probably metaphorically) and sail under the Jolly Roger when enshittification comes for Steam. Until then, it’s a pretty solid solution for buying PC games.
Steam Deck is also amazing, in that it’s as simple as a Switch to get playing but open enough through desktop mode to do so much more. As your customer, thanks for not treating me like a paste eating delinquent.
What concerns me about the future of sailing is the sea monster known as denuvo, as there haven't been a way to reliably hunt it down
there are three people on this ocean who can reliably hunt that beast.
Not really looking good for the scene if only three people can crack it.
Something I've been worried about for some time. I mean, I hope his death isn't soon, but we all know whoever steps in is most likely to royally fuck it up.
He just needs to make it an employee owned company. I believe it would make it a stable institution.
I actually have hope for the company after he is gone. All they have to do is keep steam going and they win. They just print money. There is no reason to go evil and sell the company and go public. They just win.
provided the can safeguard themselves from parasites that might try creeping in and try to change things for worse
This could be said for most companies I think. But the principle of enshitification applies regardless
Already moved on from Steam. Had 750 games there. Deleted the client and started GOG collection. No Galaxy client for me. No more cancer social media, achievements, friends.. just Offline installers and the satisfaction that I actually own these games now.
Because he maintains a near monopoly.
He doesn't tho. He just offers such a good service to people that they don't want to use anything else. That's not a monopoly.
and he maintains a near monopoly because Steam is just a great platform for gamers, as Gabe has said:
and he's right! i almost never pirate video games because of their price, i can wait for a sale, there's a billion other games i can play in the meantime
when shit like Epic takes years to implement a shopping basket, and still have yet to recolour their payment page so it stops flashbanging gamers across the world, Steam doesn't even need to try very hard to be the best. The biggest changes on Steam in the recent years are what - updating the UI aged ago? adding a points system so people can get silly profile decorations as an additional reward for buying a video game? Steam has created a platform so good all they need to do is sit back relax, and think of what other sprinkles colour to add to the
cakepie?Steam has competitors, but the difference is Steam is for gamers, and most of their competitors is for money
god help us all if that ever were to change, the second Steam enshittifies the internet will implode
Steam recently the added the ability to easily record gameplay footage. They are also updating the family sharing system (that feature alone would probably never come to other platforms). They also continue to improve gaming on Linux. I don't remember how long it has been, but they massively updated the library with a lot of really useful features such as being able to select a friend and it'll show what games you have in common so picking a game to play with a friend is a lot easier.
Further back we see the remote play together feature added to Steam; I was hesitant to use it for a long time but as long as you and the host have a decent internet connection it works pretty flawlessly.
Their custom control settings and community sharing of the different controller schemes is incredibly helpful with some games.
Their review system is pretty good and always helpful to me when exploring for new games I haven't previously heard of. They have also seemed to try to keep the reviews more legit and less spammy/meme-y and more relevant to the actual game itself.
They also implement rules to keep game pages on the store less spammy, they had a big overhaul on the rules around thumbnails for games to keep text off of them because developers started overloading them with advertisements for other games.
They have also recently announced allowing for refunds on season passes when the developers take too long or never deliver on their promises they sold you on. This of course should have always been the case, but at leaat they're coming around. I also don't know if any of the other platforms make it as easy to get a refund as Steam does, but that's been around for a while now.
I believe there has also been a lot of work developing server side cheat detection so maybe one day we won't have to rely on client side anti-cheats so much. I also believe they recently made a change to their rules where if a game has a kernel/root level anti cheat that they have to flag that on the store page for the game.
Steam (Valve) actually seem to care about games and the industry in general and want to see the environment around gaming improve.
From my current view point Steam is an actual platform everyone else are just store fronts that provide no additional value to the consumer. So yeah, pricing is rarely the issue when it comes to piracy and Steam really shows how true that statement can be.
Additionally, most people don't realize that Steam doesn't force games to use DRM, that's purely up to the developers.
Edit: fixed some typos.
What monopoly ?
Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars!
Steam has something like 75% of the PC market share based on a figure from the anti trust lawsuit.
Yeah but they aren't doing anything to enforce that. They have market share because their product is good and everyone else's equivalent product sucks nuts. That's not a monopoly, that's the free market at work.
No such thing as free-market buddy
Not a monopoly, Epic should be called out for that
Epic doesn't have a monopoly either.
I think the term you're looking for is "anti-competitive practices."
Steam is already enshitified. Every other marketplace just sucks that much.
No it isn't. I have yet to pay a single cent or subscription in more than a decade.
Are you trying to imply subscription fees are necessary for something to be called enshitified?
Well you haven't given any practical examples of how you think Steam is enshittified, so you've left people to draw their own conclusions and definitions.
To me it just sounds like someone who's trying to justify pirating indie games.
Nows a good time to articulate a defense. Because as far as their impact on gaming as a distributor, theyve enabled more than any other company by far
You view this as me saying it's a bad platform. I don't think it is. I love it and use it often. GoG is probably the only one that's not enshitified.
You've still yet to actually say how steam is enshittified despite several comments asking. You reply but dodge the real question.
Yeah, I'm not interested in getting interrogated over my opinions today. Especially by someone literally named "AngryMob".
Edit: after they said "its entertaining how sensitive you got about this." I now feel justified in my hesitancy.
Oh, I see. You're just being a contrarian. 🙄
No, I just don't see any point in adding nuance to my opinion when everyone is already shitting on me for it. Do you know how shitty it feels opening my inbox, excited to see folks to chat with, and it's just people getting angry about stuff I said? Why would I want to add context? Just so everyone can shit on me more? No, I'm good.
Then don't announce your random opinion into the void then?
If you're going to stand on the street corner and shout about how the world is coming to an end, don't be upset when people ask you to provide some evidence.
