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Competition is great, and you'll never see me use PayPal for personal concerns over their own anti-consumer practices, but I don't see any particular value in i

Competition is great, and you'll never see me use PayPal for personal concerns over their own anti-consumer practices, but I don't see any particular value in introducing side-shows to the event. Stripe was a real contender for PayPal because it was playing the same game. Now they actually compete. Introducing a "competitor" that is promising to NOT play the same game just means that it's a novelty. There is value in it, but it isn't going to change the monopolistic landscape because the powers that control that sector got that way by survival of the fittest. Disruption has to prove that the fitness test was invalid. And, in money, that's a LOOOOONG history of fitness testing. The financial industry is the "theory of evolution" of the business world. Its machinations are rock-solid, as far as anyone is concerned. And, to be clear, that's not to say that they don't evolve. It's been a VERY recent trend for financial institutions to deal in social responsiveness as a metric for financial success. The whole "ESG" framework wasn't thought up by controlling parties, it was DEDUCED by analysts and bureaucrats watching market trends as the world changed. And this type of evolution is WHY finances are so rock solid - finances offer the most auditable ledger humans have ever created. We can run data analytics on finances for the rest of eternity and get amazingly predictive results. So yeah - when other parties show up to the plate, offering to either disrupt the status quo based on solid analytical data, or to throw their own weight around (wherever it came from) within the status quo - I'll be 100% on board. But there's nothing I find substantial about a company that is pretending that eschewing the ESG methodology will make them competitive. Happy to invest some interest if they start making some headway, but until then it's just another tantrum thrown by people who are mad that they can't make money and say they hate people at the same time. But I will at least commiserate that we deserve better than our monopolistic overlords. I'm hoping there are more people willing to play the game in our favor (rather than for the interests of the money class), even though that isn't immediately and overwhelmingly profitable.

pessimizer 4y ago
> I don't see any particular value in introducing side-shows to the event. I think that there's a nicer way to refer to the competition of large monopolists than as "side-shows."
- catapart 4y ago
  Of course there are. Like I said, Stripe was competition. It wasn't a side-show because it didn't try to change the game without solid analytical data; instead it just played the same game and tried different methods of achieving the same goals. That's competition: We're both trying to get to the same place, and we're doing it differently. But, again, I don't see the linked site as doing that. Instead, it's trying to say that it can achieve the same goals by playing an entirely different game. And that's fine, if they can back it up. But everything that does that is a side-show until they do. A grocery store isn't competition to Wal-Mart or Amazon. If they want to be, they have to tackle the scale of supply and demand that those monopolists do. If they say "we're doing exactly what they did, just cheaper", that's competition. If they say "we're doing exactly what they did, but we have this localized scheme for deliveries that will save us a ton of money", THAT'S competition (assuming some evidence it's true). If they say "we're going to do something entirely different, and here's a bunch of convincing data to say why that would work, or work better", that is, once again, competition. But if your grocery store says "we're going to do it completely differently, because we are aggrieved!", that is a side-show. There's nothing there to engender confidence. If the store says "we're going to do it completely differently, by doing it backwards because that SHOULD work out better", that is another example of a side-show. The salient bit being that it MIGHT work. That's what's great about capitalism. But you'll forgive me if I don't get too particularly enthused about yet another right-wing think-tank pivoting into new ways for people to invest a ton of money before they agonizingly drag out their corporate demise, insisting that they are doing "fine", the whole time. It's not myopic or short-sighted to contextualize real patterns that you've observed into actionable investment or divestment of interest.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > right-wing think-tank Who are you talking about? > invest a ton of money before they agonizingly drag out their corporate demise What is so challenging about the business that they're going into other than the fact that they will be under constant attack by censors and monopolists? They seem to be safe as houses otherwise, considering that they're requiring TINs and EINs from business customers, and W-9s and SSNs from individuals.

pessimizer 4y ago

> I don't see any particular value in introducing side-shows to the event. I think that there's a nicer way to refer to the competition of large monopolists than as "side-shows."

catapart 4y ago
Of course there are. Like I said, Stripe was competition. It wasn't a side-show because it didn't try to change the game without solid analytical data; instead it just played the same game and tried different methods of achieving the same goals. That's competition: We're both trying to get to the same place, and we're doing it differently. But, again, I don't see the linked site as doing that. Instead, it's trying to say that it can achieve the same goals by playing an entirely different game. And that's fine, if they can back it up. But everything that does that is a side-show until they do. A grocery store isn't competition to Wal-Mart or Amazon. If they want to be, they have to tackle the scale of supply and demand that those monopolists do. If they say "we're doing exactly what they did, just cheaper", that's competition. If they say "we're doing exactly what they did, but we have this localized scheme for deliveries that will save us a ton of money", THAT'S competition (assuming some evidence it's true). If they say "we're going to do something entirely different, and here's a bunch of convincing data to say why that would work, or work better", that is, once again, competition. But if your grocery store says "we're going to do it completely differently, because we are aggrieved!", that is a side-show. There's nothing there to engender confidence. If the store says "we're going to do it completely differently, by doing it backwards because that SHOULD work out better", that is another example of a side-show. The salient bit being that it MIGHT work. That's what's great about capitalism. But you'll forgive me if I don't get too particularly enthused about yet another right-wing think-tank pivoting into new ways for people to invest a ton of money before they agonizingly drag out their corporate demise, insisting that they are doing "fine", the whole time. It's not myopic or short-sighted to contextualize real patterns that you've observed into actionable investment or divestment of interest.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > right-wing think-tank Who are you talking about? > invest a ton of money before they agonizingly drag out their corporate demise What is so challenging about the business that they're going into other than the fact that they will be under constant attack by censors and monopolists? They seem to be safe as houses otherwise, considering that they're requiring TINs and EINs from business customers, and W-9s and SSNs from individuals.