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Just waiting for the call…February 26th, 2025 |
 28 comments to Just waiting for the call…Leave a Reply |
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OMFG. That tweet could have been written by me. We will see if promise turns into reality.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
I mean, to use that charming American expression: No shit, Sherlock.
It is unbelievable what has been happening in the USA since January 20th.
Fantastic! I await all of the articles decrying the 1688 patents that Amazon were granted last year, and somewhat more specifically “1-Click” (many years ago) as blatant violations of a “free market”.
(Slightly more abstractly, I look forward to his paper talking about the concept that road upkeep is largely paid for by people with small cars, whereas road damage is caused by large delivery lorries, like, I dunno, Amazon)
@neosnake, we can argue at the margins, and I’m no fan of patents, but if we can have a major newspaper saying things like “people deserve to keep what they earn”, and “the government spends too much and interferes too much in people’s business”, and “overregulation destroys the economy”, and “I might not agree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it” then America, and I suspect the world, will be a much better place.
Do you think Jeff would give me the job? Maybe I should apply 😊
If he means it, and defends it, then I’m 100% all for it.
People should, indeed, keep what they earn. Labour, after all, is entitled to all that it produces.
(Forgive me for being slightly skeptical that Jeff Bezos is about to defend that point)
Bezos?
Makes me think of Jeffrey Dahmer tweeting about his new Vegan cookbook.
Brendan, perfect.
I totally agree, it does seem unlikely — and BobbyB’s comment made me laugh so much coffee came out of my nose. However, it is also EXTREMELY unlikely that a politician will say he will help balance the budget by cutting waste, fraud and abuse, and then actually go ahead and do it. So, these days, who knows? I’m pretty sure I saw a flock of flying pigs earlier today.
He can’t afford me.
Political alignment is a bathtub curve. You have ten percent at each end of the left/right spectrum who will go to the barricades for their position and eighty percent in the middle who will go along with whoever is in charge.
bobby b, “…new vegan cookbook…” SQOTMonth!
I was thinking along the same lines…but it’s Bezos!? Have you forgotten everything?
It’s like “what if Zuckerberg suddenly discovered the value of free speech?” Oh, wait, that happened too. Well, he mouthed the words.
Where was the Megaton derisive takedown in the media on that one?
Fraser Orr, “OMFG. That tweet could have been written by me. We will see if promise turns into reality.”
And Hitler probably said at some point in his life “I love you.”
Not sure I see the significance of Bezos tweeting something aligned with our values?
I mean, yes, there’s value, in that the proletariat will see it, but no value in the realm of ideas, serious discussion/debate. Right?
Bezos, Zuck, Gates, Obama, Biteme, et al are completely, thoroughly, definitively, and comprehensively discredited from participating in any discussion of humanity and civilization. Or are you a more forgiving person than me? That’s a low bar, my tolerance for the bastards who’ve been screwing us for decades.
Please don’t mistake my tone: if we were facing each other with a couple of pints between us, you’d know my tone is one of admiration and respect!
This is what is sad about all this – I can respect a monster with monstrous principles. The monster may be an existential threat that can’t be negotiated with but I can still respect it.
How do you respect a monster that has no principles?
Bernie Sanders is a moron but he’s . . . 85% consistent and open about what he wants.
People like Bezos would destroy the world as long as they can remain important on a global scale to the end.
You can make an argument that the last few decades of the Western World have resulted in Leaders like Obama, Blair, Trudeau, The EU Commission – and all their minions, charities, QUANGOs, aligned think tanks, and the main stream media have dined well on the patronage that flowed from that political consensus.
But over the last decade it has become increasingly obvious that the old Elite cannot maintain that ‘unsullied’ patronage. After a chaotic few years the new Elite is forming as shown by the new Leaders selected, the new politics gaining favour, businesses changing their policies (Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos).
The conversion to the new Elite is not yet complete. We still have holdouts like Starmer and the EU, but they are yesterday’s people. Still some bumps in the road ahead.
neonsnake, Fraser,
What are your issues with patents? I do tend to think that at some level inventions should be protected and I am aware of how mind-bendingly complicated this is but…
I dunno. I’m conflicted especially because years back I sort of followed the MS/Apple legal wrangling about trashcans and overlapping windows and such. I recall at the time thinking Apple were taking the mickey with their whole “look and feel” argument. Obviously if MS had actually ripped-off the Apple code that would be one thing but “look and feel”?