I'm not trying to suggest people shouldn't be allowed to respond negatively to an opinion. But I'm also allowed to not want to engage. Any "evidence" I provide is just going to get shot down. Everyone's mind is already made up on the topic. Steam can do no wrong, apparently. Despite the fact that I even said it's the best and that I like it, everyone just wants to attack for me for having the gall to suggest it's less than perfect.
It's not like I hate it. The criticisms are minor. I just don't want to get online and feel like I'm being interrogated. So no, I'm not going to "provide evidence." There are hills I'm willing to actually willing to argue about, but this isn't one. Life's too fucking short to explain my minor criticisms with the best digital PC game store when we all know everyone is just going to respond with things Valve does that are good and act like that magically erases the bad. Everyone's already been doing in this thread.
I experienced the same shit back with BG3 when the hype train was at critical levels. I'd talk about my frustrations that everyone said it was a "polished" game by talking about the bugs/UX difficulties I was experiencing. I'd get mocked to no end. Even then I'd always say the game is great and I'm loving it along every criticism. But people don't care. It's just tribalism. They see someone criticizing a thing they like and can't handle it.
So no, I'm not going to explain why I view Steam as an enshitified platform. Because it's pointless and I know everyone is already going to disagree and pile on even further. And it's a minor criticism.
I swear, it's like people are thinking I'm saying EGS is the bastion of Linux gaming or something because I said I have minor issues with Steam. It's just exhausting.
GoG is more enshittified than Steam (which really isn't enshittified). They spam emails now with random deals, like several emails a day with "(code for deal here) expires in 24 HOURS" and it's always some random shitty game. Steam just send emails for when a wishlisted game goes on sale or releases, exactly what I want. But GoG has gone full unwanted spam with theirs, random games I've never seen before and no info about what game in the subject line so you have to open the mail to see. It's so shitty.
I was referring more to the DRM, but yeah, that's a fair point. I don't use GoG much so it's possible that's why I haven't seen this.
Any examples? AFAIK they improved a lot, especially in Linux space which I am very grateful for. I wouldn't be using Linux if it wasn't for steam. Although there are still a lot of things to complain about but if it wasn't better before then it isn't enshiftification by definition.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a marketplace that isn't enshitified in some way. Most are going to shove ads in your face which is shitty, but most people aren't going to recognize it as a bad thing because they're there to shop.
Right so no actual examples then?
And you can't say advertising because of course there's going to be adverts up for games sold on the platform. I think most people would argue that if you go into a store, and then see a sign in that store, for something that is sold in the store, that's not advertising, that's just signage.
The goal of advertising is to try to convince you that you want a product or a service. But if you are already in the store you've already made the decision that you want that product or service, so by definition you can't be advertised to at that point.
How is anybody supposed to be disagreeing with you you haven't said anything yet.
I can see how you can say that about the Steam's UI in some spots, but not Steam as a whole. They have a great business model, as far as video games are concerned.
They have some of the highest paid employees, and they keep prices low.
Just because Steam is objectively the best doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize them when it matters.
I agree, but I don't think that backs the claim that it's already enshittified.
Sure. But what exactly are you criticizing? All you've really said is essentially "Steam sucks too" with no reasoning.
Think the CEO of Costco did a similar move with the hot dogs
Close. The founder told the CEO if he raised the price on the hotdog "I will fucking kill you".
So, who really gets the credit here is up to you.
The person who threatened to kill the CEO if the CEO fucked his customers, or the CEO who didn't fuck his customers out of self-preservation?
They also bought 2 hotdog factories to minimize the loss.
Costco does pay decent as well.
Could they do better? Yes, but they are pretty decent for employees and consumers.
Aw man I thought they were still free range prairie dog peckers. Oh wait, they've always been cheap sausages.
Frankfurters and Vienna sausages are the types of sausages used in hot dogs, both legal sausages in the EU.
What do you think a sausage is? They have always been animals scraps ground up and put into animal intestines. That's why people have been saying "you don't want to see the sausage being made" for 200 years.
I've never heard anyone refer to a hotdog as a sausage in the states either and I even grew up poor
It's more like everyone knows it's a sausage. What else could it be? We don't call them frankfurters either.
Do you really expect hot dog sausages to be made from premium meat? They use the scraps that can't otherwise be used, same as chicken nuggets. This is a good thing. Those sausages and nuggets are perfectly fine to eat and we get to reduce waste.
Hurts people some, hurts animals less. I'm ok with that. I am actively in love with hot dogs though for what that's worth.
We're you under the impression any hot dogs were ever anything other than mechanically-recovered animal-based byproducts?
That is literally what a hot dog has always been bud.
"they're the same picture"
They bought the same hotdog factories that they were already buying hotdogs from. It was literally a one-to-one transition.
well to be fair, I'm not buying a hotdog for 1 USD and expect premium meat in that thing.
I mean, aren't those the same thing?
What if the killer was the Costco founder? He told the United Healthcare CEO the same thing and then followed through.
So what your saying is, Costco’s founder and the shooter have a similar energy?
Costco also puts a maximum percent profit on items.
Really? That's awesome.
Apparently they make more money from memberships than from sales margins, which are capped.
Last I heard, their profits were nearly entirely from memberships. This was probably five years ago though. I don't know if their numbers have changed since.
I first heard about that like twenty years ago and apparently is still true today
Does anyone have a source for this?
I left reddit after the API fiasco and didn't return, but I remembered seeing this on Data is Beautiful before that, so I just looked it up for you. (My search query in DDG was "data is beautiful reddit Costco profit margins" and a few popped up; this was the most recent.)
Transcription: infographic states
Net sales +$77.4B
Merch costs -$69.2B
Membership fees +$1.5B
SG&A -$6.9B (Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses)
Taxes -$0.8B
Net profit $2.2B (2% margin)
Source listed as: Costco Q4 FY 23 earnings
Edit: format failing :(
Great graphic, thanks
Thank you very much!
