The government has become corrupt, and I think it's time to ban corporations from having lobbyists to influence (or flat-out bridge) the People's representatives in congress.
The Constitution has many provisions to prevent this kind of thing from the other side: simply not granting the power to the federal government for this kind of thing (although I think making a bridge might fall under "post roads", but I believe you're talking about corporate handouts in general).
However, the Constitution is pretty unfashionable these days, particularly those provisions like the 10th Amendment. And what's in fashion is being overly clever with powers like "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" so that it has no meaning anymore (rather, it basically means "do anything you want" according to modern precedent).
The plan goes something like this: 1. Identify disadvantaged group that needs some kind of help. 2. Imply that the federal government (or the highest level you can justify) is the only entity positioned to help 3. Find new powers magically appear, but nobody minds because the bill is so popular. 4. Sell new powers to the highest bidder, usually large corporations. 5. Since you didn't help the disadvantaged group to begin with, they are still there to be "helped" next time.
This is where I think liberals and progressives have been used. The political campaigns always make it look like government is at odds with large corporations, and on the side of small business (think back to last election). However, it's exactly the opposite: the only time government is at odds with a large corporation is when they didn't get the amount of money they want from that corporation, or if sacrificing the corporation is worthwhile to maintain an image. Small business doesn't get any influence, can't exercise the tax loopholes, and ends up with all the high taxes that were passed to get back at large corporations.
Actually, that's not what you wrote. You wrote a circular argument.
I disagree. The fact that people choose to make use of cars, and choose to build infrastructure around cars, is evidence that they provide a substantial benefit. I don't think that's a circular argument, it's an economic observation.
You have an uphill argument to make because, essentially, you have to argue that they are all making irrational choices.
You could argue that government has coerced people to make these choices by taxing people and allocating the resources to highways. I think this is probably the most reasonable argument that you could make. But, for the most part, people gladly vote for such policies, so I don't think the government is really twisting anybody's arm to drive cars.
If there weren't any cars, the cities and road networks would not have developed as they have, and so your example is meaningless.
It's not meaningless. What it means is that, given the existence of cars, people (in the US) prefer to use the current layout and to exploit the existence of cars, over the many alternatives.
Look at the example in TFS - motor vehicles cleaning up our cities. Well the thing is they could have done a lot.
They have done a lot. You can argue about whether cars have done as much good as can possibly be done (nothing achieves that ideal), but cars have accomplished a huge amount for this country. Take any city (even small ones), look at the traffic, and imagine if it was entirely horse traffic. There would be more pollution (although it would take a different form), more traffic (because horses are slower), more maintenance, and it would take people longer to get where they are going.
So, cars have had an amazing positive impact. If you think they can do more, that's a separate argument.
the racial disparity in the test meant that the city would be exposed to legal jeopardy if they used it as the basis for promotions and they were in fact complying with existing law in throwing it out
Isn't that supposed to be decided at trial?
Maybe I'm wrong here, because I really don't know much about the legal system. But if the races were reversed, it's hard for me to believe that such a suit would be thrown out. And it seems like a legitimate case that they aren't getting equal protection under the law. It seems highly unjust to me, and if such suits are thrown out, how is one supposed to challenge the constitutionality of such a law (assuming you're correct)?
Western culture has been about empowering the individual, about heroes. Conversely, communist nations such as Russia and China are less about individuals, and more about "the good of many outweighs the good of the few".
I think that's a simplification. The one thing that stands out to me about Western society is the rule of law, rather than the rule of man (I know that's a simplification as well).
Communal behavior is encouraged in many forms in all social systems, regardless of the government-enforced economic system. It's called "being a good citizen", "being patriotic", "being polite", "being good", etc.
There is nothing anti-capitalist about good social behavior or working together without explicit payment. Many people could be strongly libertarian, yet give to charity, participate in community organizations, etc. -- and there's nothing inconsistent about that at all.
Are people really so one-dimensional that they can't see that "good idea" does not equal "good law"? Laws are only a last resort incentive to solve a problem, because they give government the power to take your possessions, freedom, and even your life.
What everyone failed to do, that they should have done years ago, as a standard was build database abstraction layers. I know people will argue about performance
It has little to do with performance. The problem is the "abstraction" itself. What is the abstraction?
We like to pretend that everything is simple, and that all those features in SQL are just needless complexity. So, people start writing a new, simple model that "should work for 90% of people" (whatever that means is usually left unsaid).
