bryndos
@bryndos@fedia.io
- Comment on Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam? 1 day ago:
UK law basically doesn't use the term.
My point was that proving dominance and abuse is rarely objective fact. It sure isn't showing market share and that some games companies go out of business. They have to show the things that valve does to restrict competition - being popular isn't enough alone.
Your last question is quite a good example of how hard it is to prove because it includes counterfactual comparisons.
This might be why it seems (if the journo is to be believed) that they're going down the tie-ins angle for the DLC, not necessarily headline pricing. Thou the latter would probably a worse outcome for valve if guilty.
- Comment on Why is Valve being sued for almost $900 million, but Epic Games wasn't sued when they bought Rocket League and Fall Guys to remove them from steam? 2 days ago:
There are not many objectively provable monopolies and i doubt that English law would support that claim without extremely strong evidence, generally utilities are the only ones that'd get close. A necessity with high fixed costs and infrastructure lock-in.
Steam has high market share in a segment, but not necessarily a distinct segment, I'm sure steam would argue that there are enough consumers who can and do substitute between pc and console and mobile, as well as other vendors so that their market power is mitigated by a fair amount of consumer mobility.
So what you're looking to prove is unlikely to be a pure "monopoly" but 'excess market power', and 'abuse of market power'. That is a complex legal art that the competition regulator is usually not that successful at proving, at least in English law.
Abuse of market power has to impact consumers not producers. There are always marginal producers struggling to make a profit - that happens in competitive markets, producers bidding prices down, some going out of business. I'm not saying I agree, but that's more or less how the law sees it, lookup what they let supermarkets get away with in contracts with farmers.
To show consumer harm from upstream market manipulation you'd probably have to show a material dearth of choice being created by steam policies in order to jack up prices. Maybe that can be demonstrated, but it's not simple and more likely to come down to subjective interpretation of the arguments and evidence from both sides rather than any unarguable objective truth.
If it were unarguable or objectively true then the CMA might lead the investigation itself instead of this being a private action. Though maybe this is too small a market for them to worry about.
- Comment on Looking for a European news service 3 days ago:
I think Europe is about the location of seas, oceans and plate boundaries.
- Comment on Looking for a European news service 3 days ago:
Downvote for BBC - state propaganda/MI6 vehicle.
And generally just shit journalism.
Grauniad is pretty shite too - the crossword is ok. - Comment on 3 days ago:
00 on cheques . That normally has a line connecting at the top, that's the only one I can think of.
- Comment on 3 days ago:
Because seven ate nine.
- Comment on Is it possible that the rich are so rich that they have created inflation? 4 days ago:
Yes, not necessarily "because" they hold wealth, but as a consequence of how they got there. It's more of a symptom. Although collateral makes it easier to borrow from a bank, and banks create money supply, thus creating inflation every time they make an investment that wasnt productive. (edit: timing matters here, probably better to say they create general inflationary pressure until their investment becomes productive).
Any transfer not connected to production can create inflation, especially if they borrow money to do it.
TBF second hand house purchases do this if transacted for a higher price - and linked to a mortgage. So all property owners are at it to some degree - unless there is price regulation , rent control, or sufficient social housing to prevent housing congestion.
Same is true for amassing market power in other markets where you do it to extract supernormal profits rather than increase production.
Simple example would be to monopolise a product - a rational monopolist will jack up prices and withhold supply. So long as they're not regulated directly or by a credible threat of market entry and competition.Now combine the two, convince a bank to lend you money in order to buy out all your competition and amass excessive market power. Then you've created both money supply driven and product specific inflation. Nice!
Might as well grift some govt subsidies that don't actually commit you to producing anything whilst you're at it - if govt borrow to do it then you might get some more money supply based inflation.
If you're effective at this then dumb short sighted investors keep throwing money at you in the hope that you'll keep doing it and give them a slice of your monopoly profits - in fact it might be "short-term" rational to do this - but i suspect / hope that is due to an underestimated risk.
- Comment on ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering 5 days ago:
(|)
edit: fuck this, fucking webshite,. its fucking my ascii-arse
(UNDERSCORE|UNDERSCORE)
fml
- Comment on Penetration 1 week ago:
TIL Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus as a consequence of rage quitting.
- Comment on Deep Time 1 week ago:
Ditching our thagomizers for the ability to craft giant iron flails.
Min-maxing to ruin the game for everyone.
- Comment on Gonna be here a while 1 week ago:
Can i do:
dd if=/dev/null of=/
? - Comment on Gehheie88f3nj3-i-odk3j4y8-fff-jej 1 week ago:
After the generations of repeated offence to the Betelgeusish by earthlings trying to pronounce the native name for their home star, it's probably for the best.
"I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle"
- Comment on If the 2028 United States presidential election was held today, who would you vote for? 1 week ago:
yep.
"If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true."
- Comment on If the 2028 United States presidential election was held today, who would you vote for? 1 week ago:
Pedro
- Comment on If someone tells you "you support socialism, yet you use products of capitalism", what would you say? 1 week ago:
yeah definately. i mean pretty much anything live. people sitting in a room entertaining each other, that's fairly social, and much less capital intensive than big media entertainment .