Also. I believe, he also said , if the workers think they need a union, we’ve failed as managers.
So. Yeah
I mean, it’s an understandable viewpoint.
It’s when union busting tactics are being brought in that things are problematic.
That's because you view it entirely positively, instead of from the angle that he doesn't want them to even know of the possibility.
I wish more companies had this mindset. If you treat your employees well and listen to their needs, they won't need to unionize. When they do unionize, it means they don't feel that they have been treated well and listened to.
It seems that the end result of this philosophy would be to treat your employees well!
If you have an employer that does the right thing, you should have a union that doesn't need to do much. But you should still unionise, because it's niave to think the company will always continue to behave that way. If anything, they naturally drift away from that state and it's only a matter of time until it changes. The union is about having a level playing field with the company when you need it.
Unionize it's not only about raising your working conditions. It's about helping other to raise theirs. If you have better conditions you can tell other business owners that what the Union is asking, you already have it. One less point where they can grab themselves.
its an interesting difference in perspective for sure. here you join as a matter of course because you can push back against changes that are bad.
To be fair, he's not really wrong, meaning that they've failed to take good enough care of their people, and my understanding is he didn't stand in the way of one forming...
“I came to [Sinegal] once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends,’” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 interview with 425 Business. “And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’”
https://thehill.com/homenews/4696314-costcos-new-cfo-makes-announcement-about-1-50-hot-dog-combo/#:~:text=We%20are%20losing%20our%20rear%20ends%2C'%E2%80%9D%20Jelinek,effing%20hot%20dog%2C%20I%20will%20kill%20you.
Out of curiosity, how is it legal for Sinegal to say that to Jelinek? Or it isn't but no one cares to press charges?
I'm sure the guy can tell the difference between a genuine threat and a hyperbole.
Not all jurisdictions consider that kind of phrase illegal without an apparent attempt to carry it out.
Prob same reason you can say “choke me daddy” ‘OK’ in bed
CEO of Ben &Jerry's. They are not just posting the black square on their insta and then moving on, like half their posts are about fighting inequity, encouraging people to vote for actual human rights, openly pro abortion, pro immigrant rights, pro black rights, pro women's right, about fighting climate change etc. they are walking the walk, conservative dollars be damned
Also AFAIK they are one of the few companies that have been removed from the BDS list after improving behavior and leaving illegal Palestinian settlements. Recently they sued their parent company for silencing their statements on Palestinian rights.
I don’t love ever setting any people or corporations on a pedestal. Nevertheless this is reassuring behavior to see amidst all the Starbucks, AirBnB and Re/Maxes of the world.
Adding my vote of confidence to them
It's a shame they don't fully move to vegan ice cream
Edit: When the very base ingredient of their ice cream is based on exploitation and torture, how much are their initiatives really worth? It's virtue signalling at its best
Plus I'm yet so see someone giving a valid reason as to why they shouldn't. Just tell me you don't care and I'll move along
Why should they? I have no problem with people being vegan and I have no problem with vegan food being provided as an option but I don't think vegans have the right to dictate to everyone else how they live their lives.
A. Ben & Jerry’s moving to exclusively vegan ice cream is in no way forcing people to live their lives a certain way. Recipes are not protected by copyright law so anyone can make and sell ice cream however they want.
B. The dairy industry wreaks havoc on the planet. It would benefit everyone if the dairy industry disappeared or at least shrank
It would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream (which may not be their preference) or switch to another brand (which also may not be their preference). What you're saying is that you want people to have fewer options.
Would it be accurate to rephrase your argument like this?
“Ben & Jerry’s changing all their recipes to use only vegan ingredients would be anti-freedom”
If you want to make an argument against that, you can do that in your head. You seem to be good at making up things you want other people to say, so you don't need me for your imaginary argument.
You could just say “no.” I was curious how far your logic would go because you said, and I quote, “it would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream or switch to another brand”
Like, dude, come on. You have to hear how ridiculous that sounds. Nobody is forcing anybody to eat ice cream. And also, though this is just coming from my experience, I’ve never met anyone who exclusively likes Ben & Jerry’s. Bad ice cream is almost always better than no ice cream so I would challenge you to find someone who would be upset about needing to eat ice cream that was created by any brand other than Ben & Jerry’s.
Humans are literally forcing animals to live and die by their life styles. The only ones forcing anybody here are humans.
There is no sound reason as to why B&J doesn't fully move away from non-vegan ice cream. They've proven that they can produce vegan flavours, that they cost them the same (probably less even), that they taste well enough for them to remain among the flavours they offer. It's just stigma and prejudice that leads to people shutting off completely when veganism is even mentioned.
Realistically, like be frank with yourself for a second and don't resort to a kneejerk reaction: would you mind if your ice cream was vegan? It's a luxury item, it's a sweet, so it's not essential. Most sweets you eat are vegan already. What's one more? Plus, you end up helping a bunch of animals.
Okay but that's something you care about.
What we're talking about is finding the lowest common denominator of what can be considered acceptable by the general populace, It is not about becoming the best version of ourselves.
Let's not muddy the waters by making this about something other than basic human decency.
That would be an absolute disaster.
Why?
vegan icecrean is apparently terrible.... said no one ever
There aremore very bad milk-substitute ice creams than bad regular ice creams. It may be the age of the market, though.
GabeN has been pretty cool.
Gabe has 6 yachts worth about $1 billion dollars. Not very cool at all, imho.
He didn't kill anyone by denying them insurance or anything like that tho. Just took a commission on every game sold on Steam, a platform nobody's forced to use.
And by running a casino that rakes in millions of dollars off kids. I can appreciate the positives he's done with Steam, but I'm not about to ignore the negatives.
Can you explain? What cassino? Is it like a game with micro transactions or something?