Then, people actually start writing real business applications, and they run into problem areas that don't really fit the simple model any more. We would like to think these are edge cases, but in reality the simple model does not have a way to handle typical constraints which are derived directly from typical business rules. As a result, the data that comes out of the DBMS can't be trusted, and that results in either a completely wasted effort from the start, or mining your own data.
"I put it in a DBMS" is not any more meaningful than "I put it in a spreadsheet" or "I emailed it to you as a word document", unless that DBMS enforces useful constraints on your data that match your business rules.
SQL isn't perfect. Far from it. But it is a defined abstraction, it has an answer for a wide variety of business concerns, and it's supposed to be a standard. Energy is best spent in one of the following ways:
* better support for the standard (which MySQL has largely rejected)
* improve the standard
* replace SQL with a language that's at least as powerful
Both of these examples started from something with very little competition: XFree86 and GCC were virtual monopolies (or as close as one can get in the free software world).
MySQL doesn't enjoy quite the same status. A lot of the popularity of MySQL is on the low end (I know there are big companies using it too -- I'm talking raw numbers), and those developers are quite finicky. They could jump to PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, SQLite, or a non-SQL DBMS. Also, on the high end, people will be reluctant to jump to a fork of uncertain future.
there's probably some cases of forks where the forked version went nowhere, and no one remembers it. But that doesn't matter, as it didn't hurt to have the fork
I'm not so sure that a fork is painless. MySQL is a platform, and depends on application developers to keep it interesting. A fork pulls application developers away, and in the process they could be lost to alternative DBMSs.
Much of the power of MySQL exists because it's the "default" DBMS. If a fork starts to become viable without completely dominating (and completely dominating is unlikely), the "default" choice then presents more choices that have no default.
There are a lot of people in a "wait and see" mode with MySQL. What will Oracle do to the mainline? Which of these forks will be viable? When will they be stable enough to run production systems? When will the application developer community decide which one is the new "standard" MySQL?
If another DBMS product has an exciting release, a large fraction of these people will say "I'll check that out while I'm waiting" and never come back.
Most people just use unquoted identifiers, which are folded to lower case, and seems pretty simple to me. I believe PostgreSQL follows the standard here, except that it folds to lower case (for readability) while the standard folds to upper case.
And heaven help you if the Sequence gets out of sync. Your data is fucked at that point. The DB engine won't fix it. You aren't allowed to fix it. And the next time your app tries to use it, there's a good likelihood that it will lose data.
Can you describe this situation? The only thing I'm aware of is if you mess up a restore, and end up with data in the table but the sequence is starting at 1. But that's really easy to fix, and the only problem I can see is that you'd get unique constraint violations.
I think the #1 surprise to people coming from MySQL is that PostgreSQL is more likely to throw errors for poorly-written queries or constraint violations.
Download the 8.4 beta, install it, run an application, and if you see any more surprises or gotchas, beta time is a great time to point them out;)
It might take a while, but unless it drags on for over a year or so, I'd wager it won't be much of an issue.
I think all of the forks will be in a state of flux for several years. Why would you expect it to be less than a year? Most database projects couldn't do more than one release in that time.
Well they want to be compatible with existing MySQL versions as Monty has stated
That will only last so long. First, the forks will start adding features, even if they seem like minor new options. After a short time, all of the forks have quite a few new features, and the baseline functionality is blurred with the rest of the product.
There is no "MySQL standard" like there is a SQL standard. So, the versions will just drift apart. Application programmers will now have to test on many versions and forks of MySQL to make sure it works. The mailing list for their application will be filled with "what fork of MySQL are you using?" and "Oh, you're using that one. Do you have option_only_for_forkXYZ set to foo?" and "We're about to do a release, has anyone tested on forkXZY?".
MySQL is already suffering some of that from the different storage engines (as well as many behavior-changing configurable options). Multiplying the complexity by 2 or 3 viable forks will mean that most combinations of MySQL will be far less common than PostgreSQL/FirebirdSQL.
My prediction is that people will get excited about the new forks, but the application support will never really match it. People will use it for a few internal projects that only support that specific fork. Ultimately, it will just lead to frustration. I do not think that anything except mainline MySQL will really be a serious player.
These forks may be interesting as a playground for new ideas, however -- and maybe that's how the authors intend them.
Those aren't exactly forks, but you bring up an interesting point: the different storage engines don't support the same features, and don't have the same user-visible behaviors. So, that means application developers must test on all of the various storage engines that they intend to support -- which is very similar to supporting many forks of the same product.
