So of 100 people 50 people needed to be paid for 5 years. That is 250 People Years (PY) So each of those 100 had to pay 2.5PY in advance with the chance of getting it back.
Now the average is 75-80. Let us take 75. That means 100 live 10 years. That is 1000PY. That means the cost has 4 folded. Double the time for double the people. And that is if all people still work till that point in time.
So yes, it is much more expensive, The thing is that many people will say that is will be better if you pay for it yourself, but the thing is, most people do not know when they are going to die. So if you are unlucky and live to be 115, like my greataunt, you will not have enough and die a horrible death in poverty.
The thing is that some people thought it was a great idea to see if it was possible to make these amounts larger and invested with them and lost. A pension should not be investment money. Investment money is money you can afford to loose.
Well, paid roads are a thing. Just like paying for bridges to pass them. So what you are saying is that we need more of that? Because this will increase something unrelated? Nice.
In a normal country the worst that should happen is a letter that says that they can not accept his letter, because he can not be stating he is an engineer and he should resend it without the title. A second letter could have been an official warning not to use the title. A third letter would be a fine.
The same would be true if he would send in a letter about illness and stating he is a doctor. Or if you state that you are a woman of color while you are actually white, or gender fluid, while you are actually an idiot.
The fact that money is exchanged will make things easier as there will be some sort of contract, signed or not. If there is nothing signed, it will become harder, but not impossible. Just because it was free does not mean that there should be no reponsability.
The right to privacy is a given, If you do not have that, all the other rights mean fuck all.
It is like the right to eat what you like. Just because it isn't written does not mean it isn't there.
On a side note: these rights only mean something if they are enforced. If they are not enforced they also mean nothing. How can they not be enforced? By not having any consequences if it is broken.
Assumptions are made in real life as well. You see somebody walking into a store and you will have an opinion about that person. Be it positive or negative. (You never get a second chance on a first impression)
Sometimes you will even have an opinion about somebody before you see them. e.g. you are told to have a meeting or an interview with the manager of the IT department of company X. You have never met that person, but you will already have an opinion about that person. That will than be adapted when you see the moment you see that person. You get a handshake. You hear the person say his name, so you hear his voice. He sits down and you will base your opinion on all those things.
You will even adapt your own behavior to this. And he will do the same with you and adapt his behavior to yours. In a way it is like a modem syncing.
On Social media you have WAY less information to base your opinion. That means you will have less opportunities to correct your opinion. iow: Your syncing does not work.
So you get the idea that people disagree with you more than in real life. In real life you might disagree on subject X, but you might agree on what clothes to wear on what beer you drink or other things. So the dislike will go from 100 to 75 to perhaps even 40. I am sure everybody knows people they disagree with on some or even many subjects and still like.
How do I know this? Because it is not something new. When Usenet was still a thing, I was on Usenet. We had a new cow orker who on his first day started telling how he disliked this idiot houghi on Usenet. Everybody became silent and I started asking him why. He explained why and I was baffled that he had such an idea of me. Somebody said that I, in fact, was not only his supervisor, but also houghi,
I thought it was funny. We have later talked about that a few times and that is how I cam to the above conclusion. It was interesting to see how his first impression of real me changed his idea of Usenet me almost instantly.
Other places where I have seen this was doing bug reports and several months later meeting those people in person.
Marketing. People buy water in a bottle that they can get at 1/10 and more of the price at home.
"But my water from the tap is hard/soft/does not taste nice" Unless you live in Flint, you have fallen for the marketing and making excuses for the companies that sold you into it.
We now have to push 4 buttons for our pin code. This is obviously way to difficult. Especially for people that use Imperial instead of Metric. (Remember: Causation is similar to correlation)
Of the several companies, there where software companies as well as the IT departments in all the companies I have worked and have visited.
I see it as just one of the differences between the US and Europe. Europeans prefer open space. Americans prefer cubicles. Obviously not all on either side.
Perhaps it is just that people do not like change and will "like" what they are used to. You need to make clear when you do not want to disturbed and that means scary human interaction. .
If you think that the first time I saw this the first time where my father worked in what must have been 1975 or so. That was also not a startup. It wasn't even an Internet company. Just boring metal industry.
