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I would happily pay one cent per email if it meant everyone else had to as well...including advertisers

Think of how much better the signal-to-noise ratio of email would become.


If that 1¢ gets you straight to Inbox then the signal-to-noise would take a very bad nosedive. If not, then it will change nothing anyway. Phone calls cost money and there are still plenty of SPAM calls.


Bought a Peloton used on FB marketplace. I only use the "just ride" functionality and train with a separate heart rate monitor.

Looks like I can't connect it to the internet or else they'll even take that away.

Might need to just rip out the wifi chip.


I have the Bowflex equivalent to the Peloton, and they charge $120/year for the classes. I did it for one year, and realized I almost never actually did the classes, just the free built-in training sessions. I didn't renew the next year for that reason.


Not if you look at them like insurance premiums — it's a monthly cost like any other


Yup, it's in the entertainment budget :)


You forgot vets and dentists!


Let's not even start on healthcare and PE...


And Chiropractors!


And attorneys!


Posting for my wife as she does not use HN!

Location: Cambridge MA, Chapel Hill NC and Dorset England

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Maybe but only to either North Carolina, London or Southwest England, and not for six months

Technologies: Python, C++, high-performance computing, all of the -omics, shotgun and capture sequencing, RNA-seq, ancient DNA sequencing with some frontend react as-needed

Résumé/CV: https://imgur.com/aKt2kT4 Email: f"alice@pearson.{}".format(extension for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!)

Bio: Experienced research scientist for all of the -omics. University of Cambridge PhD, Harvard Postdoc in field-leading lab. Comfortable processing terabytes of text files on high-performance computing and only share results when I have a strong conviction that they are right. Have recently learned React as well. Would be a great asset to any -omics startup, especially in the consumer or medical genetics spaces. Very interested in primary industry—manufacturing, transportation and agriculture. Willing to consider quant finance roles as well.


Author would do great in HR, compliance or IT


Sounds identical to health insurers. We need a new word for this arrangement. “Cartel” probably comes the closest but doesn’t feel quite right.

It’s like a cartel but it’s lead by one “extractor” (front of house, Ticketmaster in this case).


Fire insurance in California is moving towards control by a government-mandated cartel. All the insurance companies have to take partial ownership of the California FAIR plan company, and they share in its profits.

For what it's worth, they refer to themselves as a "syndicate".

CalFAIR charges 2-3x market rate premiums (for similar houses in the same area insured by the companies that own CalFAIR -- this is on top of charging more due to risk), and then refuses to pay out when your house is damaged, engages in lowballing, etc, etc.

Since all the insurance companies that are "competing" against them own stakes in it, the moral hazard should be obvious. Predictably, CalFAIR's market share has been rapidly increasing in recent years. They're supposed to be temporary insurance of last resort, but they've climbed to over 3% market share.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/19/california-insurance-crisi...

https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/


Collusion comes to mind. A group of companies colluding likely has a leader.


Health insurers tend towards regional monopolies or duopolies.


“Cartel” doesn’t preclude a single leader. See: Escobar et al.


You are right, but in in his "cartel", everyone was working for him. Kind of a monarchy. I feel these cartels are more of an actual oligarchy where each player has a separate role that gives it power instead of just reporting up to Pablo.

Taking the insurance example you have the "suppliers" (doctors, drug companies and device companies), the "venue" (hospital) and the "extractor" (insurer).

Similarly you have the "suppliers" (musicians), the "venue" (the venue I guess) and the "extractor" (Live Nation and Ticketmaster). No obvious mapping to the record labels, recording studios or (biggest of all) streamers but hopefully some similarities are present.

I feel like Escobar, the Sinaloa Cartel, etc, are much more top-down.


I’m not so sure about Escobar, some people have suggested the Ochoa family was really running things behind the show.


> People don't buy the cheapest car, house, clothing, or food they could possibly get by with... Yet we constantly hear the refrain that you shouldn't spend a given amount of money on solar, house improvements, appliances, etc. that might be better for the environment if the payback isn't somehow positive with a 10-20 year payback period.

I think the key thing here is that energy is 100% fungible unlike your examples. A kWH is a kWH.


But you’re not buying kWh in this example. You’re buying home energy systems. They have many tradeoffs, pro and con. Besides that, for many people, a kWh produced by a renewable energy source or that’s available to them when the grid is down is worth more than one produced by a coal plant that might be unavailable during an outage.


No, it really isn't. Your house might lose the same total energy as a super efficient house, but if all that energy happens to be lost through a cold spot by your dining room table, you're going to get pretty fed up with the situation.


Sorta, around here, a bucket of kWh at 2PM sells for more than the same sized bucket at 2AM.


Go ahead and add a few years on if you're not fat


It doesn't


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