Do you think that a private arrangement between two individuals to allow someone to stay in a room or apartment or whatever belonging to another in exchange for some cash means that the room/apartment or whatever needs to abide by the same heavy regulations as a hotel?
In some cases the answer will be yes. If I found my out my neighbor had turned his house into a de-facto hotel, I would likely be pretty upset and rightly so. That potentially affects me and my property so you better believe I'm going to want a say in the matter. Furthermore there are various important liability, safety and taxation concerns that need to be addressed before any sane person should give a blanket go-ahead.
It has EVERYTHING to do with killing innovation. Think about it for a second, who benefits?
The (probably few) customers who don't get scammed by shady "hosts". The neighbors who don't have to put up with living next to a de-facto hotel which the property is almost certainly not zoned for. The taxing authorities and by extension the local citizens who are probably not receiving the benefits of tax revenue they would otherwise receive. The normal hotels and their employees who lose revenue they likely otherwise would have received.
Just because something is new doesn't mean it is necessarily good. I don't have a problem with Air Bnb and I actually do wish them the best of luck but just because they think their product is "innovative" doesn't automatically mean it is a good idea. I can see potential problems with the service that are serious and need to be addressed in a more adult way than screaming "KILLING INNOVATION" to anyone who will listen.
Microsoft have definitely built themselves a reputation in the 90's to spend money to kill competition.
Their well deserved reputation isn't relevant for once I think. Microsoft doesn't need to sell at a loss here to gain market share at Dropbox's expense because they almost certainly have a huge cost advantage. Like for Google, storage space for Microsoft is a by-product of their other product offerings such as search or Office in the cloud. I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft's (and have 20 years of postings to prove it) but I really don't think there is a credible case for predatory pricing to be made here. Dropbox has a flawed business model and as you point out they should have sold the company when they had the chance. Now they will get crushed by any large firm that has storage space to spare (specifically Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc) and a desire to slap a friendly interface on it because by-products are by definition cheap.
I think most people will agree this kind of competition is bad from the consumer's point of view. The problem is, it is very hard to prove intention. That very same marketing tactic, i.e. selling products at or below their cost price, is also a popular marketing tactic known as loss leading.
Probably not applicable here because storage space to Google is a by-product, not a loss leader. By-products by definition are generally very very cheap which means that Google's cost for the service is pretty close to zero - at least far closer to zero than it is for Dropbox. Otherwise the unused storage space would be a cost (waste) rather than a revenue stream. Google doesn't have to sell it for a loss because they have a huge cost advantage over Dropbox. They can sell it far below Dropbox's cost and still make money doing so because storage is not their primary business. Storage to Google is a by-product.
This is very similar to the problem Microsoft has in trying to compete with Linux. Companies that develop for linux have their primary line of business elsewhere -services, hardware, etc. For example IBM sells services so they don't actually have to make money on linux. Microsoft on the other hand currently has to make money selling the software so they can't just give it away. This puts certain constraints on Microsoft's business model.
Using profits from one sector to support selling at a loss in another sector in order to drive competition out of business is ACTUALLY THE DEFINITION OF ANTI-COMPETITIVE.
You are almost certainly mistaken in your presumption that they are selling at a loss. Storage space for a company like Google or Amazon is a by-product. It would otherwise be waste to them so they can sell it profitable very very cheaply. They aren't dumping here because they have a genuine cost advantage.
Frankly, Dropbox has a rather dumb business model that I really don't think has a bright future. I say this as someone who actually uses Dropbox and generally likes the product. But I really don't see them being successful as a stand alone business. They have the same problem Microsoft does when competing against Linux. The costs for the competing products are just genuinely lower.
what they are doing is NOT competing, what they are doing is called Predatory pricing which if the DoJ hadn't been bought and sold years ago they would be dropping the hammer on them.
It's not illegal when the company pricing lower has a genuine cost advantage. Google and Amazon and Microsoft have VAST amounts of surplus storage space due to their other businesses and data storage to end users for them is a by-product. By-products are almost by definition extremely cheap because if they don't have any marketable value then they are waste. Google and the others are simply selling something cheaply that would otherwise be nothing but a cost to them. That's not predatory, that's simply smart business.
I use Dropbox but its business model is dumb and they should have sold the company when they had the chance. At the end of the day they are selling megabytes of storage which is an undifferentiated product. Putting an easy to use interface on that isn't all that hard to do and any sufficiently well funded competitor can easily replicate what they've done. Why you think companies like Google should try to replicate a flawed business model like that is a mystery to me.
No, operating something at a loss so that it kills the competition is anti-competitive.
Who says they are selling at a loss? Storage space is a by-product for Google, Amazon and Microsoft. They have a lot of storage space that would otherwise go to waste from their primary businesses. They can afford to sell it very cheaply because otherwise it would be nothing but an expense (waste) for them. Also bear in mind that just because they offer it to end consumers (sometimes) for free sometimes doesn't mean it is actually free. As a user of Google Drive I'm not their customer unless I actually pay them - I'm their product. The customer is the one who buys the advertising. Their product is (theoretically) my attention for advertisers and storage space (like email and search) is just another way to get me in front of them.