Of course in 2001 an Aussie did this.
But doesn’t pharamceutical research (for example) require some sort of protection? Because it does cost a lot to develop a new drug.
Don’t wait for a call, submit something. That is what I am doing.
Good – as far as it goes, but we shall have to see if support for “free markets” means support for reducing government spending.
As Roger Sherman (the only Founding Father to sign all the Founding documents of the United States) pointed out centuries ago – if government spending gets out of control all high sounding talk of “freedom” and “liberty” is vain.
And, as Elon Musk pointed out at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, government spending IS out of control – the United States now has a debt of over 36 Trillion Dollars, it has a deficit of Two Trillion Dollars a year, and it spends more on servicing (not paying – just servicing) the debt, than it spends on the armed forces.
If government spending is not radically reduced the United States will collapse.
The same is true of other Western nations.
Everything and everyone, not just the Washington Post – everything and everyone, should be judged on whether or not they support reducing government spending.
That’s the thing. We don’t have to respect them. Just dangle enough carrots in front of them to ensure they do things our way. If they want to stay important, great. They can be important people working for our cause.
Can’t forget the stick aimed at their backs either. And finally, the noose in our hand if all else fails.
@Nick
I have lots of reasons, both moral and practical. I can’t hope to cover them all off in one post, but:
1) Scarcity doesn’t exist when it comes to intellectual property rights. What you have invented in your mind does not prevent me from inventing the same thing in my mind – I’ve not stolen your physical goods.
2) If two unrelated people see the same set of building blocks, and put them together in the same way – which happens a lot – the second person to do so is not actively preventing the first person from doing so. If, however, the first person is able to acquire a patent, then they are actively preventing the second person.
3) Patents criminalise competition. I’m a fervent believer in free markets, and patents are a way of making markets less free, by preventing companies from, well, competing.
Moving into more “practical senses”
4) If you have a patent on, say, a somewhat effective drug, you have no imperative to improve its performance. You can simply churn out the same drug for the lifetime of the patent. However, if someone can iterate on the effectiveness of that drug, then you are incentivised yourself to improve it. So, patents actually hold back innovation, rather than driving it.
5) Some years ago, there was a study conducted which included medical companies (which are generally the touted beneficiaries of patents), that noted that patents do not drive innovation, but instead that “first-mover” advantage is what drove innovation. I cannot find a link to it now (goddamnit!), and I believe that Fraser and I both read the same study, and likewise, neither of us can find it, so we’re a bit “source: trust me, bro”, unfortunately. I truly wish I could find the link, as it shows that patents drive up prices and reduces innovation.
Possibly moving back into moral but also practical:
6) I’m a fervent believer in free markets; and this leads me to the inevitable (?) conclusion that using the state to back you with patents is immoral. I made a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment about Amazon using patents to lock out other competitors (1-Click is the obvious example), which can then be leveraged to create a monopoly, within which it’s very difficult to compete. Amazon is not successful because it’s just “better”, it’s successful because it leverages patent laws to block competition, and has driven prices *up* after this, so it’s crap for consumers as well as sellers. My, uh, dryness on Bezos talking about “free markets” is because he doesn’t believe in them for himself. He’s perfectly content with using the awesome power of the “State” to destroy his competition via patents and other means, and then talk about “Free Market Trade”
It’s a bit like: imagine invading a country, taking all of their land, productive goods, material resources, fencing it all off for yourself and so on, and then *after* you’ve taken it all for yourself, saying “Hey guys? I’ve invented this thing I’m gonna call the Non-Aggression Principle. Taking my stuff or harming me is wrong, amirite?”
Anyone with any sense would be going “Ummm. Now hold up one second, y’all!”, yeah?
Essentially, one cannot simultaneously believe in the benefits of free-market trade, and also patents or IP.
And that’s okay! it just means we need to persuade you of the benefits of free-market trade vs state-sanctioned. It’s not just Patents, IP and the like, but all the myriad ways in which the state supports what is popularly called “capitalism”, of course, but which is not a free market at all.
