Facebook does has some risks, but it has a much better position than many tech companies trading in the market. It is not some start up with just an idea and a dream to one day bring in money. Facebook is already the number 2 website in the world, brought in over $4 billion in 2011 in revenue and is still growing.
Even without growth, Facebook investors will likely make their money back in 40 years not 400. That is close to the rate of inflation and has the potential to growth.
Facebook has a powerful business model too. It is able to deliver targeted advertising better than Google and has strong barriers of entry to prevent competitors from getting into the market.
But all this talk on if it is a good value is meaningless if we don't know how profitable Facebook is now and its future plans for growth compared to the price of the stock.
The Pirate Bay apparently violated Swedish copyright laws. Unless you are a lawyer and understand the details of Swedish copyright law , it is hard to make a case otherwise.
At least in the US, you won't get in trouble for linking to copyrighted material unless the main purpose of the website is for violating copyright law. There is a distinction in the law that would treat websites like Google, who just use an unbiased bot to index all websites and the Pirate Bay which is a directory of mainly copyrighted content. It would not be a stretch to say that other countries have similar laws.
The deal isn't any worst than buying Apple or Amazon stock right now. The growth potential is more modest, but it is still has higher potential of returns than investing in bonds.
If you want to make 100 times the amount you invest in, you have to look for small companies that no one knows about that have the potential to make it big.
How do you get paid investing in a house? Investors get paid when they sell ownership of the stock to someone else.
Stocks represent real money making assets. The day to day trading is a suckers game, but if Facebook continues to make money long term, the intrinsic value of the company will rise and the stock will follow.
Sweden has its own copyright laws and the Pirate Bay does not even try to follow them.
IANAL, so I don't know what legal loopholes they could use to get around Swedish copyright laws, but it would be much harder to claim plausible deniability when you boast that you hosts torrent files from copyrighted work and that is your main source of Internet traffic.
Online stores have been doing it all along and many stores track customer habits using discount cards. It was only a matter of time until technology caught up to track in store behavior.
No one is going to understand a lesson on technology.
Just talk about the websites that will be affected like Youtube, Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. Most people will agree that they are legitimate websites, and will think it will be stupid if they are blocked or censored because of some user generated content.
AT&T's competitors are feeling the same pressures and are doing the same things. Verizon has tiered plans and data caps too.
The bandwidth telecom companies can provide is ultimately limited by the amount spectrum they control. All the companies will experience the same physical constraints on their network and find ways to how to ration it to its customers to balance costs and user satisfaction. This idea that someone will provide an all you can eat buffet is a fantasy.
A patent troll isn't going to get money if a business isn't profitable.
Patent trolls are a problem, but the effect on start ups is exaggerated. I just don't see anyone not start in a business in the US because of fear of patent trolls.
If Patent trolls go after a small company, they are usually established and already profitable to begin with or it is backed up with venture money. For the small fry, they want licensing fees not for income, but to help build the legal case against bigger companies.
AT&T wants its high data users to go to a competitor and clog up their networks instead.
It is a simple business decision. Spend billions of dollars upgrading you network to accommodate everyone, or develop a pricing structure to drive its heavy users away. You could lose 5-10% of your revenue, but get to support 50% less bandwidth over the network.
Patents haven't stopped all the startups in the United States.
In most cases, patent trolls don't go after you when you have made enough money worth suing over. Why put extra burden a small business that barely make ends meet, when you can make millions more after they are successful with your "invention".
The economies of scale favor the software industry more
For manufacturing, if you want to double your production, you will have to hire more people to work in factories. For software, if you can double your sales without hiring much additional help.
Not to mention that software requires highly skilled workers which not everyone has the capability to achieve. Software can also eliminate the jobs of unskilled and semi skill workers, which makes income inequality even wost.
Manufacturing helps bring jobs to unskilled and semi skilled workers which will benefit the working class along with white collared jobs.
ISPs already offer business class Internet with more reliable services and extra features that business customers need and charge higher rates accordingly. Bandwidth is just one feature that ISPs offer too. You can add web and email hosting, or a static IP and charge more.
These companies are experts at trying to figure out how to get the most money out of their customers possible.
Movie theaters offer senior discounts despite the same amount of seats. Manufacturers offer coupons and rebates so they can charge different rates to two different groups of customers. Microsoft has different versions of Windows so they can charge power users more even though it costs the same amount of money to produce.
Electronics companies will disable a few features of a product and sell it at a cheaper price, even though it costs the same amount of money to produce. They can separate customers who are cheaper with money and those who are willing to pay extra and charge them different rates.