I thought Android was a loss leader (and really, only making a pittance, compared to their web/non-mobile search)?
It is sort of but the real purpose of Android is so that Google doesn't get shut out of mobile advertising by Apple, Microsoft or others who own their own mobile platforms. It's not really intended to be a profit center to Google but rather to keep others from shutting off Google from future revenue streams as mobile becomes increasingly important. Don't think for a moment that if Google had to go through Apple or Microsoft or Blackberry that those companies wouldn't take their pound of flesh or even simply keep Google out altogether if they could.
Fair competition isn't something the big companies enjoy doing, as their whole business model tends to revolve around destroying competition then bleeding the market for what it's worth.
Please define "unfair" in this context. Exactly what do you think is "unfair" about what Amazon and Google are doing? You think they should have to replicate Dropbox's (probably flawed) business model to be "fair" to Dropbox? Amazon and Google can afford to offer storage space very cheaply because for them it is a by-product of their primary business. By-products can be sold very cheaply because they would otherwise be considered waste. Dropbox is selling a mostly undifferentiated commodity product - specifically data storage capacity. While they've made their product friendly and easy to use, that doesn't change what it is and if someone is willing to offer a similar product for less profit then I think Dropbox and Box and the rest are probably doomed.
I used dropbox for cloud storage, I liked it for collaborative work. Would be a shame to see it get destroyed through aggressive anti-competitive practices.
I use dropbox as well but if they go out of business it isn't terribly hard to replace them. I use Google Drive at work and it is quite easy to use as well. Frankly if I were the owner of Dropbox I would be looking for a deep pocketed company to sell to because unless they can expand beyond their current offerings they are almost certain to go out of business eventually.
The only economic reason they'd hire an American over an H1B is if the American is willing to let his kids starve and be downright abused for $10 an hour after spending his whole life studying his craft.
If you spend your life studying something that allows you to be replaced for $10/hour then you are frankly retarded. Nobody owes you a comfortable living. You need to earn it and part of that is having the foresight to see what might be valuable to employers.
US IT workers shouldn't have to live like utter slaves, work 80 hour weeks and need food stamps just because some barely qualified H1B will do it for $10/hr. We are not disposable blue collar idiots.
Who is suggesting that you do? If you provide enough value for the wages you command then you should be able to live very nicely. But if your job can be done by someone willing to work for $10 per hour then you better reconsider just how valuable what you do actually is. Furthermore, just because someone does a "blue collar" job doesn't mean they are an idiot. Stop looking down your nose at people who don't work in an air conditioned office typing on a computer. You think you are too good to get your hands dirty? Are you really that arrogant?
Americans can't compete on price. Point blank.
Americans ARE competing on price at all times and the movement of certain types of jobs proves that fact. You could not be more wrong. Anyone who thinks price doesn't factor in is delusional. That includes competing for wages. You can ask for whatever you want but that doesn't guarantee the market will bear your asking price.
Furthermore the per-capita US income is in the top 5 in the world. How sustainable do you think that is? I suggest you learn about regression toward the mean. There are 5 people in China for every 1 in the US. Do you think Americans are smarter or harder working or more deserving? Do you think Americans are somehow special so they don't have to compete with the other 95% of the world? Grow up. The US has had a good run since WWII but that doesn't guarantee it will stay on top without a lot of hard work and sometimes some belt tightening too. Some jobs are going to move to where they make more economic sense. If you want to keep high paying jobs in the US then there is a lot of hard work to do. Better get busy because the rest of the world isn't going to wait for your lazy ass.
And you think unionization killed US manufacturing?
Nothing has killed US manufacturing. I work in manufacturing in the US and have for most of the last 20 years. I run a manufacturing company. The US manufactures over $3 Trillion in goods each year. The US manufacturing sector alone would be among the 10 largest economies in the world by GDP. Manufacturing in the US is alive and well and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. The number of jobs in US manufacturing has fallen just like it did in agriculture a hundred years ago but that is not by itself a bad thing. Would you prefer that 50%+ of the nation's workers be employed on farms like they were 150 years ago? What has changed is that the US predominately manufactures capital intensive rather than labor intensive goods.
You can find all sorts of weird correlations if you look for them but the mere existence of a correlation is meaningless by itself. In this case my first question would be about money. States with more money will be able to afford both faster internet and better schools. Other factors that need to be controlled for include population density, local industry, demographic makeup, etc to be able to put some meaning to this.
Basically this is a meaningless correlation which provides no context to draw useful conclusions from. Obligatory XKCD.
YES. I'm not free to work anywhere I want on the planet yet these companies are free to set up shop anywhere?