Loot boxes are effectively gambling as there is no guarantee on what you'll get. People in general can get addicted to the rush of getting that rare item the first time (which is usually what happens with a first open to get you hooked) and then either buy more loot boxes or the keys to open them.
Tbf knowing valve and looking at how their loot boxes work I don't think they were malicious in their creation
Reminder that valves loot boxes interact with the community market, you can open a lot of boxes without spending a dime
Oh, I'm not shitting on Valve or anything. Just explaining how they could be called a casino.
Yeah this is something that everyone always seems to forget about this. If you get a lootbox in, say, Overwatch or Fortnite then you will pay out a fiver to open it or else it will never be opened. End of story, Blizz/Epic want their key money. *
You can open an infinite amount of Counter-Strike crates for free forever, by interacting with community marketplace. Unopened crates can be sold to other players. Steam Cards can be sold to other players. Good skins that you pull from your crates can be sold to other players sometimes at absurd prices that can finance another 200 crates. All without ever spending a dime of real money. Sure, Steam Cards and unopened crates may only sell for 5c apiece, but you get a steady stream of them for free just for playing the game, and that stream doesn't dry up. It is perfectly feasible, if a little slow, to flip those into crate keys to loot your boxes.
And THAT'S the difference that makes me take notice. Sure, they still want you to shell out five bucks for crate keys, but an alternative path has been provided. And Steam makes money on marketplace transactions too, so they aren't about to get rid of that option.
* I figure it should be noted here, that these are outdated. I went to double check myself as I remember this from Overwatch 1 and it would seem that neither OW2 nor Fortnite still use loot crates of that style. So to be honest I actually can't think of any games that are still up and running that still use keys & crates in this way. The gamer outrage might have actually gotten us somewhere for once.
I sold all my hats and bought an Index. I’m so happy they can be resold.
Yeah, he's getting kids to play at a virtual casino that has absolutely no chance of returning and financial winnings, but he's not taking millions of dollars off of kids. Considering those kids have the ability to own a gaming computer, I'm assuming the vast majority of that money comes from their parents. I don't condone the kids gambling, but he's not taking hard-earned money from kids that are in need and leaving them broke.
Nobody becomes a billionaire by being "a bit greedy"
One billion dollars is an insane amount of money.
Reminder, 1 billion dollars is:
Billionaires have all that money even after their expenses. It's their "savings account", but their savings account makes much more interest than ours because they are actually invested in the market. If they need money beyond their regular pay, they use their investments as collateral for loans with interest rates lower than investment returns. They're making money even if they are spending it.
Wealth is not money.
Point being?
A billion dollars is never "a bit greedy". It is always a failure of the system to regulated exorbitant wealth through effective taxation and fair market economic policy.
When did I compare those two things as being equally as bad? What the hell is with this black and white stance in my replies, absolutely wild to see people defending a man owning 1 billion dollars in yachts.
Isn't the Steam business model to charge less than everyone else though?
That seems like the exact opposite of greedy.
30%, same as apple, gog and... Well epic takes less then 15, microsoft takes even less, itch also takes less (unclear to me if 10% or set your own).
Anyway steam is only good for game makers because it is steam. Financially that is, because it is the biggest.
Edit: Itch default is 10%, but you can set it to 0% or even up to 100% if you want.
But forces you to stick with the Epic platform for a year; bad for gamers, IMO.
Which is why I don't use Epic. GoG and Steam all the way, baybee!
Im a huge steam fan.
I am not a fan of someone who can own multiple yachts.
Sorry GabeN.
Still seems like a nice guy. 🫡
This but with GabeN
Hawk's response 😆👌
This CEO, Gabe Newell, and (if he was still alive) the founder of Little Caesars, who, if I recall correctly, secretly paid for Rosa Parks apartment until her death.
The founder of Little Caesars was a typical magnate developer who bought up much of downtown Detroit and let it rot until he received tax incentives to build, and kicked out many low income residents from apartments he let sit until they got city money. His family continues this tradition. The Rosa Parks thing is the only good thing I've ever heard of that man and his family do.
CEOs should just be elected by the employees
Couple of British examples of what should be the standard for modern business:
Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds (hifi store in the UK), seems like one of the better capitalists around. He signed over majority control of the company to an employee trust when he turned 60, donates 15% of their profit to charity, runs a nonprofit dedicated to exposing corporate tax avoidance, campaigns against zero hours contracts, and devotes company resources to promoting unsigned bands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Richer
James Timpson recently stepped down as CEO of Timpson, another UK retailer that specialises in things like key cutting, shoe repairs, passport photos etc. He made it company policy to hire people who had been to prison and help them get back on their feet, and his campaign for prison reform saw him step down from the company to become Minister for Prisons in the current government. The company has a "Director of Happiness" who is paid to keep the front line staff happy, resulting in policies like getting the day off work on your kid's first day of school, compassionate leave for the death of a pet, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpson_(retailer)
Timpsons apparently has really interesting business models.
A friend of mine has worked on a few of their conferences, and apparently it's both fascinating and they come across as a genuinely wholesome business.
It's a franchise, but the franchisee (ie the shop) has complete control over what they sell and what services they provide (I dunno if there are any guard rails). So if they want to offer dry cleaning, they can. If they want to offer phone repairs, they can. If they want to only partially offer something, then they can rely on the Timpsons service network to provide the actual service (so dry cleaning without owning dry cleaning equipment).
https://www.timpson.co.uk/about-timpson
And apparently they look after their staff really well. Actually good/useful perks & benefits. In addition to the compassionate leave you've mentioned, I'm sure my friend said something about timpsons owning some property that they allow their staff to book for free (like free accomodation for holidays). Or maybe they do block bookings of stuff, or something. I wasn't hugely paying attention tbh.
franchisee*
Editted
Plus their stores smell even better than petrol.