@NickM I feel a bit like your question is asking Pandora “Hey, what’s in your box?” We have been through the patent debate a lot here, and I think neosnake has a pretty good summary. The bottom line is that patents do stimulate innovation but that also retard innovation — so what is the balance? Nobody has ever really studied this, and those limited studies that have been conducted are not good news for patents. And, given that they are a huge restriction on people’s rights, there had better be a damn good reason, and damn strong evidence, to support such a restriction. And, simply speaking, there isn’t.
FWIW, I don’t really agree with neosnake on Amazon. I use it all the time and it delivers really excellent service to me. If others can’t compete that has very little to do with one click patents, it is entirely to do with the fact they can’t match their prices or logistics. I think “prime membership” and all that that entails is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, and as far as I know anyone can do it, just not as well as Amazon. And as to AWS? Obviously there IS competition but Amazon crushes it because they deliver a product at a great price with very high levels of service. So, I’m afraid I don’t share the disdain some here have of Bezos. I’m a Musk fanboy, but I’m not a Bezos fanboy. However, I do have a LOT of respect for the guy, even if I don’t entirely agree with his politics (or didn’t until this latest tweet!)
FWIW, I have mixed feelings about cloud computing in general, but AWS is the King and not because of patents, but because they are better in almost every measurable way.
@neonsnake
Essentially, one cannot simultaneously believe in the benefits of free-market trade, and also patents or IP.
I don’t agree at all. I think there are many libertarians who passionately believe in free markets and in patents. All markets are governed by law, and there is always some question over what those laws should be. After all, without the law and the courts, there would be no enforcement of private property or contracts, two things central to markets. I do advocate, if a little reluctantly, for copyright law and trademark law which are in the same broad category, and I don’t think anyone could reasonably describe me as anti-free market. So, although I disagree with my fellow libertarians who advocate for patent law, I do so respectfully understanding their position. And I would never say that to reject patent law made you unqualified to be called an advocate of free markets.
And frankly, our markets are so unfree right now, anyone advocating any loosening of the noose is, to my thinking, and ally. Trump is no free marketer, but I do think his work with Doge and his previous work with deregulation makes his a positive force in the American economy.
On patents and copyrights…..
On copyright – it has gone from five years to fifty years, to seventy years after the death of the producer – in America it may be even longer.
All this was defended with sob stories about widows and orphans – but these copyrights end up in the hands of vast corporations which had nothing to do with creating the original stories – and who proceed to urinate all over them, remember what Amazon did to the legacy of J.R.R, Tolkien.
Why is there no good Star Wars, or Star Trek, or Dr Who (and on and on) any more? Because of copyright – there are lots of people who have good stories that respect the lore, who want (as happened with stories over hundreds of years) to add their stories to the existing story, whilst (at the same time) respecting it. But it can not happen any more – because of copyright – and the copyrights inevitably end up in the hands of scumbags who produce horrible stuff and use the law to prevent other people producing good stuff.
As for patents – a whole town in Texas lives off patent law, the town has a court (which just seems to deal with patent law) and services connected to the people who work there. And that is about it – the town does not seem to produce anything other than legal judgements.
No surprise that the court always seems to decide that a patent has been violated – the corporations love the place.
The idea of a patent was that it was supposed to give some return to the inventor of a useful thing – and again the widow-and-orphans thing was used to extend the length of time.
But now, again, the patents tend to be in the hands of vast corporations – not some struggling inventor who spent years of his life in a shed creating some wonder.
The corporation created nothing – and often the patent covers stuff that no one invented (or at least the people with the patent did not invent), that has been around for years (that court in Texas again – and other dishonest courts like it).
So neonsnake may be exaggerating his point (we all exaggerate our points from time to time) – but he does have a point.
Up to a few decades ago copyright was 50 years – that is enough for the widows and orphans.
If that was still the law we could have good Tolkien films and television shows now – not just bad ones (again copyrights eventually fall into the hands of scumbags – it is inevitable).
And we could have good Star Trek shows and good Dr Who (not just bad) – and in 2027 we could have good Star Wars productions again (as the original came out in 1977).
As it is we will just get vile stuff – produced by the people who own the copyrights, who prevent (actively prevent) stories that respect the original lore.
By the way – even when good films are made the do not seem to get “Distributors”.
“Dredd” was a good film – but took too long to get an American “Distributor” (the less good film “Judge Dredd” had no such problem).
And “Solomon Kane” was a good film – but, again, could not get an American “Distributor” for years, which meant the film was undermined and no sequels were made.