- Comment on If someone tells you "you support socialism, yet you use products of capitalism", what would you say? 1 week ago:
you do what you can.
Substitute labour intensive alternatives. Its generally quite easy for recreation just go to an open mic night in the pub or a pwyf concert instead of all these streaming things. or take a walk in the park, or a hike in the hills instead of spending money on entertainment. Something like a game of football/soccer is pretty ultimate socialism entertainment - just don't pay to watch other people get your kicks for you.
Go out of your way to use public transport as much as possible even if it's slower or more inconvenient. This good practice in compromise to try social efficiency and sharing assets over individualistic self centredness - this is basically tragedy of commons/prisoners dilemma though so . . . ultimately your society will need some general trust for this to work - and it will break down often.
If you need stuff prefer patent expired or open source stuff, or just old second hand stuff. also get buy it for life stuff.
Personally i can have hours of fun with a discarded wood pallet and some very old hand tools.Patent expired i.e. more open to competition/"free" market forces is like one step more socialised than the oligopolised stuff.
(That is where the free applies to the trades in the market and access to it, not to the people who want the 'freedom' to restrict trade and market entry.)You can also try to share stuff with your friends and neighbors - that's pretty sociable.
At the end of the day though land and food is essential, so if that's not available socially, you're fucked.
Grow what you can and share it around i guess. - Comment on Can socialism or communism have incentives (even without markets)? 1 week ago:
No, capitalism now owns all the carrots and all the sticks in the world.
Turnips and branches have never successfully motivated anyone.
- Comment on Real and True 1 week ago:
Pronounced jizz in case there's any doubt.
- Comment on How many active robots do you think exist today on this planeeet by your best estimate ? 1 week ago:
50 thousand give or take 10 thousand.
For me active means in motion, floating on water, where that motion (net of tides and currents) was exclusively caused by human operated oars or paddles.
The Danish navy re-floating a load of viking longships to prepare for WWIII does not count; due to the wind assistance.
- Comment on Exploding 🌳🌲🌴🌳🌲🌴🌳🌲🌴🌳 1 week ago:
I'd guess it's the species that grow there. If they regularly see -40C they'd have to have evolved to cope with it.
t could also be part of how they grow - i dunno maybe narrower / more flexible rings, better insulation, or better ways to store sap in winter conditions.
I assume this is in an area where such a temperature is very rare.
Most trees do have some radial cracks in them though - probably just some very rare cases those cracks get big enough for the tree to fall or split visibly on the outside and someone calls it an "explosion" for dramatic effect.
- Comment on also conservatives when told their groups are homomorphic 1 week ago:
I also don't get it, homoskedastic distributions are typically a lot less deviant than heteroskedastic ones.
They're way better approximated by statistics that assume 'normality'.
/j - Comment on I got a DMCA notice for having a fork of GPL 3.0 code 1 week ago:
sounds very "embrace extend extinguish" to me.
make sure to save all the evidence of GPL in some non-Gated community.
- Comment on Why are they different shapes? 1 week ago:
- Comment on Are you people all bots? 2 weeks ago:
Am i bot or not?
I 'm pretty sure my sheep is real.
- Comment on What do all the subgenres of music mean? How does anyone make sense of them? 2 weeks ago:
All that really matters to me is where they put them in the record shops that I tend to visit, so that I can find what I want, or similar stuff. This can vary shop by shop though - but usually not too much.
If in doubt just ask the shopkeeper.If the shop didn't have enough stuff to warrant a subdivision, then the term doesn't matter. If you've started using more specialist shops, then it may start to matter.
If you're trying to understand music 'journalism' / marketing/PR bullshit instead of listen to music then I have no advice. I'd rather spend more time listening to some music/radio or just randomly going to concerts than reading 90% of the shite that people write about music.
The only real issue comes for very new groups where they don't even have a bandcamp to listen to or any half decently recorded youtubes. In those cases I'd expect ticket price to be just a few quid, so just risk it and go to the show. You can always leave if it's unbearably shite.
If you want to get an idea about a genre , try to pick up a cheap compilation or samplers, or find a radio show that might play it.
- Comment on Why did I feel so hungry today for no reason? 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Is there anything like a Beholder monster before 1975? 2 weeks ago:
Yeah I'm surprised no one has dug up any obscure faerie or troll creature.
So it does seem to be fairly original thing with maybe some medusa inspiration.In the real world some of the drawings of beholders with toothy mouths make me think of angler fish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_one-eyed_creatures_in_mythology_and_fiction
There's some cool things in this list, but i don't see anything like it really similar enough.
Closest in appearance might be this listed as a 1973 comic, so close in time, but maybe too tentacleish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuma-Gorath
I can't get past this one though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa-obakeThey are generally umbrellas with one eye and jump around with one leg . . .
That should have been in D&D
- Comment on Is there anything like a Beholder monster before 1975? 2 weeks ago:
'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' (TV, 2000s) also had something similar in the "skipper the eyechild" episode. Nsfw if anyone searches it. I'd be quite surprised if they paid royalties for that.
- Comment on What common American habits do people find quietly annoying? 4 weeks ago:
Holding down a b-17 flying fortress?
- Comment on Hold on a second... 4 weeks ago:
Min Plank