There are probably some types of reasonably priced types of solder that either do not use tin or have tin and are alloyed in such a way that "tin whiskers" is not an issue.
"Probably"?
Otherwise, RoHS guidelines offer exemptions for certain applications if no other substance will work or is not economical.
His argument was that it caused degradation in products that otherwise wouldn't degrade. I'm sure it's possible to try to argue to still use lead in that case, but it's easier to just let the consumer bear the cost of replacing the products. If everyone is doing it, the consumer doesn't have anywhere to turn, and it probably increases the profits of the manufacturers because the consumers have to keep replacing their products.
It might actually hurt the environment overall, because the hazardous materials that can't be economically replaced are thrown in the landfill every time the products degrade and need to be replaced.
I don't know what the real alternatives are. My point is that your argument is incomplete.
As safe or safer than a motorcycle or bicycle. The word "unsafe" is thrown around all the time without regard for alternatives and real-life trade-offs.
doesn't always need to be planned "centrally" (by the federal government)
Then who is the "we" in "we can't, as a people"? There are already plenty of localities with decent public transportation infrastructure. What needs to change, and at what level?
Third, one could argue that part of the reason Amtrak is inefficient is because it's so underdeveloped relative to the highway system.
Roads and freight trains have been profitable all along. Amtrak could (just like a private company) invest more in its profitable routes to improve the experience, and maybe more people would ride it. But it's trying to maintain all kinds of unprofitable routes as well, and those routes will never be profitable, because they aren't efficient.
[continues reading your post, and realizes you said almost exactly the same thing...]
I think where we disagree is that I don't think that there's really a solution here. People in the US don't necessarily want to live in a way that makes trains as efficient as they are in some urban areas. In those urban areas where public transportation is a no-brainer, it already exists, and people are generally happy with it.
The people that aren't happy are mostly people that live on the outskirts of town, but wish they had access to the trains as if they lived downtown. They don't want to move, because it's cheaper (or more spacious or quieter) out in the suburbs. So, I think it's largely people who want to have it both ways.
I have lived in both environments. Living downtown is great in a lot of ways. The times that I have lived away from downtown, it's my choice, and I have good reasons (e.g. work is not downtown), but I recognize that it's a trade-off.
So both options are available, and people can vote with their feet.
I think he was talking about the transaction costs -- which are a pretty serious loss. You have to both buy (get a new loan which involves thousands of dollars, plus a lot of other costs), and sell (which is typically about 6% loss). All together, and you're easily talking about $20k to move a normal family.
can't we try to come up with efficient solutions for our society
You're arbitrarily declaring something to be "efficient" in the general case. Where is it efficient, and where is it not efficient, and how are you measuring that?
It's a typical central planning approach: see something that "looks efficient" or "should be done" and start trying to implement it with laws all over the place.
The economic reality is that not everyone wants what you want. Not everyone behaves as you think they should.
I like public transportation. I use it pretty frequently, along with other methods of transportation that don't involve me driving myself. However, I don't try to impose my wants on everyone else using their money. And I have never moved somewhere on the outskirts of town and asked for public transportation to be delivered to my doorstep.
I'm not against "public" things either. The police are there for public safety. People build bridges for the public good. Bridges are an excellent example because, generally speaking, if you put a toll on the bridge it will pay for itself very quickly. That is real efficiency, not Amtrak "efficiency".
If people were willing to apply public transportation in truly efficient ways, that would be great. But sweeping generalities are not the way you arrive at truly efficient solutions.
Well, of course that's the best. Find someone with a billion dollars to spare, and your financial constraints are lifted. That's not exactly a business model though.
This goes back to the micropayment problem. I don't want to enter my credit card number for a single 0.99 purchase. I want to hand someone a dollar bill.
claims that a business model which has been evolving for nearly two decades is 'malfunctioning'
A lot of papers that have been around for a long time are either going bankrupt or close to it (losing money fast). That leads me to believe there is some kind of malfunction somewhere.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the newspaper business is doing just fine?
Slashdot Mirror
The government has become corrupt, and I think it's time to ban corporations from having lobbyists to influence (or flat-out bridge) the People's representatives in congress.
The Constitution has many provisions to prevent this kind of thing from the other side: simply not granting the power to the federal government for this kind of thing (although I think making a bridge might fall under "post roads", but I believe you're talking about corporate handouts in general).