You are free to work wherever you want. Plenty of US citizens work outside the US. I have at times in my career. They are called expatriates and it's quite normal. If the opportunity for you is in China or France then go there and stop whining about it. Maximizing your own income may require you to look outside the town where you grew up and also may require some actual sacrifice on your part.
Not quite. It's about the cheapest workers that can still get the job done. Companies are in business to maximize profit and you do that by maximizing the performance of the labor per dollar spent. You can hire fewer but more productive workers or cheaper but less productive workers. If you cannot discern the difference in productivity (which can be difficult sometimes) then the cheaper guy will win almost every time. You will note that country of origin plays no direct role in that equation.
Of course they want to hire the "very best", where "bestness" is measured by how little money they are willing to work for.
ALL companies want to hire the maximum performance for the minimum price. What else were you expecting? If someone else can do the job and demands less money to do it why wouldn't the company hire them instead of you? Labor is judged solely on productivity versus price at the end of the day. You can maximize that equation by increasing productivity or decreasing price but either way the question is what will maximize that ratio. Where the workers are from is irrelevant in the equation beyond how it affects their price or performance.
I understand the frustration with the H1B program and agree it is a real problem but it is a symptom, not the core problem. The core problem is that US wages versus performance are not obviously superior. Even if you get rid of the program the fundamental economic problem will remain because IT is a labor intensive industry. Companies will ALWAYS seek the optimal price/performance ratio regardless of industry.
This isn't a tech report, it's political propaganda. There's plenty of awesome U.S. techs to do the jobs that are out of them, just as good as the imports, they just want U.S. wages.
That last bit is the flaw in your argument. You mistakenly think there is such a thing as "US wages". The talent pool is global and what matters is your productivity versus your price. If you demand more in wages you had better be significantly more productive and able to prove it. Your economic value to any company is based solely on productivity per dollar spent. If an overseas worker can do the work needed and is willing to do it for less money then you had better find a way to increase your value either by improving productivity or decreasing your price.
Pretending that your citizenship is any kind of meaningful protection against economic reality is just foolish. I understand that the reality of H1B visas and the rest is a harsh reality but its a reality that isn't going to change. Even if you did away with H1B visas altogether they are merely the symptom of the bigger problem which is wage disparity for a given talent level. US workers are highly paid relative to their talent compared with IT workers elsewhere and the economic consequence of that is that companies will seek lower labor costs wherever possible. This is true for ALL labor intensive industries. Get rid of H1B visas and I guarantee you will see some other equally odious tactic to reduce labor costs take its place. The only thing that will preserve high US IT wages is to develop structural economic advantages to hiring US IT workers. On a price/performance basis you need to make US IT workers the best in the world. Any solution that does not address that fact is doomed to fail.
So this tool just shit on U.S. workers and claims that people who are essentially nothing but ITT Tech graduates from a third world country are superior.
So you think 5% of the worlds population has some sort of monopoly on IT talent? You think IT workers in the US shouldn't have to compete for their jobs just because of where they were born? I'm not an IT worker (I work in manufacturing) and I have to compete with talent in my job from all around the globe daily so I'm not terribly sympathetic to IT workers who think they are owed something because of their citizenship. You want to compete? Get better at what you do. Give companies an ECONOMIC reason to hire you over the foreign guy because economic reasons are really the only ones that matter in the long run.
Frankly the guy has a good point. Good IT workers come from all over the world, not just the US. If you want to get all xenophobic and crawl into your protectionist shell to hide I guess that is your prerogative but the best companies will hire the best people wherever they may be from. They also will hire average people from wherever they can get the best price. If they are willing to work for less money than you and can still get the job done that is your problem. Companies want to maximize productivity while minimizing cost. If you forget that even for a moment you are cutting your own throat.
Trying to hide behind limiting visa or unions is not ever going to protect IT jobs. Quite the opposite in fact. In the long run it will drive software development outside the US. Arguing against a labor intensive industry (like IT) seeking the lowest cost labor available is like trying to be King Canute. At most you might slow the inevitable instead of actually finding a way to increase your own value.
Advantages that aren't practical in modern society especially if living in the city.
That depends very much on your lifestyle and what you do for a living. There are very good reasons police often still use horses in cities to this day. I was just in a national park where they use horses for trail maintenance. Horses are widely used in agriculture which I assure you remains an important part of modern society. A car would be utterly useless for that task. No one is claiming horses are generally superior for all tasks and needs but to claim that horses have "no advantage" over cars is preposterous nonsense.
Several readers sent word of research into the cost of internet content without ads.
This presumes that the internet would remain in its identical form without ads. It almost assuredly would not and hence this "analysis" is based upon a useless hypothetical premise.
They say in the article that aside from the guy running the printer, there are no labor costs here.