To me cubicles is counter-productive bullshit to give people the idea they have their own office, while it is absolutely not the case that many employees swallow.
I even have experienced one place where they had semi-cubicles. I had them removed. The people moaned the first week, because people do not like change. I then asked if they wanted them back and the majority (80% or so) said no. The advantages according to the people: 1) They have much more spaces or at least it felt as if their desks where larger. 2) The was way less noise as you could see if somebody was busy and not bother them 3) Less walking around to see if people where busy and walk back if they where not, so more productivity 4) More interaction with other people, resulting in a better understanding and less stress
Disadvantages according to the people 1) Less place to hang up personal things 2) People can see what you are doing (take that as you will) 3) I do not have my "office" anymore and feel less important
I another place it was asked if people wanted cubicles or not. They where allowed to make a selection themselves. Again the majority went with no cubicles. This was a new building with a new space. Again around 75-80% in favor.
The reason it was asked in the first place was because the 25% was demanding it and the rest was silent. This made it look as if the majority was for it. If the people would have wanted it, they would have bought the things and installed them.
At yet another company in another country I closely followed the movement to a new building. The same happened there. There people went from a building where all ofiices where rather smaller (4-8 people in an office) to one with much larger offices and the general consent was that they where happy to be more among the people they work together with.
So yes, in Europe the general idea is that people like to be working in an open plan. Perhaps because they are not;there for 80 hours a week for 52 weeks for the most time.
Anecdotal: I have also received my own office once due to my function. I left the company partly because of that.
As far as I see, 25% of the people in Europe disagree. I can imagine that here on/. this percentage would be much, much, much higher.
I would assume they will have two of them. If both fail at the same time, it will already be a very clear indication of where to look. You could even include something so you see the difference between a manual shutdown or a complete failure. And the moment one turns off, you will have a high alert situation. If both turn off, you have a all hand on deck situation right away. And the people getting that alert are not on that plane.
From there on it would not be too hard to have procedures in place to take the best action. Both at the same time: Most likely a crash Both disabled manually: Highjacking situation...
The number 6 I do not understand. In all the places I worked fort where open plan. This was in several sectors and both in new and in old companies.
I think that in Europe it is much more standard. Most of the time it is semi-open. Meaning that it is per department or sub-department of 5-50people. So not everybody in one hall, but also not everybody in his own box.
The thing where I could verify was with clothes. I used to buy more expensive clothes as I was brought up on the idea that you pay fpr quality. So I bought for quality. The cheap clothes you bought where just that:cheap. Now I buy cheap clothes and they last almost as mong as the expensive ones. When I buy socks, I buy 30 pair of black socks. No sorting. I just bought new ones and threw out the old ones after 5 years or so (I had 27 of them left) as they started to turn grey. The price I paid for them was 30EUR. Last time I also paid 30EUR. That is 1EUR per pair. I could go for for these as I did in the past. But they did not last 15 times as long. So they where not 15 times as good.
The thing is that the quality of cheap goods has increased. That makes it more economical to buy cheap in the long run.
The same goes for electronics. DVD player I bought at one time was 400EUR. A week later I bought one for 40EUR. The first one did not last 10 times longer and the output quality of the images was the same.
With tools the general advice is to first buy cheap and if it breaks, replace it with quality, because you might buy it, but perhaps not use it enough to break it.
So no, you will not have complete infor,ation. Also because even if you do the things I did above, in case of the DVD player. The 400EUR one broke after 2 years. The 40EUR one did not. Meaningless with a samplesiwe of 1. However if I would have bought only the 40EUR one, it could have broken every 3 months with no warrenty so I would have need to buy a new one and in this case it STILL would have been cheaper.
So cheaper has become more economical for a LOT of things in the long run.
The next 100MM will be there faster than the first 100MM, so all you need to do is see what time it took, reduce one day and that is the timeframe.
It is meaningless, I know. If you think about it, it also becomes obvious that it will be faster. Most of the time the first time around will be slow going. They did not have content enough for many. They did not have specific content for specific groups. Now they do.