However, the Constitution is pretty unfashionable these days, particularly those provisions like the 10th Amendment. And what's in fashion is being overly clever with powers like "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" so that it has no meaning anymore (rather, it basically means "do anything you want" according to modern precedent).
The plan goes something like this:
1. Identify disadvantaged group that needs some kind of help.
2. Imply that the federal government (or the highest level you can justify) is the only entity positioned to help
3. Find new powers magically appear, but nobody minds because the bill is so popular.
4. Sell new powers to the highest bidder, usually large corporations.
5. Since you didn't help the disadvantaged group to begin with, they are still there to be "helped" next time.
This is where I think liberals and progressives have been used. The political campaigns always make it look like government is at odds with large corporations, and on the side of small business (think back to last election). However, it's exactly the opposite: the only time government is at odds with a large corporation is when they didn't get the amount of money they want from that corporation, or if sacrificing the corporation is worthwhile to maintain an image. Small business doesn't get any influence, can't exercise the tax loopholes, and ends up with all the high taxes that were passed to get back at large corporations.
Actually, that's not what you wrote. You wrote a circular argument.
I disagree. The fact that people choose to make use of cars, and choose to build infrastructure around cars, is evidence that they provide a substantial benefit. I don't think that's a circular argument, it's an economic observation.
You have an uphill argument to make because, essentially, you have to argue that they are all making irrational choices.
You could argue that government has coerced people to make these choices by taxing people and allocating the resources to highways. I think this is probably the most reasonable argument that you could make. But, for the most part, people gladly vote for such policies, so I don't think the government is really twisting anybody's arm to drive cars.
If there weren't any cars, the cities and road networks would not have developed as they have, and so your example is meaningless.
It's not meaningless. What it means is that, given the existence of cars, people (in the US) prefer to use the current layout and to exploit the existence of cars, over the many alternatives.
Look at the example in TFS - motor vehicles cleaning up our cities. Well the thing is they could have done a lot.
They have done a lot. You can argue about whether cars have done as much good as can possibly be done (nothing achieves that ideal), but cars have accomplished a huge amount for this country. Take any city (even small ones), look at the traffic, and imagine if it was entirely horse traffic. There would be more pollution (although it would take a different form), more traffic (because horses are slower), more maintenance, and it would take people longer to get where they are going.
So, cars have had an amazing positive impact. If you think they can do more, that's a separate argument.
never really hearing the other side, just straight dismissal
Taken out of context, that sounds a lot like what Sotomayor did in the case in New Haven when she decided against the firemen.
I would rather look at her opinions and judge from there.
Like the case in New Haven, where her decision will probably be overturned by SCOTUS?
the racial disparity in the test meant that the city would be exposed to legal jeopardy if they used it as the basis for promotions and they were in fact complying with existing law in throwing it out
Isn't that supposed to be decided at trial?
Maybe I'm wrong here, because I really don't know much about the legal system. But if the races were reversed, it's hard for me to believe that such a suit would be thrown out. And it seems like a legitimate case that they aren't getting equal protection under the law. It seems highly unjust to me, and if such suits are thrown out, how is one supposed to challenge the constitutionality of such a law (assuming you're correct)?
Western culture has been about empowering the individual, about heroes. Conversely, communist nations such as Russia and China are less about individuals, and more about "the good of many outweighs the good of the few".
I think that's a simplification. The one thing that stands out to me about Western society is the rule of law, rather than the rule of man (I know that's a simplification as well).
Communal behavior is encouraged in many forms in all social systems, regardless of the government-enforced economic system. It's called "being a good citizen", "being patriotic", "being polite", "being good", etc.
There is nothing anti-capitalist about good social behavior or working together without explicit payment. Many people could be strongly libertarian, yet give to charity, participate in community organizations, etc. -- and there's nothing inconsistent about that at all.
Are people really so one-dimensional that they can't see that "good idea" does not equal "good law"? Laws are only a last resort incentive to solve a problem, because they give government the power to take your possessions, freedom, and even your life.
What everyone failed to do, that they should have done years ago, as a standard was build database abstraction layers. I know people will argue about performance
It has little to do with performance. The problem is the "abstraction" itself. What is the abstraction?
We like to pretend that everything is simple, and that all those features in SQL are just needless complexity. So, people start writing a new, simple model that "should work for 90% of people" (whatever that means is usually left unsaid).