Is the CEO of costco still a decent guy?
Craig Jelinek the (CEO of costco until recently) was always considered a good guy for putting his employees first and concentrating on keeping a high bar for product quality.
Until recently? Did something happen recently to change this? (Genuine question, I've only heard good things about the Costco ceo)
Fixed their sentence with commas for clarity
For actual clarity, Craig Jelinek stepped down in 2023. Ron Vachris is the current CEO. Not sure if there's been any negative policy change since then though.
Goddamn churros are gone. Hot dog combo hasn't changed price though so we good... For now.
The old co-founder's threat still stands even with a new CEO.
For those that don't know this lovely story, here's an article about the threat.
This is about the time when in the UK they stopped allowing digital membership cards (on a phone app) and forced you to install the Costco app.
I am trying to remove as many apps as possible and until this change just carried my driving licence and a backup credit card in my phone case.
Forcing their own tracking app nearly made me cancel my membership.
Newman's Own salad dressing. Privately owned and all profits go to charity.
Privately owned doesn't mean anything. SpaceX, Twitter (I'm not calling it that), and Tyson are all privately owned.
Privately owned at least means they aren't slaves to their quarterly reports. Every time a company goes public, they're subject to the delusion of infinite growth in a finite system.
Really depends on the ownership structure. Backbiting private boards composed of kids and grandkids of founders that are just trying to claw as much out of their inheritance as possible are just as toxic. Coops are about the only thing I can respect.
So what? Private corporations are just as cruel.
Corporations are the problem, not their trading status.
I stand by my statement. I think you sped over the "at least" part of my comment.
In fairness SpaceX isn't run by Musk, which is why it's actually doing constructive things and not getting into culture war arguments every 15 minutes.
Same with their frozen pizzas? I had never bought one before, then saw they were on sale the other day and figured I'd try them. Think it was 4.99 a piece. (Bogo 9.99) The pepperoni and ricotta one wasnt bad. The sourdough wasn't very decipherable, but better than many cheaper pizzas. The 5 cheese I can't speak for... As I overcooked it. The timer went off and I checked it, said to myself the cheese could melt a bit more and closed the oven. Saw the bottle of strawberry wine I was making didn't look like it was bleeding air properly next to the sink and decided I should slowly turn the cap to drain the pressure and let the fermentation continue. (Have gallons of strawberries I froze left over still from spring that I grew). Turned the lid a bit and it of course exploded so much worse than I expected. Ceiling, floor, cabinets and everything within 10 feet got hit. I went to the bathroom and took my shirt off washed myself, started cleaning up the mess and cleaning the ceiling, cabinets and finally the floor when I remembered, oh shit the pizza.... Yeah. The cheese was melted by then.. just a bit darker than intended
Seconding this, Paul Newman was probably the best person to ever come out of the state of Ohio.
He co-founded Newman's Own, a food company which donates all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2021, these donations totaled over US$570 million. Newman continued to found charitable organizations such as the SeriousFun Children's Network in 1988 and the Safe Water Network in 2006.
(Pasted from his Wikipedia page)
And, sadly, no longer available in Canada for some reason :-(
Sam Reich of Dropout TV
Any CEO that champions OpenSource software is good enough to me
Exclusively open source? Otherwise, you'll spare Zuckerberg too. Facebook has given us a bunch of really cool open source projects.
did you mean honeypots?
I only know honeypots to be something used to bait out illegal activities, so I don't know what you mean by that.
honeypot is an enticing ... thing that you use to gain an advantage over someone. I'm implying the facebook open source stuff is bait and they harvest something from you, be it data, legitimacy or something else.
Oh, they use it to gain goodwill, attract talent, and get free labour. It's no secret. Zuckerberg openly talks about this.
I wouldn't call it bait though. They're legitimately good projects, and you're free to make use of them while giving nothing back.
Unless you have some evidence to say otherwise the open source projects don't report back to Facebook servers so they don't collect data on anyone.
It's hosted on GitHub so if anything it collects data for Microsoft, and knowing Microsoft they don't do anything coherent with the data.
Of course Exclusive & strongly-CopyLeft
I hate Facebook/meta but Zstandard is fucking nice.
... and actually gets their company to support it. My previous employer would only use FOSS when possible (good). But they refused to financially contribute to those projects (BOO!).
All of them
at minimum wage
I always forget that in America minimum wage is just a suggestion
That's a weird take. Why don't you explain in specifics.
Any CEO that is willing to part with 50% or more of their wealth before they die and not to their family or close friends, should be good. No idea about names
And that includes their
totally above board charitable organizationmoney laundering and tax shelter organization masquerading as charity.Bill Penzey would be safe in my book. Penzey's spices are a fantastic product, but he's an activist who very vocally supports equality, respect, and human dignity.
Shortly after the election I received a blanket from them with a very kind note. Apparently they had a promotion where you could submit the name and address of someone who is struggling and could use a hug. I have no idea who nominated me, but I'm so grateful. Penzey's didn't change any money for this, which is crazy to me.
I just went to the website and was my attention was first on the link "About Republicans". An essay on the current fall of the Republican party and why they don't believe in them anymore. I think they deserve some of my money.
You will be well rewarded with a quality product, too! It's so good, even my MAGA mother in law is on their mailing list. If you enjoy the essay About Republicans, you'll likely also love their emails. They have great sales, too. The weekend before the election they offered half off almost everything in their stores if you mentioned the promotion, and I got a free coffee mug, sticker, and sample product. They offered me two mugs because my partner came with me, but I didn't want to be greedy.
This has been going on since at least the 2000s and possibly earlier, that's the point at which I started paying attention to US politics. It was even noted in the Newsroom which I think is circa 2012
I loved going into the Penzey's near me. Just about every spice you could ever need, and my store had an entire section dedicated to different types of cinnamon from all around the world. The people that worked there were all super nice and helpful too, it was always a joy going in there. Unfortunately that location didn't survive COVID 😢
Their emails are amazing. And the spices are very very good. I need to get some more of their vanilla. It was on sale, I think it might still be for today.