Also there are a LOT of places they have still enough to grow. Not sure if they have Spanish content, but that would increase a lot already. Having local prodcutions will help a lot in many countries. They can first buy it of the shelf and then later start producing some things themselves. They know how to.
Remember that the US has only 350MM people or so. The rest of the world is a LOT bigger.
Another question is how it will effect the enviroment. These places are, as you say, already threatened by desertification. Removing humidity from the air might even enhance that. The little bit of dez that is just enough to keep a few plants alive might be gone.
Also it will let move more people to thse areas and this increase the impact.
On point 2. You assume that you should be able to buy it, regardless if the other party is willing to sell it or not.
If I make a bookcase. If I am unwilling to sell it, just because it exists does not mean you should be able to buy it. If I sell it I am willing to sell only one, even if I have the ability to make more.
I could hire people and make a 100 and sell them. I am willing to make 100 and sell 100. That means that I have given plans on how to do this to others. You have no right to ask for number 101, not have any reason to be upset that I only sell them where I live.
I see this all the time as an excuse to pirating: It is not available to where I am or the pricing is not fair. Yet I fail to find any right you or I have that we must be able to buy everything and be made available everything, just because we want it.
Just because it would be easy to sell does not change anything. Is it stupid? Yes, absolutely, but stupid isn't illegal yet.
If I do not want to share the notes I made in class does not mean that you must be allowed to copy them. You can ask for them and I can sell them or give them or decline you access to them as they are mine.
Somebody tried to explain credit-points in the US to me once. Not sure I got it. What I understood was that the more credit you have, the better it was to get more credit. That till you can get any credit anymore.
In Belgium this works differently. Every credit and loan is mentioned at the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) and every creditor has to look there. It will mention the amount of the loan and the maximum to be paid back amount.
So if you have a loan where you will pay 500EUR, the credit company or bank will see that. If you have a card where, IF you used it completely will pay 200EUR minimal per month, you will see that, regardless of the amount that is actually used.
So if you want a credit card or a loan or similar, they will do the following: 1) Ask for your ID and they will verify that the ID is not stolen (Data is public available to check if the ID is stolen or not. ID is obligatory for people older than 12) 2) Ask for your last few payslips. 2-3 last months is standard. Payments are done per month in Belgium for most. 3) Verify what you have at the National Bank. 4) Take your income, deduct the amount from the bak, what you pay in rent (if any) some extra cost for living and see if it is still possible to give a credit and for how much.
If they give a credit to people who should not get one, the credit company is on its own and it often happens that they do not get any money back. They can ask, but have no legal way to push people to pay.
If people are not paying one loan, they will get on the blacklist. No other credit then, regardless of how much money you earn or have.
So in a way, the credit companies already to a basic check on your income and expenses and will not over credit, because they will pay if they do.
So the more credit you have, the less likely it will be possible to get a credit.
In the past TV was something I could watch and talk about with friends of what we watched the day before or the previous week. With all content available all the time, it became less likely that I could talk with friends over what they and I watched, so the social part was gone.
I then started to watch things that really interested me enough to look at without wanting to discuss it with others. So e.g. no more Big Brother, the TV show, but rather the movie.
I then started to look at how often In actually watched content and from how many channels. In the end it was 2 shows on BBC2 and one on BBC1. To me that was not worth the money I paid for cable. This was a few years ago.
In the beginning people looked as if I was crazy that I did not have TV. Now people are more and more accepting it as normal as more people don't have tv. The majority of people in Belgium that I spoke to about this do have TV, because it is in their bundle. So they have Internet and cellphone and basically get the TV for free. Sometimes it is even cheaper if they take the TV compared to not taking TV. It is also the main reason they still have a fixed phone; because it is included in the bundle.
So let me get this straight, some the fuck how, advertisers think people will buy their products when they force them sit through those busker screams.
Not only do they think that. They know it works. Sure, you won't and I won't, but then the chance of us buying anything from them compared to the people would would not before and will now is highly in favor of ads.
I used to work for a marketing company. Marketing people are not interested in who will not buy their product. They are interested who will buy their product. And if the profit is higher than the cost of the ads, it is good.