Care to wager on that? Exactly how do you think they are going to get the fabricated parts in place? Magical levitation? How do you think the fabricated parts are going to be secured and connected? The labor in building a modern structure is less in fabrication than in assembly. It' common for entire walls and roofs to be delivered as preassembled framing. The expense of a foundation isn't in the fabrication but in the prep work for the site - making sure things are level and plumb and the drainage is correct. It' very cheap to pour concrete walls onsite and raise them into place. Throwing a bunch of 3D printing isn't going to reduce the labor costs much if any and it will greatly increase the materials cost.
I don't believe that's necessarily true, because there's still got to be somebody wiring the electrical and installing windows, but regardless, it could dramatically decrease the cost of building a home.
It will not even slightly decrease cost, at least not anytime soon. Quite the opposite in fact for most applications. I run a manufacturing company and I'm a cost accountant. I've also worked with 3D printing as far back as 1998. What 3D printing does is it drastically reduces setup time and tooling costs for low volume production. The downside is that it is very slow and the materials cost is very high. This makes it useful for applications like prototyping, very low volume production (Imagine that, just rolling up two trucks to a construction site: one carrying the printer, another with all the crushed rock, setting it up and letting it go. A week later, a finished home ready for a family to move into at half the cost.
That's a nice piece of science fiction you have there. Maybe in 50 years it might begin to be possible. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see something like that but we are a LOOOONG way away from what you describe right now. Furthermore your assumption that using automation like that would be cheaper is probably very wrong at least for quite a while. Any time you have automation, the cost of it needs to be amortized over a lot of units to make sense. Machines like what you describe would be hugely expensive so they would have to build a LOT of units to cost less than whatever labor would be required to do the same job. That is a much more difficult proposition than you seem to be suggesting.
There was no advantage of a horse over a car. None what so ever.
Horses can go places cars cannot. Horses are cheaper than most cars, especially if they have access to pasture. Horses last longer than most cars since a horse typically lives for 20-25 years. Horses make less noise and pollute less (even considering the fecal matter). A well trained horse can get you home in some cases with little input from the rider - no car can do that. You can eat a horse should the need arise - no so much with a car. I don't have to insure a horse. I can herd livestock much easier with a horse than with a car. Horses do not require specially built roads to be useful whereas most cars are fairly useless without roads unless they are specially designed. I can jump a fence with a horse.
Not to say cars don't have huge advantages but there are actually quite a few very real advantages to horses.
This process will work out just as it should; I have no doubt that in a year there will be a dozen tests of this and we will likely know for sure one way or the other; in the meantime, I would take a $ 200 bet [xkcd.com] that the standard model will still prevail when this is over.
The problem is the opportunity cost. Is disproving obviously crackpot ideas really the best use of money, brains and time? While sometimes seemingly crackpot ideas actually turn out to be not-crackpot but that is the exception that proves the rule. In this case it looks like snake oil, smells like snake oil and behaves like snake oil. Extraordinary claims, extraordinary proof, etc.
What a lovely Protestant Work Ethic you have there! I hope your jobless great-grandchildren are just as proud of it.
What a lovely Entitlement Complex you have there! If you think your ability to obtain a paycheck is dependent on you being as unproductive as possible without getting fired then you will be unemployed long before I will.
No. GP post suggested automating tasks and seeking no additional work while collecting the same paycheck for less work. If you can automate a task which saves time then you should go seek out a new task to fill the time. You are not paid to sit on your ass and admire your handiwork. There is a difference between making yourself more efficient at your job so that more gets done and pretending to do work that you have automated to collect a paycheck. The former is worthy of promotion, the later is fraud.
Absolutely, but DO NOT TELL ANYONE. honestly automation will not get you a raise or a promotion, it will just get you extra work. for the same pay.
And if you worked for me and I found you doing this I would fire you on the spot. You are being paid to perform a certain number of hours of work, not to sit on your ass and collect a paycheck. What you are suggesting is fraud, plain and simple.
I bow to the eloquence of your argument. [/sarcasm]
Besides. The actual shock that hit the Fukushima area was a 6.6 (as it was over a hundred miles from the epicenter). That ISN'T what damaged the reactor.
All of which is well understood and wasn't under debate. What is under debate is the assertion that large magnitude quakes are so unusual that they cannot or should not be planned for. The fact that a tsunami was the proximal cause of the damage in the case of Fukashima does not mean that large earthquakes as well as their follow on effects can be ignored because they are not common. Once a century or even once per millennium events have to be considered in the design and operation of something as potentially dangerous as a nuclear fission power plant. Large earthquakes may be uncommon but they aren't remotely unexpected in that part of the world. There have been two in the last 10 years in eastern asia, one near Indonesia and one near Japan.
You'll forgive me if I don't take the word of "A. Random Guy" trying to win an argument on the internet.
You can believe me when I tell you I am an engineer or not. I really don't care. I would point out however that engineers are rather common here on slashdot and always have been. When someone here posits that they are an engineer you should probably assume they actually are one. Based on your user number you ought to know that by now.