Also there's sometimes pictures of pets in the emails.
The ones without public shareholders.
The ones that are vocal about issues and on the right side of history.
My company's owner/CEO can stay, gives us all sizeable profit share bonuses. During covid people didn't get layed off, even though there was no work. Sure hours were reduced, but work was found around the shop to keep people busy as much as possible.
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
Well I know for sure ain't nobody mentioning the Nestle CEO, Laurent Freixe, on here 🤣
I know he's not American, but Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSofware
Great games but sadly working conditions at fromsoftware were not the greatest. Sure this is another country we're work life balance is different then in Central Europe but the pay was not good given how much work is was and how successful the studio got. But to give credit where it is due, AFAIK there have been significant wage increases.
than*
Aren't they literally in the process of cashing out and selling to Sony?
FromSoft's parent company is in considerations, iirc.
can't decide yay or nay for Mozilla but
Valve and CloudFlare.
Maybe all CEOs get a yearly review. If they are good, they continue working. If something doesn't add up, they get to choose to quit or they get executed right on the spot by placing their head between two large metal plates. The top plate is then dropped from 3 stories high.
I would rather focus on billionaire and millionaire than CEO since both are not automatically interchangeable.... .
You can be a CEO In a small business without being a millionaire of the same category as the one of United HealthCare
Bill Long (now retired), who helped to transition WinCo into an employee owned business.
Spains Mercadonas CEO. They follow a very respected model where the consumer is the first priority, then the employees. Works great and they still make a shitton of money. Things like closing sundays because employees should have a life, etc. Employee rotation is super low.
Is this for real? you mean Juan Roig, the guy who forced his employees to work during last DANA (aka 2024 floods in Spain, in which more than 200 spanish people died under it's effects, here is some local news with a capture of one of their delivery vans in which their logo has been deliberately deleted).
Who also had to let their workers stay at home because of popular pressure after they tryed to once again force them to work on subsequent climate alerts, who also tryed to force them to take vacation days if they didn't show up to work...
Who is also well know in the country besides their practices to flood mass media with covert advertising for pressuring their employees beyond the limits of legality?
Who also publicly threatened some guys who happened to come cross him on one of his supermarkets who recriminated his practices?
BTW in Spain all shops stay closed on Sundays except on a few rare occasion every year on a few sectors, but reading what you just wrote maybe some of them still work on Sundays...
I have read the links. It seems that it's not as nice as they paint it. However, it seems normal that in an organization that size, things will not be perfect, or even near, but it does seem that they are better than most. They are the chain that pays their employees the highest salaries, for example. If you have 105.000 employees, it's a given that some will have problems at some point. About the DANA thing: I'm going to guess that store managers had much more to do than the company. It seems that on the whole they are better than most other chains in that respect. Some of the links you post go against your arguments, and some are from media which is not local, as you mention, but based in Argentina, and which has had court rulings against them for publishing fake news. BTW, stores in many regions in Spain open several Sundays during the year, and in Madrid, all Sundays, except Mercadona.
I think you don't get it. Juan Roig is a far-right piece of shit that exploits everyone and everything he can. He fired a worker for eating a fucking croquette that was headed to the trashcan.
I'm not even going to bother answering your claims that are just that, claims with no proof of anything of what you just said. The links on my previous post where just a really quick search and are also about stuff that happened in the last maybe 30 days or so.
If you try and look for news about employee conflicts with Mercadona, or their really aggressive commerce practices with their suppliers (while trying to avoid all the covert advertising bullshit on every single one piece of mass media) you will find out the real shit they are and the big piece of crap that Juan Roig in particular is, but sometimes it finds it's way on the news, even if they have to deliberately delete the logos because of bad press...
There is a reason why everyone says Mercadona doesn't advertise their product on TV or magacines... of course they don't, it's all covert advertising, "this is the new mercadona cream that everyone is talking about", "this new mercadona piece of shit will save you hundreds this winter"... and bullshit like that, try it, try google it and see what comes up.
All media wants to get their money from them, so GL trying to get the word out with their abuses and malpractices, but it's there and if you try, you will find out that they are a big piece of shit.
It’s $1.29 now printed on the can here
What is "the People's Cookout"
Been decades since I saw one of those cost a dollar
The Patagonia CEO seems like a genuinely good dude
Nope.
You’ve just been fooled by good PR.
Care to elaborate?
The YouTube video linked in a reply to the parent comment does a good job of explaining but the short version is that he signed over the company to a charity that his family controls to avoid a tax payment.
There’s basically nothing charitable about it because it literally enshrines political power within his family forever as the charity structure allows political donations to be made through it.
The video also makes the point that you can never accidentally find yourself a billionaire. At some point you’ve fucked people over to get and keep yourself a billion+ dollars.
Oh that's unfortunate
Adam Conover makes some good points on this topic.
As long as keeping them around doesn't mean not taxing the shit out of their extant assets, I think a few are probably worth being spared.
Where are the CEO's that lead with fair income distribution and implement company policies that follow the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Finnish labor laws and lifestyles?
Crickets...
Mike "My Pillow" Lindell... HEAR ME OUT... I don't agree with his politics, but the dude is hilarious.
Shane Te Pou maybe ? (from mega.nz)
Only the ones who relinquish all of their wealth and offer to become a rank and file worker.
Ah yes, so that they will be replaced with someone much worse. Great plan.
What's also crazy thing that no one mentions that these money numbers are just a digital stamp. There's no real currency or value backing it
Management is a skill. You can collectivize property relations and keep the positions of Capital Managers. Moreover, in underdeveloped sectors, Markets are a good way to rapidly develop a framework that can then be folded into the public sector and centrally planned by the degree to which it has developed.