Say they have 1% of the people are a customer. They advertise aggressively to everybody. They will lose 50% of their customer base. They gain 1% of the others. That means they are now around 1.5% An increase of 0.5% of their customer base. That means the ads where successful.
Other way to look at it: if it wasn't successful, they would not do it.
They do not care about you not buying the product. They do not care about 99% of the people not buying the product. You are not their target audience. And if that means you are not watching tv, cable, movies or do not read newspapers or whatever, they are ok with that.
You are unimportant to them. Don't forget that. You are not a customer and you never will be, so why would they care?
So really quite naughty and a criminal offence, technically.
Although nice as a discussion point, it really doesn't matter as they are a big company. That makes it legal by default, unless another big company disagrees.
Indeed empty paid seats do not cost money, but they can bring in more. Here how we did it in a hotel. Understand that I do not agree on how this was handled and this was not an overbooking.
In a hotel we had 100 rooms. we booked 110 if possible. Once in a fortnight we had 1 or 2 people less as no-show as expected. We send those people to a hotel that was twice the price as they would pay with us. (yeah, we had deals, so about the same they would have paid us, we had to pay)
And yes, we have rejected people as no-show when they where late and sold the room to somebody else. That was for us NOT an overbooking, but a no-show. That again is another issue if you do not hold up your end of the bargain.
What you do with an overbooking is select the people who will not be repeat business anyway. But you see to it that they get a room if it is an overbooking. If you know there is a conference in the city, you do 5% overbooking and not 10% Or non if you have large groups coming in.
The average room occupation we had was 95% when I worked there. That would have been 90% without the overbookings. That extra 5% is basically free money. (Yes, the numbers where that high)
It is a one party government, even if there are two parties named. The issue is the 'winner takes all'. So it does not matter if they have 90% or 51%
With a multi party system where it is not winner-takes-all you need to do real politics. That means negotiating and making deals. That will lead in general to what most people want, not want the mere majority wants.
Instead of black-white, you will see a LOT of grey. And in the end that will serve more people.
Slashdot Mirror
They might pay for their Internet connection. The thing is if they paid for the law. After all, you get what you pay for.
So of 100 people 50 people needed to be paid for 5 years. That is 250 People Years (PY)
So each of those 100 had to pay 2.5PY in advance with the chance of getting it back.
Now the average is 75-80. Let us take 75. That means 100 live 10 years. That is 1000PY. That means the cost has 4 folded. Double the time for double the people. And that is if all people still work till that point in time.
So yes, it is much more expensive, The thing is that many people will say that is will be better if you pay for it yourself, but the thing is, most people do not know when they are going to die. So if you are unlucky and live to be 115, like my greataunt, you will not have enough and die a horrible death in poverty.
The thing is that some people thought it was a great idea to see if it was possible to make these amounts larger and invested with them and lost. A pension should not be investment money. Investment money is money you can afford to loose.
Well, paid roads are a thing. Just like paying for bridges to pass them. So what you are saying is that we need more of that? Because this will increase something unrelated? Nice.
In a normal country the worst that should happen is a letter that says that they can not accept his letter, because he can not be stating he is an engineer and he should resend it without the title.
A second letter could have been an official warning not to use the title.
A third letter would be a fine.
The same would be true if he would send in a letter about illness and stating he is a doctor. Or if you state that you are a woman of color while you are actually white, or gender fluid, while you are actually an idiot.
First a request, next a warning, next a fine.
The fact that money is exchanged will make things easier as there will be some sort of contract, signed or not.
If there is nothing signed, it will become harder, but not impossible. Just because it was free does not mean that there should be no reponsability.
The right to privacy is a given, If you do not have that, all the other rights mean fuck all.
It is like the right to eat what you like. Just because it isn't written does not mean it isn't there.
On a side note: these rights only mean something if they are enforced. If they are not enforced they also mean nothing. How can they not be enforced? By not having any consequences if it is broken.
Assumptions are made in real life as well. You see somebody walking into a store and you will have an opinion about that person. Be it positive or negative. (You never get a second chance on a first impression)
Sometimes you will even have an opinion about somebody before you see them.
e.g. you are told to have a meeting or an interview with the manager of the IT department of company X. You have never met that person, but you will already have an opinion about that person. That will than be adapted when you see the moment you see that person. You get a handshake. You hear the person say his name, so you hear his voice. He sits down and you will base your opinion on all those things.