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Do you think that a private arrangement between two individuals to allow someone to stay in a room or apartment or whatever belonging to another in exchange for some cash means that the room/apartment or whatever needs to abide by the same heavy regulations as a hotel?
In some cases the answer will be yes. If I found my out my neighbor had turned his house into a de-facto hotel, I would likely be pretty upset and rightly so. That potentially affects me and my property so you better believe I'm going to want a say in the matter. Furthermore there are various important liability, safety and taxation concerns that need to be addressed before any sane person should give a blanket go-ahead.
It has EVERYTHING to do with killing innovation. Think about it for a second, who benefits?
The (probably few) customers who don't get scammed by shady "hosts". The neighbors who don't have to put up with living next to a de-facto hotel which the property is almost certainly not zoned for. The taxing authorities and by extension the local citizens who are probably not receiving the benefits of tax revenue they would otherwise receive. The normal hotels and their employees who lose revenue they likely otherwise would have received.
Just because something is new doesn't mean it is necessarily good. I don't have a problem with Air Bnb and I actually do wish them the best of luck but just because they think their product is "innovative" doesn't automatically mean it is a good idea. I can see potential problems with the service that are serious and need to be addressed in a more adult way than screaming "KILLING INNOVATION" to anyone who will listen.
Microsoft have definitely built themselves a reputation in the 90's to spend money to kill competition.
Their well deserved reputation isn't relevant for once I think. Microsoft doesn't need to sell at a loss here to gain market share at Dropbox's expense because they almost certainly have a huge cost advantage. Like for Google, storage space for Microsoft is a by-product of their other product offerings such as search or Office in the cloud. I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft's (and have 20 years of postings to prove it) but I really don't think there is a credible case for predatory pricing to be made here. Dropbox has a flawed business model and as you point out they should have sold the company when they had the chance. Now they will get crushed by any large firm that has storage space to spare (specifically Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc) and a desire to slap a friendly interface on it because by-products are by definition cheap.
I think most people will agree this kind of competition is bad from the consumer's point of view. The problem is, it is very hard to prove intention. That very same marketing tactic, i.e. selling products at or below their cost price, is also a popular marketing tactic known as loss leading.
Probably not applicable here because storage space to Google is a by-product, not a loss leader. By-products by definition are generally very very cheap which means that Google's cost for the service is pretty close to zero - at least far closer to zero than it is for Dropbox. Otherwise the unused storage space would be a cost (waste) rather than a revenue stream. Google doesn't have to sell it for a loss because they have a huge cost advantage over Dropbox. They can sell it far below Dropbox's cost and still make money doing so because storage is not their primary business. Storage to Google is a by-product.
This is very similar to the problem Microsoft has in trying to compete with Linux. Companies that develop for linux have their primary line of business elsewhere -services, hardware, etc. For example IBM sells services so they don't actually have to make money on linux. Microsoft on the other hand currently has to make money selling the software so they can't just give it away. This puts certain constraints on Microsoft's business model.
Using profits from one sector to support selling at a loss in another sector in order to drive competition out of business is ACTUALLY THE DEFINITION OF ANTI-COMPETITIVE.
You are almost certainly mistaken in your presumption that they are selling at a loss. Storage space for a company like Google or Amazon is a by-product. It would otherwise be waste to them so they can sell it profitable very very cheaply. They aren't dumping here because they have a genuine cost advantage.
Frankly, Dropbox has a rather dumb business model that I really don't think has a bright future. I say this as someone who actually uses Dropbox and generally likes the product. But I really don't see them being successful as a stand alone business. They have the same problem Microsoft does when competing against Linux. The costs for the competing products are just genuinely lower.
what they are doing is NOT competing, what they are doing is called Predatory pricing which if the DoJ hadn't been bought and sold years ago they would be dropping the hammer on them.
It's not illegal when the company pricing lower has a genuine cost advantage. Google and Amazon and Microsoft have VAST amounts of surplus storage space due to their other businesses and data storage to end users for them is a by-product. By-products are almost by definition extremely cheap because if they don't have any marketable value then they are waste. Google and the others are simply selling something cheaply that would otherwise be nothing but a cost to them. That's not predatory, that's simply smart business.
I use Dropbox but its business model is dumb and they should have sold the company when they had the chance. At the end of the day they are selling megabytes of storage which is an undifferentiated product. Putting an easy to use interface on that isn't all that hard to do and any sufficiently well funded competitor can easily replicate what they've done. Why you think companies like Google should try to replicate a flawed business model like that is a mystery to me.
No, operating something at a loss so that it kills the competition is anti-competitive.
Who says they are selling at a loss? Storage space is a by-product for Google, Amazon and Microsoft. They have a lot of storage space that would otherwise go to waste from their primary businesses. They can afford to sell it very cheaply because otherwise it would be nothing but an expense (waste) for them. Also bear in mind that just because they offer it to end consumers (sometimes) for free sometimes doesn't mean it is actually free. As a user of Google Drive I'm not their customer unless I actually pay them - I'm their product. The customer is the one who buys the advertising. Their product is (theoretically) my attention for advertisers and storage space (like email and search) is just another way to get me in front of them.