AT&T charges its prices because there is lots of demand for its services and customers are willing to pay for it. They realize that people who use little amounts of data will pay $20 a month for service, so that is what they charge. They know that moderate to heavy customers don't want to pay more than $30 a month, so they charge them that rate.
$20 for 250MB is more reasonable than a $30 unlimited plan if you use only 100MB a month. If you think it isn't fair, they will show you the $30 plan or sell you a pay as you go data plan.
Companies price its goods based on what customers are willing to pay, not based on costs. They realize that people who use little data a month will still pay $20 so that their emails get to their phone. For them, the ability to access the data on network for a whole month is worth more to them than the actual data amount.
In Economic terms, it is called price discrimination. They separate groups of people into high data usage and low data and charge them on what they are willing to pay. It is not much different than movie theaters offering cheaper tickets for matinee showings even though it there is no difference in costs.
The overage fees aren't that bad for data connections. The texting plan overages can do far more damage in comparison.
AT&T makes the most money off people who pay $30 a month who use zero MB of data.
They use people's fear of overages to make them pay for more data than they really need. People have no problem paying $30 for 3GB even though they only use 1GB. They are overpaying 2GB a month but don't even realize it.
If I write my own book, I believe that no one should be able to steal my work and profit off of it without my permission. If I write a piece of software, I have the right to choose to open source it or sell it to others. Good luck convincing me and the masses that they shouldn't profit off their own work.
There are legitimate concerns about the SOPA and the current IP laws, but not one is going to care that you feel exploited because you can't download Skyrim or the latest Twilight Saga for free. I am sure the serfs and slaves under the feudal system can empathize with your plight.
Most people believe in intellectual property laws to some extent. They might not agree with the RIAA suing teenagers for billions of dollars, but they also don't think you have a right to download all the movies you want without paying for them.
There is some rational reasons why there should be stronger piracy laws and there are also rational concerns why the laws can be abused and limit freedom of the Internet. Just because some politicians don't agree with you, doesn't mean they are trying to destroy you.
Slashdot Mirror
Facebook does has some risks, but it has a much better position than many tech companies trading in the market. It is not some start up with just an idea and a dream to one day bring in money. Facebook is already the number 2 website in the world, brought in over $4 billion in 2011 in revenue and is still growing.
Even without growth, Facebook investors will likely make their money back in 40 years not 400. That is close to the rate of inflation and has the potential to growth.
Facebook has a powerful business model too. It is able to deliver targeted advertising better than Google and has strong barriers of entry to prevent competitors from getting into the market.
But all this talk on if it is a good value is meaningless if we don't know how profitable Facebook is now and its future plans for growth compared to the price of the stock.
The Pirate Bay apparently violated Swedish copyright laws. Unless you are a lawyer and understand the details of Swedish copyright law , it is hard to make a case otherwise.
At least in the US, you won't get in trouble for linking to copyrighted material unless the main purpose of the website is for violating copyright law. There is a distinction in the law that would treat websites like Google, who just use an unbiased bot to index all websites and the Pirate Bay which is a directory of mainly copyrighted content. It would not be a stretch to say that other countries have similar laws.
The deal isn't any worst than buying Apple or Amazon stock right now. The growth potential is more modest, but it is still has higher potential of returns than investing in bonds.
If you want to make 100 times the amount you invest in, you have to look for small companies that no one knows about that have the potential to make it big.
How do you get paid investing in a house? Investors get paid when they sell ownership of the stock to someone else.
Stocks represent real money making assets. The day to day trading is a suckers game, but if Facebook continues to make money long term, the intrinsic value of the company will rise and the stock will follow.
The point is that Google and Youtube make an effort to follow copyright laws. The Pirate Bay doesn't.
Sweden has its own copyright laws and the Pirate Bay does not even try to follow them.
IANAL, so I don't know what legal loopholes they could use to get around Swedish copyright laws, but it would be much harder to claim plausible deniability when you boast that you hosts torrent files from copyrighted work and that is your main source of Internet traffic.
Google and Youtube respond to DMCA request. They follow the laws and can easily claim plausible deniability.
Pirate Bay never took down any content due to copyright violations and boasts about it. There is no comparison.
Online stores have been doing it all along and many stores track customer habits using discount cards. It was only a matter of time until technology caught up to track in store behavior.
No one is going to understand a lesson on technology.
Just talk about the websites that will be affected like Youtube, Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. Most people will agree that they are legitimate websites, and will think it will be stupid if they are blocked or censored because of some user generated content.
AT&T's competitors are feeling the same pressures and are doing the same things. Verizon has tiered plans and data caps too.
The bandwidth telecom companies can provide is ultimately limited by the amount spectrum they control. All the companies will experience the same physical constraints on their network and find ways to how to ration it to its customers to balance costs and user satisfaction. This idea that someone will provide an all you can eat buffet is a fantasy.