You will even adapt your own behavior to this. And he will do the same with you and adapt his behavior to yours.
In a way it is like a modem syncing.
On Social media you have WAY less information to base your opinion. That means you will have less opportunities to correct your opinion. iow: Your syncing does not work.
So you get the idea that people disagree with you more than in real life. In real life you might disagree on subject X, but you might agree on what clothes to wear on what beer you drink or other things.
So the dislike will go from 100 to 75 to perhaps even 40. I am sure everybody knows people they disagree with on some or even many subjects and still like.
How do I know this? Because it is not something new. When Usenet was still a thing, I was on Usenet. We had a new cow orker who on his first day started telling how he disliked this idiot houghi on Usenet.
Everybody became silent and I started asking him why. He explained why and I was baffled that he had such an idea of me. Somebody said that I, in fact, was not only his supervisor, but also houghi,
I thought it was funny.
We have later talked about that a few times and that is how I cam to the above conclusion. It was interesting to see how his first impression of real me changed his idea of Usenet me almost instantly.
Other places where I have seen this was doing bug reports and several months later meeting those people in person.
Marketing. People buy water in a bottle that they can get at 1/10 and more of the price at home.
"But my water from the tap is hard/soft/does not taste nice" Unless you live in Flint, you have fallen for the marketing and making excuses for the companies that sold you into it.
We now have to push 4 buttons for our pin code. This is obviously way to difficult. Especially for people that use Imperial instead of Metric. (Remember: Causation is similar to correlation)
Of the several companies, there where software companies as well as the IT departments in all the companies I have worked and have visited.
I see it as just one of the differences between the US and Europe. Europeans prefer open space. Americans prefer cubicles. Obviously not all on either side.
Perhaps it is just that people do not like change and will "like" what they are used to. You need to make clear when you do not want to disturbed and that means scary human interaction.
.
If you think that the first time I saw this the first time where my father worked in what must have been 1975 or so. That was also not a startup. It wasn't even an Internet company. Just boring metal industry.
To me cubicles is counter-productive bullshit to give people the idea they have their own office, while it is absolutely not the case that many employees swallow.
I even have experienced one place where they had semi-cubicles. I had them removed. The people moaned the first week, because people do not like change. I then asked if they wanted them back and the majority (80% or so) said no.
The advantages according to the people:
1) They have much more spaces or at least it felt as if their desks where larger.
2) The was way less noise as you could see if somebody was busy and not bother them
3) Less walking around to see if people where busy and walk back if they where not, so more productivity
4) More interaction with other people, resulting in a better understanding and less stress
Disadvantages according to the people
1) Less place to hang up personal things
2) People can see what you are doing (take that as you will)
3) I do not have my "office" anymore and feel less important
I another place it was asked if people wanted cubicles or not. They where allowed to make a selection themselves. Again the majority went with no cubicles. This was a new building with a new space. Again around 75-80% in favor.
The reason it was asked in the first place was because the 25% was demanding it and the rest was silent. This made it look as if the majority was for it. If the people would have wanted it, they would have bought the things and installed them.
At yet another company in another country I closely followed the movement to a new building. The same happened there. There people went from a building where all ofiices where rather smaller (4-8 people in an office) to one with much larger offices and the general consent was that they where happy to be more among the people they work together with.
So yes, in Europe the general idea is that people like to be working in an open plan. Perhaps because they are not ;there for 80 hours a week for 52 weeks for the most time.
Anecdotal: I have also received my own office once due to my function. I left the company partly because of that.
As far as I see, 25% of the people in Europe disagree. I can imagine that here on /. this percentage would be much, much, much higher.
I would assume they will have two of them. If both fail at the same time, it will already be a very clear indication of where to look. You could even include something so you see the difference between a manual shutdown or a complete failure.
And the moment one turns off, you will have a high alert situation. If both turn off, you have a all hand on deck situation right away. And the people getting that alert are not on that plane.
From there on it would not be too hard to have procedures in place to take the best action. ...