Then, people actually start writing real business applications, and they run into problem areas that don't really fit the simple model any more. We would like to think these are edge cases, but in reality the simple model does not have a way to handle typical constraints which are derived directly from typical business rules. As a result, the data that comes out of the DBMS can't be trusted, and that results in either a completely wasted effort from the start, or mining your own data.
"I put it in a DBMS" is not any more meaningful than "I put it in a spreadsheet" or "I emailed it to you as a word document", unless that DBMS enforces useful constraints on your data that match your business rules.
SQL isn't perfect. Far from it. But it is a defined abstraction, it has an answer for a wide variety of business concerns, and it's supposed to be a standard. Energy is best spent in one of the following ways:
* better support for the standard (which MySQL has largely rejected)
* improve the standard
* replace SQL with a language that's at least as powerful
XFree86->X.org, and GCC->egcs->GCC
Both of these examples started from something with very little competition: XFree86 and GCC were virtual monopolies (or as close as one can get in the free software world).
MySQL doesn't enjoy quite the same status. A lot of the popularity of MySQL is on the low end (I know there are big companies using it too -- I'm talking raw numbers), and those developers are quite finicky. They could jump to PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, SQLite, or a non-SQL DBMS. Also, on the high end, people will be reluctant to jump to a fork of uncertain future.
there's probably some cases of forks where the forked version went nowhere, and no one remembers it. But that doesn't matter, as it didn't hurt to have the fork
I'm not so sure that a fork is painless. MySQL is a platform, and depends on application developers to keep it interesting. A fork pulls application developers away, and in the process they could be lost to alternative DBMSs.
Much of the power of MySQL exists because it's the "default" DBMS. If a fork starts to become viable without completely dominating (and completely dominating is unlikely), the "default" choice then presents more choices that have no default.
There are a lot of people in a "wait and see" mode with MySQL. What will Oracle do to the mainline? Which of these forks will be viable? When will they be stable enough to run production systems? When will the application developer community decide which one is the new "standard" MySQL?
If another DBMS product has an exciting release, a large fraction of these people will say "I'll check that out while I'm waiting" and never come back.
Seriously, I have to use "QuotedIdentifiers"?
Most people just use unquoted identifiers, which are folded to lower case, and seems pretty simple to me. I believe PostgreSQL follows the standard here, except that it folds to lower case (for readability) while the standard folds to upper case.
And heaven help you if the Sequence gets out of sync. Your data is fucked at that point. The DB engine won't fix it. You aren't allowed to fix it. And the next time your app tries to use it, there's a good likelihood that it will lose data.
Can you describe this situation? The only thing I'm aware of is if you mess up a restore, and end up with data in the table but the sequence is starting at 1. But that's really easy to fix, and the only problem I can see is that you'd get unique constraint violations.
I think the #1 surprise to people coming from MySQL is that PostgreSQL is more likely to throw errors for poorly-written queries or constraint violations.
Download the 8.4 beta, install it, run an application, and if you see any more surprises or gotchas, beta time is a great time to point them out ;)
It might take a while, but unless it drags on for over a year or so, I'd wager it won't be much of an issue.
I think all of the forks will be in a state of flux for several years. Why would you expect it to be less than a year? Most database projects couldn't do more than one release in that time.
Well they want to be compatible with existing MySQL versions as Monty has stated
That will only last so long. First, the forks will start adding features, even if they seem like minor new options. After a short time, all of the forks have quite a few new features, and the baseline functionality is blurred with the rest of the product.
There is no "MySQL standard" like there is a SQL standard. So, the versions will just drift apart. Application programmers will now have to test on many versions and forks of MySQL to make sure it works. The mailing list for their application will be filled with "what fork of MySQL are you using?" and "Oh, you're using that one. Do you have option_only_for_forkXYZ set to foo?" and "We're about to do a release, has anyone tested on forkXZY?".
MySQL is already suffering some of that from the different storage engines (as well as many behavior-changing configurable options). Multiplying the complexity by 2 or 3 viable forks will mean that most combinations of MySQL will be far less common than PostgreSQL/FirebirdSQL.
My prediction is that people will get excited about the new forks, but the application support will never really match it. People will use it for a few internal projects that only support that specific fork. Ultimately, it will just lead to frustration. I do not think that anything except mainline MySQL will really be a serious player.
These forks may be interesting as a playground for new ideas, however -- and maybe that's how the authors intend them.
a thousand and one storage engine
Those aren't exactly forks, but you bring up an interesting point: the different storage engines don't support the same features, and don't have the same user-visible behaviors. So, that means application developers must test on all of the various storage engines that they intend to support -- which is very similar to supporting many forks of the same product.