I thought Android was a loss leader (and really, only making a pittance, compared to their web/non-mobile search)?
It is sort of but the real purpose of Android is so that Google doesn't get shut out of mobile advertising by Apple, Microsoft or others who own their own mobile platforms. It's not really intended to be a profit center to Google but rather to keep others from shutting off Google from future revenue streams as mobile becomes increasingly important. Don't think for a moment that if Google had to go through Apple or Microsoft or Blackberry that those companies wouldn't take their pound of flesh or even simply keep Google out altogether if they could.
Fair competition isn't something the big companies enjoy doing, as their whole business model tends to revolve around destroying competition then bleeding the market for what it's worth.
Please define "unfair" in this context. Exactly what do you think is "unfair" about what Amazon and Google are doing? You think they should have to replicate Dropbox's (probably flawed) business model to be "fair" to Dropbox? Amazon and Google can afford to offer storage space very cheaply because for them it is a by-product of their primary business. By-products can be sold very cheaply because they would otherwise be considered waste. Dropbox is selling a mostly undifferentiated commodity product - specifically data storage capacity. While they've made their product friendly and easy to use, that doesn't change what it is and if someone is willing to offer a similar product for less profit then I think Dropbox and Box and the rest are probably doomed.
I used dropbox for cloud storage, I liked it for collaborative work. Would be a shame to see it get destroyed through aggressive anti-competitive practices.
I use dropbox as well but if they go out of business it isn't terribly hard to replace them. I use Google Drive at work and it is quite easy to use as well. Frankly if I were the owner of Dropbox I would be looking for a deep pocketed company to sell to because unless they can expand beyond their current offerings they are almost certain to go out of business eventually.
The only economic reason they'd hire an American over an H1B is if the American is willing to let his kids starve and be downright abused for $10 an hour after spending his whole life studying his craft.
If you spend your life studying something that allows you to be replaced for $10/hour then you are frankly retarded. Nobody owes you a comfortable living. You need to earn it and part of that is having the foresight to see what might be valuable to employers.
US IT workers shouldn't have to live like utter slaves, work 80 hour weeks and need food stamps just because some barely qualified H1B will do it for $10/hr. We are not disposable blue collar idiots.
Who is suggesting that you do? If you provide enough value for the wages you command then you should be able to live very nicely. But if your job can be done by someone willing to work for $10 per hour then you better reconsider just how valuable what you do actually is. Furthermore, just because someone does a "blue collar" job doesn't mean they are an idiot. Stop looking down your nose at people who don't work in an air conditioned office typing on a computer. You think you are too good to get your hands dirty? Are you really that arrogant?
Americans can't compete on price. Point blank.
Americans ARE competing on price at all times and the movement of certain types of jobs proves that fact. You could not be more wrong. Anyone who thinks price doesn't factor in is delusional. That includes competing for wages. You can ask for whatever you want but that doesn't guarantee the market will bear your asking price.
Furthermore the per-capita US income is in the top 5 in the world. How sustainable do you think that is? I suggest you learn about regression toward the mean. There are 5 people in China for every 1 in the US. Do you think Americans are smarter or harder working or more deserving? Do you think Americans are somehow special so they don't have to compete with the other 95% of the world? Grow up. The US has had a good run since WWII but that doesn't guarantee it will stay on top without a lot of hard work and sometimes some belt tightening too. Some jobs are going to move to where they make more economic sense. If you want to keep high paying jobs in the US then there is a lot of hard work to do. Better get busy because the rest of the world isn't going to wait for your lazy ass.
And you think unionization killed US manufacturing?
Nothing has killed US manufacturing. I work in manufacturing in the US and have for most of the last 20 years. I run a manufacturing company. The US manufactures over $3 Trillion in goods each year. The US manufacturing sector alone would be among the 10 largest economies in the world by GDP. Manufacturing in the US is alive and well and anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. The number of jobs in US manufacturing has fallen just like it did in agriculture a hundred years ago but that is not by itself a bad thing. Would you prefer that 50%+ of the nation's workers be employed on farms like they were 150 years ago? What has changed is that the US predominately manufactures capital intensive rather than labor intensive goods.
You can find all sorts of weird correlations if you look for them but the mere existence of a correlation is meaningless by itself. In this case my first question would be about money. States with more money will be able to afford both faster internet and better schools. Other factors that need to be controlled for include population density, local industry, demographic makeup, etc to be able to put some meaning to this.
Basically this is a meaningless correlation which provides no context to draw useful conclusions from. Obligatory XKCD.
YES. I'm not free to work anywhere I want on the planet yet these companies are free to set up shop anywhere?
