It really seems like the idea is to create walled gardens where you profit from every part of the ecosystem. The ecosystem gets augmented with surveillance because surveillance provides the information necessary to fine tune the ecosystem. The surveillance gets augmented with automation, scaling techniques, and machine learning because they believe that better data continues producing better results. Results being anything that effectively drives profit: vendor lock in, sales, monetizing resales, monetizing game sharing, reducing labor costs, …
At a certain point, the rest of the world should decide that the American bar is too low and easily competed with — right? I mean, who wants the fruits of late stage capitalism? I imagine nobody who hasn’t been raised and educated within a culture which pre-accepts these things as normal.
When the rest of the world begins competing better, do they thing foreign gaming consoles will be banned like foreign cars?
I think they absolutely plan to ban foreign shit because it’s better than theirs. It’s now a self-contained capitalistic society, which for everyone but them is kind of ideal. Let them human-centipede their own shitty products to themselves.
Look at EVs. We in the US can’t buy cheaper, better performing EVs because of import taxes and tarrifs up to 100%. Instituted by Biden and raised by Trump btw 🙃
To buy a BYD and import it, if the car costs $30,000 USD, you’ll pay more like $150,000 USD after taxes, tariffs, import duties, licensing, registration fees, and shipping costs. And yes, even ones in Canada will still be subject to those costs trying to cross the border of course 🙃. And no, it’s not a hyperbolic number.
There’s tons of loopholes for capitalists not to pay taxes. But a plebian consumer saving money? You bet that shit is battened down, no loopholes to be found. If you look at it the wrong way you’ll be fined.
Agreed, it’s a low bar. Valve is doing it right where it just works if you’re using Steam, but the hardware is still yours to do as you please.
Judging by sales numbers, though, there have probably been a little over 5M Steam Decks sold vs. over 20M Switch 2s, 90M PS5s, etc. These companies have no incentive to offer a more fair deal if the general public will give them money either way. More competition would probably help to your point.
It really seems like the idea is to create walled gardens where you profit from every part of the ecosystem. The ecosystem gets augmented with surveillance because surveillance provides the information necessary to fine tune the ecosystem. The surveillance gets augmented with automation, scaling techniques, and machine learning because they believe that better data continues producing better results. Results being anything that effectively drives profit: vendor lock in, sales, monetizing resales, monetizing game sharing, reducing labor costs, …
At a certain point, the rest of the world should decide that the American bar is too low and easily competed with — right? I mean, who wants the fruits of late stage capitalism? I imagine nobody who hasn’t been raised and educated within a culture which pre-accepts these things as normal.
When the rest of the world begins competing better, do they thing foreign gaming consoles will be banned like foreign cars?
I think they absolutely plan to ban foreign shit because it’s better than theirs. It’s now a self-contained capitalistic society, which for everyone but them is kind of ideal. Let them human-centipede their own shitty products to themselves.
Look at EVs. We in the US can’t buy cheaper, better performing EVs because of import taxes and tarrifs up to 100%. Instituted by Biden and raised by Trump btw 🙃
To buy a BYD and import it, if the car costs $30,000 USD, you’ll pay more like $150,000 USD after taxes, tariffs, import duties, licensing, registration fees, and shipping costs. And yes, even ones in Canada will still be subject to those costs trying to cross the border of course 🙃. And no, it’s not a hyperbolic number.
There’s tons of loopholes for capitalists not to pay taxes. But a plebian consumer saving money? You bet that shit is battened down, no loopholes to be found. If you look at it the wrong way you’ll be fined.
Agreed, it’s a low bar. Valve is doing it right where it just works if you’re using Steam, but the hardware is still yours to do as you please.
Judging by sales numbers, though, there have probably been a little over 5M Steam Decks sold vs. over 20M Switch 2s, 90M PS5s, etc. These companies have no incentive to offer a more fair deal if the general public will give them money either way. More competition would probably help to your point.