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>I can’t blame Amazon for stopping production on the site. But on the other hand, can’t you? Where is the spirit today of someone like Carnegie, who said I’m g

>I can’t blame Amazon for stopping production on the site. But on the other hand, can’t you? Where is the spirit today of someone like Carnegie, who said I’m going to take all this wealth and build thousands of free public libraries? Digital imagery in various forms is the predominant art form in this era, this site is a hub for many practitioners of digital imagery. Could Amazon not see it in themselves as one of the richest corporations ever to serve a patron role in the preservation and continued operation of this site? At the cost of a mere pittance in terms of their overall resources. It’s also surprising to me that Amazon wouldn’t see some level of self interest in that. Fewer people are buying these types of cameras, but more people than ever are consuming the media these types of cameras produce, on Amazon’s platforms, platforms hosted on AWS, and elsewhere. There is definitely a value to the overall media ecosystem in keeping this resource alive. It might not be a highly quantifiable value, but that doesn’t mean it is a low value, quite the opposite I would think. As others have said it just seems a bizarre, shortsighted action, that misses the big picture, coming out of the recent economic panic in the tech industry.

fsckboy 4y ago
> Where is the spirit today of someone like Carnegie, who said I’m going to take all this wealth and build thousands of free public libraries? I'm really annoyed that philanthropy is so applauded. Yes, it's nice that a robber baron decides to give some money back, even all of it, but it would have been better for the economy if he didn't monopolize it in the first place. The giving back does not make up for the cost. Microsoft held the computer industry back in a way that was very expensive for many many customers not in the computer industry. Bill Gates shouldn't have done that.
- jwestbury 4y ago
  Philanthropy is just another way for the ultrarich to bend the world to their will -- they choose where to give money, they nearly always (Mackenzie Scott excluded) choose how the money is spent by recipients. Sometimes this has positive outcomes, but that doesn't change the fact that someone who gained incredible wealth on the backs of others' labour is then using that same wealth to further their own views.

fsckboy 4y ago

> Where is the spirit today of someone like Carnegie, who said I’m going to take all this wealth and build thousands of free public libraries? I'm really annoyed that philanthropy is so applauded. Yes, it's nice that a robber baron decides to give some money back, even all of it, but it would have been better for the economy if he didn't monopolize it in the first place. The giving back does not make up for the cost. Microsoft held the computer industry back in a way that was very expensive for many many customers not in the computer industry. Bill Gates shouldn't have done that.

jwestbury 4y ago
Philanthropy is just another way for the ultrarich to bend the world to their will -- they choose where to give money, they nearly always (Mackenzie Scott excluded) choose how the money is spent by recipients. Sometimes this has positive outcomes, but that doesn't change the fact that someone who gained incredible wealth on the backs of others' labour is then using that same wealth to further their own views.