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#21

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by viper37 - February 04, 2023, 10:46:40 PM

Does anyone know if Facebook charges businesses?

No, they don't.  Their business model is 100% ad based for now*.  I am sure they have toyed with the idea though.



*Technically, Meta is about much more than Facebook and it's supposed to be much more than a social media.  It is investing more and more in AI, like many other tech companies.

#22

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by viper37 - February 04, 2023, 10:46:02 PM

Still if they get 100,000 businesses to pay $1,000/month then that's a pretty nice monthly income stream. That'd add $1.2 billion annually which is a pretty good increase on the $4.4 billion they generate now.

I don't think they'll get more than a thousand or two businesses to pay that amount of money to be on Twitter.
That's still some good income, but not a quarter more.

Twitter and FB (and others) have a lot of value because they are free.  Now, you have to pay 12k$/year for the main account, 600$/year for any supplemental accounts, I think only the Fortune 1000 companies would be interested in keeping it as it is not much costs for them and they will be gaining/retaining customers through it.

It's not just Twitter that you have to factor in, but once they start paying for Twitter and it seems to work, others will follow.  They might not want to encourage that behaviour, even if they can afford it.

12k$ for Twitter, 12k$ for FB, 12k$ for Reddit, 12k$ for Instagram, it ends up being costly in the end.

#23

Off the Record / Re: The China Thread

Last post by Valmy - February 04, 2023, 09:31:14 PM

I do have to wonder is this a joke? Is China making fun of us? Who uses a spy balloon? What is this? 1862?

#24

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Valmy - February 04, 2023, 08:19:45 PM

All carrot and no stick? That's pretty progressive for Putin's regime.

Well it's not all carrot. There are potatoes as well.

#25

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Jacob - February 04, 2023, 08:17:45 PM

All carrot and no stick? That's pretty progressive for Putin's regime.

#26

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by grumbler - February 04, 2023, 08:16:46 PM

Nit-picking.

Being the best armoured ship coming out of WW1, doesn't make you a good ship in WW2. as you point out, it was old, not modernized, and as the doc points out, not refitted for WW2.

But the repeated claim is that, since she was a battlecruiser, Hood sacrificed armor for speed (false) and that she was not designed to stand up in battle against battleships (also false).

Hood's armor had nothing to do with her loss (though everything to do with Holland's tactics).  Bismarck couldn't penetrate either her deck nor her belt at that range and inclination.  The fatal hit almost certainly went in under the belt.

You also say that
They have one guy claiming (falsely) that the Bismarck was able to fire without being distracted by British fire, then a claim that PoW hit Bismarck before Bismarck opened fire
He didn't say it wasn't distracted for the whole battle. Just the first few minutes when Hood and POW were erroneously firing on Eugen.

PoW never fired on Prinz Eugen. She fired before Bismarck and always targeted Bismarck.

I'm not an expert on the Atlantic sea battles, so I found the doc pretty interesting.

It's designed to be "interesting" what with the breathless description of the Admiralty's new technology:  the room! (dun dun duuun).  It's just not very historically accurate in some key areas and repeats old folklore that has long since been discarded by any serious historian of the battle.

#27

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - February 04, 2023, 07:08:08 PM

I'm starting to wonder whether raising interest rates to an previous unacceptable high was a one trick pony by Thatcher. It was okay in the early 80s because there weren't enough home owners to be affected by the change but even ten years later it was seen as unthinkable or at least very damaging due to how many home owners on mortgages who voted Tory there were.

Not sure - Thatcher's move coincided with the Volcker shock so there was a wider context. Interest rates peaked under Thatcher in the early 80s - but from the 70s through to the mid 90s interest rates were pretty regularly over 10%. Even mid-90s to financial crash it bounced around 5% and it wasn't unusual to be higher than 5%.

This is where I buy the financialisation argument around housing. I think there is a supply shortage - but something happened in the late 90s/early 2000s that really shifted housing prices and (inevitably) people's exposure to debt:

#28

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by PJL - February 04, 2023, 06:51:45 PM

I'm starting to wonder whether raising interest rates to an previous unacceptable high was a one trick pony by Thatcher. It was okay in the early 80s because there weren't enough home owners to be affected by the change but even ten years later it was seen as unthinkable or at least very damaging due to how many home owners on mortgages who voted Tory there were.

#29

Off the Record / Re: The China Thread

Last post by Admiral Yi - February 04, 2023, 06:49:42 PM

F-22 popped it. Will it count as a kill? 

Didn't they keep separate tallies of balloons and planes killed during WWI? 

It would be cool if they painted a balloon on the side.

#30

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by Admiral Yi - February 04, 2023, 06:47:53 PM

Does anyone know if Facebook charges businesses?