He just looked at some information online and wrote a vague letter. It is not enough to justify two years in jail.
Maybe if he had the actual materials to make a bomb or letters with specifics on a plan, then it would be more than justified.
A patent troll isn't going to get money if a business isn't profitable.
Patent trolls are a problem, but the effect on start ups is exaggerated. I just don't see anyone not start in a business in the US because of fear of patent trolls.
If Patent trolls go after a small company, they are usually established and already profitable to begin with or it is backed up with venture money. For the small fry, they want licensing fees not for income, but to help build the legal case against bigger companies.
AT&T wants its high data users to go to a competitor and clog up their networks instead.
It is a simple business decision. Spend billions of dollars upgrading you network to accommodate everyone, or develop a pricing structure to drive its heavy users away. You could lose 5-10% of your revenue, but get to support 50% less bandwidth over the network.
Apple is not successful because of its hoards of cheap mediocre programmers.
Patents haven't stopped all the startups in the United States.
In most cases, patent trolls don't go after you when you have made enough money worth suing over. Why put extra burden a small business that barely make ends meet, when you can make millions more after they are successful with your "invention".
The economies of scale favor the software industry more
For manufacturing, if you want to double your production, you will have to hire more people to work in factories. For software, if you can double your sales without hiring much additional help.
Not to mention that software requires highly skilled workers which not everyone has the capability to achieve. Software can also eliminate the jobs of unskilled and semi skill workers, which makes income inequality even wost.
Manufacturing helps bring jobs to unskilled and semi skilled workers which will benefit the working class along with white collared jobs.
ISPs already offer business class Internet with more reliable services and extra features that business customers need and charge higher rates accordingly. Bandwidth is just one feature that ISPs offer too. You can add web and email hosting, or a static IP and charge more.
These companies are experts at trying to figure out how to get the most money out of their customers possible.
Movie theaters offer senior discounts despite the same amount of seats. Manufacturers offer coupons and rebates so they can charge different rates to two different groups of customers. Microsoft has different versions of Windows so they can charge power users more even though it costs the same amount of money to produce.
Electronics companies will disable a few features of a product and sell it at a cheaper price, even though it costs the same amount of money to produce. They can separate customers who are cheaper with money and those who are willing to pay extra and charge them different rates.
AT&T charges its prices because there is lots of demand for its services and customers are willing to pay for it. They realize that people who use little amounts of data will pay $20 a month for service, so that is what they charge. They know that moderate to heavy customers don't want to pay more than $30 a month, so they charge them that rate.
$20 for 250MB is more reasonable than a $30 unlimited plan if you use only 100MB a month. If you think it isn't fair, they will show you the $30 plan or sell you a pay as you go data plan.
Companies price its goods based on what customers are willing to pay, not based on costs. They realize that people who use little data a month will still pay $20 so that their emails get to their phone. For them, the ability to access the data on network for a whole month is worth more to them than the actual data amount.
In Economic terms, it is called price discrimination. They separate groups of people into high data usage and low data and charge them on what they are willing to pay. It is not much different than movie theaters offering cheaper tickets for matinee showings even though it there is no difference in costs.
The overage fees aren't that bad for data connections. The texting plan overages can do far more damage in comparison.
AT&T makes the most money off people who pay $30 a month who use zero MB of data.
They use people's fear of overages to make them pay for more data than they really need. People have no problem paying $30 for 3GB even though they only use 1GB. They are overpaying 2GB a month but don't even realize it.
You don't calculate your water bill based on if you leave all the faucets in your house on for 24/7.
I don't see the big deal as long as AT&T notifies the customer of overages when they occur.
If I write my own book, I believe that no one should be able to steal my work and profit off of it without my permission. If I write a piece of software, I have the right to choose to open source it or sell it to others. Good luck convincing me and the masses that they shouldn't profit off their own work.
There are legitimate concerns about the SOPA and the current IP laws, but not one is going to care that you feel exploited because you can't download Skyrim or the latest Twilight Saga for free. I am sure the serfs and slaves under the feudal system can empathize with your plight.
You already have copyright to protect the software you created. No patents are required for a factory to make you disk or market your work.
You are in the minority.
Most people believe in intellectual property laws to some extent. They might not agree with the RIAA suing teenagers for billions of dollars, but they also don't think you have a right to download all the movies you want without paying for them.
There is some rational reasons why there should be stronger piracy laws and there are also rational concerns why the laws can be abused and limit freedom of the Internet. Just because some politicians don't agree with you, doesn't mean they are trying to destroy you.