You are free to work wherever you want. Plenty of US citizens work outside the US. I have at times in my career. They are called expatriates and it's quite normal. If the opportunity for you is in China or France then go there and stop whining about it. Maximizing your own income may require you to look outside the town where you grew up and also may require some actual sacrifice on your part.
It's about cheapest workers, not better ones.
Not quite. It's about the cheapest workers that can still get the job done. Companies are in business to maximize profit and you do that by maximizing the performance of the labor per dollar spent. You can hire fewer but more productive workers or cheaper but less productive workers. If you cannot discern the difference in productivity (which can be difficult sometimes) then the cheaper guy will win almost every time. You will note that country of origin plays no direct role in that equation.
Of course they want to hire the "very best", where "bestness" is measured by how little money they are willing to work for.
ALL companies want to hire the maximum performance for the minimum price. What else were you expecting? If someone else can do the job and demands less money to do it why wouldn't the company hire them instead of you? Labor is judged solely on productivity versus price at the end of the day. You can maximize that equation by increasing productivity or decreasing price but either way the question is what will maximize that ratio. Where the workers are from is irrelevant in the equation beyond how it affects their price or performance.
I understand the frustration with the H1B program and agree it is a real problem but it is a symptom, not the core problem. The core problem is that US wages versus performance are not obviously superior. Even if you get rid of the program the fundamental economic problem will remain because IT is a labor intensive industry. Companies will ALWAYS seek the optimal price/performance ratio regardless of industry.
This isn't a tech report, it's political propaganda. There's plenty of awesome U.S. techs to do the jobs that are out of them, just as good as the imports, they just want U.S. wages.
That last bit is the flaw in your argument. You mistakenly think there is such a thing as "US wages". The talent pool is global and what matters is your productivity versus your price. If you demand more in wages you had better be significantly more productive and able to prove it. Your economic value to any company is based solely on productivity per dollar spent. If an overseas worker can do the work needed and is willing to do it for less money then you had better find a way to increase your value either by improving productivity or decreasing your price.
Pretending that your citizenship is any kind of meaningful protection against economic reality is just foolish. I understand that the reality of H1B visas and the rest is a harsh reality but its a reality that isn't going to change. Even if you did away with H1B visas altogether they are merely the symptom of the bigger problem which is wage disparity for a given talent level. US workers are highly paid relative to their talent compared with IT workers elsewhere and the economic consequence of that is that companies will seek lower labor costs wherever possible. This is true for ALL labor intensive industries. Get rid of H1B visas and I guarantee you will see some other equally odious tactic to reduce labor costs take its place. The only thing that will preserve high US IT wages is to develop structural economic advantages to hiring US IT workers. On a price/performance basis you need to make US IT workers the best in the world. Any solution that does not address that fact is doomed to fail.
So this tool just shit on U.S. workers and claims that people who are essentially nothing but ITT Tech graduates from a third world country are superior.
So you think 5% of the worlds population has some sort of monopoly on IT talent? You think IT workers in the US shouldn't have to compete for their jobs just because of where they were born? I'm not an IT worker (I work in manufacturing) and I have to compete with talent in my job from all around the globe daily so I'm not terribly sympathetic to IT workers who think they are owed something because of their citizenship. You want to compete? Get better at what you do. Give companies an ECONOMIC reason to hire you over the foreign guy because economic reasons are really the only ones that matter in the long run.
Frankly the guy has a good point. Good IT workers come from all over the world, not just the US. If you want to get all xenophobic and crawl into your protectionist shell to hide I guess that is your prerogative but the best companies will hire the best people wherever they may be from. They also will hire average people from wherever they can get the best price. If they are willing to work for less money than you and can still get the job done that is your problem. Companies want to maximize productivity while minimizing cost. If you forget that even for a moment you are cutting your own throat.
Trying to hide behind limiting visa or unions is not ever going to protect IT jobs. Quite the opposite in fact. In the long run it will drive software development outside the US. Arguing against a labor intensive industry (like IT) seeking the lowest cost labor available is like trying to be King Canute. At most you might slow the inevitable instead of actually finding a way to increase your own value.
Advantages that aren't practical in modern society especially if living in the city.
That depends very much on your lifestyle and what you do for a living. There are very good reasons police often still use horses in cities to this day. I was just in a national park where they use horses for trail maintenance. Horses are widely used in agriculture which I assure you remains an important part of modern society. A car would be utterly useless for that task. No one is claiming horses are generally superior for all tasks and needs but to claim that horses have "no advantage" over cars is preposterous nonsense.
Several readers sent word of research into the cost of internet content without ads.
This presumes that the internet would remain in its identical form without ads. It almost assuredly would not and hence this "analysis" is based upon a useless hypothetical premise.
They say in the article that aside from the guy running the printer, there are no labor costs here.