There are probably some types of reasonably priced types of solder that either do not use tin or have tin and are alloyed in such a way that "tin whiskers" is not an issue.
"Probably"?
Otherwise, RoHS guidelines offer exemptions for certain applications if no other substance will work or is not economical.
His argument was that it caused degradation in products that otherwise wouldn't degrade. I'm sure it's possible to try to argue to still use lead in that case, but it's easier to just let the consumer bear the cost of replacing the products. If everyone is doing it, the consumer doesn't have anywhere to turn, and it probably increases the profits of the manufacturers because the consumers have to keep replacing their products.
It might actually hurt the environment overall, because the hazardous materials that can't be economically replaced are thrown in the landfill every time the products degrade and need to be replaced.
I don't know what the real alternatives are. My point is that your argument is incomplete.
Introducing foreign species, even to battle other foreign species /NEVER WORKS/.
Sharing of animals and plants has been one of the primary forces that has allowed civilization to exist.
unsafe
As safe or safer than a motorcycle or bicycle. The word "unsafe" is thrown around all the time without regard for alternatives and real-life trade-offs.
doesn't always need to be planned "centrally" (by the federal government)
Then who is the "we" in "we can't, as a people"? There are already plenty of localities with decent public transportation infrastructure. What needs to change, and at what level?
Third, one could argue that part of the reason Amtrak is inefficient is because it's so underdeveloped relative to the highway system.
Roads and freight trains have been profitable all along. Amtrak could (just like a private company) invest more in its profitable routes to improve the experience, and maybe more people would ride it. But it's trying to maintain all kinds of unprofitable routes as well, and those routes will never be profitable, because they aren't efficient.
[continues reading your post, and realizes you said almost exactly the same thing...]
I think where we disagree is that I don't think that there's really a solution here. People in the US don't necessarily want to live in a way that makes trains as efficient as they are in some urban areas. In those urban areas where public transportation is a no-brainer, it already exists, and people are generally happy with it.
The people that aren't happy are mostly people that live on the outskirts of town, but wish they had access to the trains as if they lived downtown. They don't want to move, because it's cheaper (or more spacious or quieter) out in the suburbs. So, I think it's largely people who want to have it both ways.
I have lived in both environments. Living downtown is great in a lot of ways. The times that I have lived away from downtown, it's my choice, and I have good reasons (e.g. work is not downtown), but I recognize that it's a trade-off.
So both options are available, and people can vote with their feet.
Not all houses are sold at a huge loss
I think he was talking about the transaction costs -- which are a pretty serious loss. You have to both buy (get a new loan which involves thousands of dollars, plus a lot of other costs), and sell (which is typically about 6% loss). All together, and you're easily talking about $20k to move a normal family.
can't we try to come up with efficient solutions for our society
You're arbitrarily declaring something to be "efficient" in the general case. Where is it efficient, and where is it not efficient, and how are you measuring that?
It's a typical central planning approach: see something that "looks efficient" or "should be done" and start trying to implement it with laws all over the place.
The economic reality is that not everyone wants what you want. Not everyone behaves as you think they should.
I like public transportation. I use it pretty frequently, along with other methods of transportation that don't involve me driving myself. However, I don't try to impose my wants on everyone else using their money. And I have never moved somewhere on the outskirts of town and asked for public transportation to be delivered to my doorstep.
I'm not against "public" things either. The police are there for public safety. People build bridges for the public good. Bridges are an excellent example because, generally speaking, if you put a toll on the bridge it will pay for itself very quickly. That is real efficiency, not Amtrak "efficiency".
If people were willing to apply public transportation in truly efficient ways, that would be great. But sweeping generalities are not the way you arrive at truly efficient solutions.
I don't know much about that guy, but I would imagine he wants a return on his money.
And even if not, there are only so many billionaires to go around. Not enough to prop up journalism nationwide.
I think that choice #2 is best.
Well, of course that's the best. Find someone with a billion dollars to spare, and your financial constraints are lifted. That's not exactly a business model though.
This goes back to the micropayment problem. I don't want to enter my credit card number for a single 0.99 purchase. I want to hand someone a dollar bill.
claims that a business model which has been evolving for nearly two decades is 'malfunctioning'
A lot of papers that have been around for a long time are either going bankrupt or close to it (losing money fast). That leads me to believe there is some kind of malfunction somewhere.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the newspaper business is doing just fine?