Do we need Capital Owners? No, we don't need any. We will still need managers and directors of Capital, even within Communism, ie Central Planners. If the question is how many Capitalists do we need, the answer is 0. If the question is how many Capital managers and planners do we need, the number is much higher than 0.
none of them. you don't need a CEO to keep a drink at $1 a can. I know it's a meme but y'all libs will go too far with it and coopt it into "awww we can't hurt Elon musk he's too uWu smol bean" by the weekend. I saw what you did with brat summer.
Not a single fucking one
Lower on the list, but still on the list.
Discussion not worth having tbh
Surely, you don't think the CEO making 50k a year managing a small business needs to be on the chopping block.
He's not a CEO any more, but Bill Gates is on a mission to die a mere millionaire, and I think has already given away more than half his net worth.
Bill Gates is a massive piece of shit. Don't let all the propaganda he puts out there fool you. When you start looking closer at his so-called charity work it's not nearly as pretty as you might think.
I personally prefer all billionaires follow his path.
I've looked at his charities too over the last few years and didn't see anything that was questionable.
Anything you want to call out?
Bill Gates fucked the public school systems pretty hard.
Something I think is extremely fucked up in general is that if you have millions to throw at a pet cause, you will disproportionately benefit your cause over other causes in a non-democratic manner. That means that every individual and organization involved in fields related to your pet projects are incentivized to focus on your pet projects over others. Because you have so much money, you basically individually shape public policy.
Look at the WHO (source):
So yeah, it's great that they donate so much... but that also means they can stop donating... so they have control.
Didn't know about the charter school thing. Charter schools are such bullshit. The idea is that we're going to get kids from public schools in impoverished areas into better schools... by causing the public schools to get LESS money?
The number one thing hurting education since the beginning of the system is the way it is funded. It is funded from property taxes collected in the school's district. So inevitably, poor areas get shit schools and rich areas get nice schools. It should instead all get pooled together nationwide and then handed out based on the number of students at each school.
Charter schools and private schools do nothing but hurt. Anyone feel differently? I'm usually open to having my mind changed.
Enthusiastically in agreement that funding of school districts and regional equity is a major problem. Funding is likely problem #1, but I think the problems with funding are more complex than just property taxes.
Concentrating poverty also creates poor areas and exacerbates the problem. It's so frustrating that there are so many NIMBY assholes that don't want affordable housing near them.
Could you be a little bit more specific with your criticisms of his charity?
He basically gave $54BN to the "Gates and Melinda Charity".
Guess who controls the charity?
Guess if the "Charity" pays taxes?
It's crazy how fast people simp for billionaires, old evil shitty hated-by-all billionaires too, just because they spend some publicities around.
Does control mean he can use the funds for personal things? Genuine question
No, it doesn't. And I'd guess that foundation is far more efficient with it's funds than most, given it doesn't need to advertise or ask for money.
People here are just desperate to find some reason to hate the guy.
And you to simp for his tax avoidance schemes lol.
There are far easier ways to avoid tax than this.
I think that you don't understand the value of billions of dollars. He can do whatever he wants "for himself" with just $0.1BN. The rest is just a mental hoarding disease IMO.
They love buying companies, patents and so on, just because. Maybe they miss thst rush when they "earned" their first billion or something and, like a junkie, wants to feel it again.
So you don't think he should give away any money or what?.
Where on earth did you read he's giving away money?
For example, researchers don't want "his money" because there are so many strings attached that whatever you discover, now it's under Bill Gates ownership.
I don't see how that's an answer to
Paul McGann'sthe question though.To be clear, I'm not "simping" for Bill Gates. No one becomes a billionaire ethically and I don't feel the need to defend him as a person. But I also don't just read a random comment on a website from some nobody without any evidence backing up their claim spouting any such nonsense they want, so I simply asked you to be more specific with your criticisms.
For what it's worth, replying to such a request with the kind of hostility you showed doesn't make me any more likely to take you at your word. You don't come off as knowing what you're talking about, so I don't think you're going to convince many people. Have a good day.
Lol, "I don't want to believe you because I don't like you".
How grown up!
Have a nice day you too!
That's not at all what I said. I don't even know you and have no opinion of you.
Yeah let's hear it. Please elaborate on your accusations and don't be so vague.
Some of that propaganda is in the form of material help to people around the world. Like sure, he's not great, no question. But if every other CEO funded global healthcare to the extent he did to whitewash their own problems, I wouldn't complain. Sure his charity work is by no means ideal, but even the ugly charity he does actually winds up saving lives.
The question was “are there any CEOs we should save” and the answer is still “not Bill Gates” in this context.
Which is why I responded to a sub comment and not the top question.
[citation needed]
At least he helped more people than you. So where does that put YOU?
False equivalence
That's some very sweet copium you have over there.
"You don't have the means and you don't help people, curious"
In camp "BG still has 4240000x times more money than me".
Not to mention he executed the "trolley problem meme" by killing a million to save a million. Now, he did not literally kill people (unlike some other CEOs I've heard about), but he did fuck over a ton of people, all in the name of "Business" (which is PR/propaganda for "greed").
He’s also harmed far more people than me, and the negative positive aspect is still net negative.
Bill Gates' net worth has grown substantially despite his philanthropy, rising from $126.8 billion in early 2023 to $156 billion in December 2024.
Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, Gates actively opposed patent waivers and influenced Oxford University to privatize its vaccine through AstraZeneca rather than keep it open-source. He pushed for maintaining intellectual property rights through COVAX, despite public funding supporting vaccine development.
Not a good guy by any metric.
Thats a good criticism but the CEO he put in charge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation went against him and supported waiving the patents anyways, which Biden and the WTO went ahead and did regardless.