Care to wager on that? Exactly how do you think they are going to get the fabricated parts in place? Magical levitation? How do you think the fabricated parts are going to be secured and connected? The labor in building a modern structure is less in fabrication than in assembly. It' common for entire walls and roofs to be delivered as preassembled framing. The expense of a foundation isn't in the fabrication but in the prep work for the site - making sure things are level and plumb and the drainage is correct. It' very cheap to pour concrete walls onsite and raise them into place. Throwing a bunch of 3D printing isn't going to reduce the labor costs much if any and it will greatly increase the materials cost.
I don't believe that's necessarily true, because there's still got to be somebody wiring the electrical and installing windows, but regardless, it could dramatically decrease the cost of building a home.
It will not even slightly decrease cost, at least not anytime soon. Quite the opposite in fact for most applications. I run a manufacturing company and I'm a cost accountant. I've also worked with 3D printing as far back as 1998. What 3D printing does is it drastically reduces setup time and tooling costs for low volume production. The downside is that it is very slow and the materials cost is very high. This makes it useful for applications like prototyping, very low volume production (Imagine that, just rolling up two trucks to a construction site: one carrying the printer, another with all the crushed rock, setting it up and letting it go. A week later, a finished home ready for a family to move into at half the cost.
That's a nice piece of science fiction you have there. Maybe in 50 years it might begin to be possible. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see something like that but we are a LOOOONG way away from what you describe right now. Furthermore your assumption that using automation like that would be cheaper is probably very wrong at least for quite a while. Any time you have automation, the cost of it needs to be amortized over a lot of units to make sense. Machines like what you describe would be hugely expensive so they would have to build a LOT of units to cost less than whatever labor would be required to do the same job. That is a much more difficult proposition than you seem to be suggesting.
There was no advantage of a horse over a car. None what so ever.
Horses can go places cars cannot. Horses are cheaper than most cars, especially if they have access to pasture. Horses last longer than most cars since a horse typically lives for 20-25 years. Horses make less noise and pollute less (even considering the fecal matter). A well trained horse can get you home in some cases with little input from the rider - no car can do that. You can eat a horse should the need arise - no so much with a car. I don't have to insure a horse. I can herd livestock much easier with a horse than with a car. Horses do not require specially built roads to be useful whereas most cars are fairly useless without roads unless they are specially designed. I can jump a fence with a horse.
Not to say cars don't have huge advantages but there are actually quite a few very real advantages to horses.
This process will work out just as it should; I have no doubt that in a year there will be a dozen tests of this and we will likely know for sure one way or the other; in the meantime, I would take a $ 200 bet [xkcd.com] that the standard model will still prevail when this is over.
The problem is the opportunity cost. Is disproving obviously crackpot ideas really the best use of money, brains and time? While sometimes seemingly crackpot ideas actually turn out to be not-crackpot but that is the exception that proves the rule. In this case it looks like snake oil, smells like snake oil and behaves like snake oil. Extraordinary claims, extraordinary proof, etc.
What a lovely Protestant Work Ethic you have there! I hope your jobless great-grandchildren are just as proud of it.
What a lovely Entitlement Complex you have there! If you think your ability to obtain a paycheck is dependent on you being as unproductive as possible without getting fired then you will be unemployed long before I will.
Is that accurate?
No. GP post suggested automating tasks and seeking no additional work while collecting the same paycheck for less work. If you can automate a task which saves time then you should go seek out a new task to fill the time. You are not paid to sit on your ass and admire your handiwork. There is a difference between making yourself more efficient at your job so that more gets done and pretending to do work that you have automated to collect a paycheck. The former is worthy of promotion, the later is fraud.
Absolutely, but DO NOT TELL ANYONE. honestly automation will not get you a raise or a promotion, it will just get you extra work. for the same pay.
And if you worked for me and I found you doing this I would fire you on the spot. You are being paid to perform a certain number of hours of work, not to sit on your ass and collect a paycheck. What you are suggesting is fraud, plain and simple.
Bull.
I bow to the eloquence of your argument. [/sarcasm]
Besides. The actual shock that hit the Fukushima area was a 6.6 (as it was over a hundred miles from the epicenter). That ISN'T what damaged the reactor.
All of which is well understood and wasn't under debate. What is under debate is the assertion that large magnitude quakes are so unusual that they cannot or should not be planned for. The fact that a tsunami was the proximal cause of the damage in the case of Fukashima does not mean that large earthquakes as well as their follow on effects can be ignored because they are not common. Once a century or even once per millennium events have to be considered in the design and operation of something as potentially dangerous as a nuclear fission power plant. Large earthquakes may be uncommon but they aren't remotely unexpected in that part of the world. There have been two in the last 10 years in eastern asia, one near Indonesia and one near Japan.
You'll forgive me if I don't take the word of "A. Random Guy" trying to win an argument on the internet.
You can believe me when I tell you I am an engineer or not. I really don't care. I would point out however that engineers are rather common here on slashdot and always have been. When someone here posits that they are an engineer you should probably assume they actually are one. Based on your user number you ought to know that by now.