Both at the same time: Most likely a crash
Both disabled manually: Highjacking situation
I am sure that those cheap ones did better than what they had before.
The number 6 I do not understand. In all the places I worked fort where open plan. This was in several sectors and both in new and in old companies.
I think that in Europe it is much more standard. Most of the time it is semi-open. Meaning that it is per department or sub-department of 5-50people. So not everybody in one hall, but also not everybody in his own box.
It had nothing to do with startups.
The thing where I could verify was with clothes. I used to buy more expensive clothes as I was brought up on the idea that you pay fpr quality. So I bought for quality.
The cheap clothes you bought where just that:cheap.
Now I buy cheap clothes and they last almost as mong as the expensive ones.
When I buy socks, I buy 30 pair of black socks. No sorting. I just bought new ones and threw out the old ones after 5 years or so (I had 27 of them left) as they started to turn grey. The price I paid for them was 30EUR. Last time I also paid 30EUR.
That is 1EUR per pair. I could go for for these as I did in the past. But they did not last 15 times as long. So they where not 15 times as good.
The thing is that the quality of cheap goods has increased. That makes it more economical to buy cheap in the long run.
The same goes for electronics. DVD player I bought at one time was 400EUR. A week later I bought one for 40EUR. The first one did not last 10 times longer and the output quality of the images was the same.
With tools the general advice is to first buy cheap and if it breaks, replace it with quality, because you might buy it, but perhaps not use it enough to break it.
So no, you will not have complete infor,ation. Also because even if you do the things I did above, in case of the DVD player. The 400EUR one broke after 2 years. The 40EUR one did not. Meaningless with a samplesiwe of 1. However if I would have bought only the 40EUR one, it could have broken every 3 months with no warrenty so I would have need to buy a new one and in this case it STILL would have been cheaper.
So cheaper has become more economical for a LOT of things in the long run.
The next 100MM will be there faster than the first 100MM, so all you need to do is see what time it took, reduce one day and that is the timeframe.
It is meaningless, I know. If you think about it, it also becomes obvious that it will be faster. Most of the time the first time around will be slow going. They did not have content enough for many. They did not have specific content for specific groups. Now they do.
Also there are a LOT of places they have still enough to grow. Not sure if they have Spanish content, but that would increase a lot already. Having local prodcutions will help a lot in many countries. They can first buy it of the shelf and then later start producing some things themselves. They know how to.
Remember that the US has only 350MM people or so. The rest of the world is a LOT bigger.
Another question is how it will effect the enviroment. These places are, as you say, already threatened by desertification. Removing humidity from the air might even enhance that. The little bit of dez that is just enough to keep a few plants alive might be gone.
Also it will let move more people to thse areas and this increase the impact.
On point 2.
You assume that you should be able to buy it, regardless if the other party is willing to sell it or not.
If I make a bookcase. If I am unwilling to sell it, just because it exists does not mean you should be able to buy it. If I sell it I am willing to sell only one, even if I have the ability to make more.
I could hire people and make a 100 and sell them. I am willing to make 100 and sell 100. That means that I have given plans on how to do this to others. You have no right to ask for number 101, not have any reason to be upset that I only sell them where I live.
I see this all the time as an excuse to pirating: It is not available to where I am or the pricing is not fair. Yet I fail to find any right you or I have that we must be able to buy everything and be made available everything, just because we want it.
Just because it would be easy to sell does not change anything. Is it stupid? Yes, absolutely, but stupid isn't illegal yet.
If I do not want to share the notes I made in class does not mean that you must be allowed to copy them. You can ask for them and I can sell them or give them or decline you access to them as they are mine.
Somebody tried to explain credit-points in the US to me once. Not sure I got it. What I understood was that the more credit you have, the better it was to get more credit. That till you can get any credit anymore.
In Belgium this works differently. Every credit and loan is mentioned at the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) and every creditor has to look there. It will mention the amount of the loan and the maximum to be paid back amount.
So if you have a loan where you will pay 500EUR, the credit company or bank will see that. If you have a card where, IF you used it completely will pay 200EUR minimal per month, you will see that, regardless of the amount that is actually used.