His argument against the TRIPS terms was that it wouldn't actually increase production, that every facility capable of producing vaccines was doing so regardless of the patent's costs especially given that they only had to worry about intellectual properties when importing to countries where the patent is held.
He was wrong, I give you that, I think there is no room to be penny pinching and arguing when even 1 more vaccine could have saved lives. However, that doesn't even come close to offsetting the number of lives he has saved or improved by handing out vaccines and medicines for free across Africa. The vast majority of Gates' opponents are generally not fond of Dark Skinned people.
Watching people totally fall for Gates’s incredibly shallow face value self image propaganda bullshit is wild to me. FUCK that guy, so hard. One of the biggest reasons we have enshittification today is this one man.
My boss checks in on me occasionally with directness, and did so the other day:
"viva, how's it going?"
"I want to fight Bill Gates."
This is understood to mean, "windows is fucked. My computer is fucked. All of this massive, utterly brutal buttfucking inconvenience could have been avoided at some point, and now isn't, because [our company] bought so hard into Microsoft's "business solutions" that there's no turning back, and because of the nuances of the problems you've asked me to solve, I am facing said brutal buttfucking inconvenience, and I'm mad about it."
Apologies for detailing the conversation, but I have noticed the implementation and configuration of MS products (something MS has no control over) really impacts their usability. For example, I worked at a soulless corporation that managed to set up PBI and ADO so there was no live feed of data (and they only allowed for the web version of PBI, which reduces functionality substantially). They were also so far behind on Office versions that the employees didn't know more than one person could update a file at a time. There are all sorts of very real reasons to dislike MS, but I do wonder how many people dislike them because of a stupid configuration.
He's given away billions of dollars, and that's face value to you? Besides, he hasn't been in control at Microsoft for decades at this point.
Also I don’t understand how you can defend a man who convinced a bunch of people to not give away the COVID vaccines for free. This is not the actions of a humanitarian. It’s the actions of a monster.
What is your source for that exactly?
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/
A paywalled opinion piece. Really?
Can't search for shit yourself, really?
https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
Behind the bastards did a series on Bill Gates. It was a pretty big eye opener for me. All their sources are cited on their podcast. The info is out there if you want it.
We wouldn’t need him to make these donations if he actually paid his fucking taxes is the thing though. And it’s significantly less.
Eh? Even if he paid a 50% tax rate throughout his life, he'd still be a multi billionaire.
And taxes in the US don't typically end up in the developing world.
“In fiscal year 2020 (October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020), the US government allocated $51.05 billion US dollars in economic and military assistance to foreign countries. Of this total, $39.41 billion dollars was spent on economic assistance, $25.64 billion of which was dispersed by USAID.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
To say that the US doesn’t do foreign aid is just disingenuous. Also to assume that Gates only pays taxes in the US is also disingenuous.
He paid all the taxes he had to. And they just went to America's favourite pass times: war and proxy genocides.
“He paid all the taxes he had to” is such a ridiculous statement that I won’t be able to bring myself to take you seriously as a person anymore.
Do you know something IRS doesn't?
Yes, that there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire. I wonder what the computing landscape would look like if M$ hadn't spent three decades buying and closing every up and coming competitor they had.
It is face value. How did he gain those billion? "Embrace, extend, and extinguish". Never forget.
Yeah how dare he run a tax scheme by
*checks notes
Saving millions of people across all of Africa by providing free healthcare for treatable diseases and potential pandemics?
I've noticed that some people really don't like Africans. I believe there's even a word for such behaviour, don't remember which one right now though...
“Not liking Bill Gates is racist” is such a stupid take that I don’t even know where to begin man.
Well, maybe you need to think twice next time you want to post dumb shit.
You’re an idiot.
What a comeback! Your argument skills are beyond imagination! Well done!
He was kind of a prick becoming a billionaire, so his is more of a redemption arc than a hero's journey.
Possibly, but still better than most.
Sure. I support him becoming a better person, or at least acting like it for the publicity, as long as we all understand what's going on.
BofA is totally worth keeping around
Bofa deez nuts maybe, but the Bank of America can fuck all the way off
This is the best possible answer.
Terrible bank, like most that aren't credit unions, they have over leveraged tens of billions against individual account balances and been a leaky sieve in tech security.
I have no idea why most people don't use credit unions. I guess just ignorance. My "overdraft fee" is "keep at least $50 in your savings account and we won't charge you one."
Your overdraft policy is don't overdraft or you'll be charged a fee — so there’s an overdraft fee?
No, there is no fee (well maybe if you overdraft like $500, I don't know). They don't take money out. I'm not sure how that works out. I guess they figure if you have that money in there, you're going to transfer it before you overdraw?
Convenience. I have accounts with BofA because they're three blocks from my house. It's them or Wells Fargo, who are a little further, and then the nearest credit union is a 10m drive. So convenience. I also have USAA, but having zero branches in my state is kind of a pain.
I hate BofA, but I opened my first credit card with them 19 years ago and I value my stupid credit score for some reason, and so I have to keep it forever.
Do you physically go to the bank that often? I can't remember the last time I had to go into the credit union. Well over a year. Everything outgoing is on automatic payments and I can deposit any check I get with my phone.
This. When I explain I use online banks I'm always ask "how do you go to a physical branch?"
And I'm like "why would I even want to?"
I've had to get a medallion signature guarantee a few times, I do it at my bank in person. I'm sure there's another way to get it though.
Ah you're right.
I had trouble finding a notary once and used a branch from an old savings account I had
I get a lot of checks and I've had issues with mobile deposits here and there, and they're a huge headache. Having a bank that I can toss checks into the ATM and say "your problem now" solves the issue. I also get things notarized once or twice a year, but that's just extra. But yeah, twice a week, I drop the kids and hit the bank on the way to the grocery store in the morning, ezpz. It is strictly convenience and nothing more.