So if you want a credit card or a loan or similar, they will do the following:
1) Ask for your ID and they will verify that the ID is not stolen (Data is public available to check if the ID is stolen or not. ID is obligatory for people older than 12)
2) Ask for your last few payslips. 2-3 last months is standard. Payments are done per month in Belgium for most.
3) Verify what you have at the National Bank.
4) Take your income, deduct the amount from the bak, what you pay in rent (if any) some extra cost for living and see if it is still possible to give a credit and for how much.
If they give a credit to people who should not get one, the credit company is on its own and it often happens that they do not get any money back. They can ask, but have no legal way to push people to pay.
If people are not paying one loan, they will get on the blacklist. No other credit then, regardless of how much money you earn or have.
So in a way, the credit companies already to a basic check on your income and expenses and will not over credit, because they will pay if they do.
So the more credit you have, the less likely it will be possible to get a credit.
In the past TV was something I could watch and talk about with friends of what we watched the day before or the previous week. With all content available all the time, it became less likely that I could talk with friends over what they and I watched, so the social part was gone.
I then started to watch things that really interested me enough to look at without wanting to discuss it with others. So e.g. no more Big Brother, the TV show, but rather the movie.
I then started to look at how often In actually watched content and from how many channels. In the end it was 2 shows on BBC2 and one on BBC1. To me that was not worth the money I paid for cable. This was a few years ago.
In the beginning people looked as if I was crazy that I did not have TV. Now people are more and more accepting it as normal as more people don't have tv. The majority of people in Belgium that I spoke to about this do have TV, because it is in their bundle. So they have Internet and cellphone and basically get the TV for free. Sometimes it is even cheaper if they take the TV compared to not taking TV. It is also the main reason they still have a fixed phone; because it is included in the bundle.
Do they actually want it? Not really.
Not only do they think that. They know it works. Sure, you won't and I won't, but then the chance of us buying anything from them compared to the people would would not before and will now is highly in favor of ads.
I used to work for a marketing company. Marketing people are not interested in who will not buy their product. They are interested who will buy their product. And if the profit is higher than the cost of the ads, it is good.
Say they have 1% of the people are a customer. They advertise aggressively to everybody. They will lose 50% of their customer base. They gain 1% of the others. That means they are now around 1.5% An increase of 0.5% of their customer base. That means the ads where successful.
Other way to look at it: if it wasn't successful, they would not do it.
They do not care about you not buying the product. They do not care about 99% of the people not buying the product. You are not their target audience. And if that means you are not watching tv, cable, movies or do not read newspapers or whatever, they are ok with that.
You are unimportant to them. Don't forget that. You are not a customer and you never will be, so why would they care?
Although nice as a discussion point, it really doesn't matter as they are a big company. That makes it legal by default, unless another big company disagrees.
Indeed empty paid seats do not cost money, but they can bring in more. Here how we did it in a hotel. Understand that I do not agree on how this was handled and this was not an overbooking.
In a hotel we had 100 rooms. we booked 110 if possible. Once in a fortnight we had 1 or 2 people less as no-show as expected. We send those people to a hotel that was twice the price as they would pay with us. (yeah, we had deals, so about the same they would have paid us, we had to pay)
And yes, we have rejected people as no-show when they where late and sold the room to somebody else. That was for us NOT an overbooking, but a no-show. That again is another issue if you do not hold up your end of the bargain.
What you do with an overbooking is select the people who will not be repeat business anyway. But you see to it that they get a room if it is an overbooking. If you know there is a conference in the city, you do 5% overbooking and not 10% Or non if you have large groups coming in.
The average room occupation we had was 95% when I worked there. That would have been 90% without the overbookings. That extra 5% is basically free money. (Yes, the numbers where that high)
"Fool me once, shame on â" shame on you. Fool me â" you can't get fooled again.â --Benjamin Franklin
It is a one party government, even if there are two parties named. The issue is the 'winner takes all'. So it does not matter if they have 90% or 51%
With a multi party system where it is not winner-takes-all you need to do real politics. That means negotiating and making deals. That will lead in general to what most people want, not want the mere majority wants.
Instead of black-white, you will see a LOT of grey. And in the end that will serve more people.