Returning to government spending – it really is pointless to go about “free markets” if government spending is out of control.
It is like people who ignore the crushing of Ireland in the late 1840s by the terrible weight of the Poor Law Tax (and other taxes) and say that Ireland was under “laissez faire” because it had “free trade”.
A nation can prosper with or without “free trade” – but a nation crushed by endless government spending (and the taxes and borrowing needed to pay for it) will not prosper, “free trade” or no.
If the United States does not radically reduce government spending, the United States will perish.
The same is true of other Western nations.
Thanks…
I guess one of the things that got me interested in IP legals in general is JRRT. Because that is an epic mess. So… LoTR is a sequel to The Hobbit… Yes, and no. Not since JRRT re-jigged The Hobbit after the publication of LoTR to make it fit better. The Tolkien estate (whoever exactly controls it and that is awkward – for example the songs in The Hobbit and LoTR are differently owned because JRRT had Donald Swann put them to music). The consensus of the Tolkien fans I know is that even writing fan-fiction could land you in the soup.
This is a shame because I had a couple of ideas there. The first was a short story about Rosie Cotton. It’s the start of the Fourth Age and she’s in the Green Dragon with a friend and and tells her that Sam has proposed! Her friend gets terribly excited. and asks to see the engagement ring (because Sam has been on an adventure and if it’s anything like Mr Bilbo’s adventure he must now be minted*) so it’s gotta be a stunner, right? Rosie says, she only has Sam’s promise and no ring because Sam has taken against rings… Her friend is intrigued. Rosie calls for another bottle and says, “It’s rather a long story…”
There’s more to it than that of course because Sam who is sort of courting Rosie just leaves for over a year and the Shire is taken-over by Saruman. Sam has got a lot of explaining to do and Rosie has a bloody good reason to be annoyed with young Gamgee.
*Recall in the first chapter of LoTR several young hobbits have to be prevented from digging-up the cellar at Bag-End looking for gold.
Anyway, enough of my literary dreams. Paul, whilst the may be some legal issues about the TV and movies you mention there is also laziness. Disney are just retreading their hits. Partially to keep copyright but also because it is seen as low-risk. Star Wars is a total mess although to be honest the terrible prequels from the late ’90s killed it for me stone dead. The studios etc have become obsessed with “extended universes”. I dunno if you can lay all the blame on Marvel but they kinda started it.
Anyway, this is getting way off topic. Essentially I think that tweet from Bezos is a good sign. The proof of the pudding is of course… Having said that I have been using Amazon (as a Prime user) for a long time and they have never let me down once. I agree with Fraser that they aren’t exactly monopolistic just exceptionally good. I mean if there was a Nobel for logistics they’d win every year apart from the year Fed Ex delivered Gwyneth Paltrow’s head to an exact spot in the middle of nowhere to the second…
Quite possibly the strangest piece of product placement in cinema history.
Paul,
It is inteeresting that you compare US spending on defence to debt servicing. Have you seen this?
NickM – some interesting Lord of the Rings ideas Sir.
Yes Disney is lazy – but it is a lot worse than that. Kathleen Kennedy, Kevin Feige, Bog Iger himself (and the people they have hired – and they have had years to hire bad people, and get rid of good people) are bad – they are just bad people, what they call “Positive Messages” are far left propaganda (agitprop).
No I have not seen the historical paper – but I think it leaves stuff out.
For example, Austro-Hungary was not lagging behind just because of military spending, it had vast numbers of non military officials and spending programs.
Indeed government was bigger in Vienna than in other places even under the Empress Marie-Theresa back in the 1700s – for example they tried to have state schools for most of the children in the country, France and Britain did not try that till a century later.
Famously the Hapsburg Empire made even Czarist Russia look like it had an efficient government – Vienna was strangled in Red Tape and in lots of other sorts of tape as well (they used different colour tape for different types of document bundle).
As for the modern United States – most spending goes on the “Entitlements” (not the military) and President Trump will not roll them back all he will do is try and reduce “waste and fraud”.
Well let us hope there is a lot of this “wast and fraud” and it is cut – because otherwise we are all dead.
If government spending is not dramatically reduced, the United States will collapse.
And far from “America is a problem” – in reality without the United States the rest of the Western World will fall.
Even President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer understand this.
I agree with this. I’m not enough of a LOTR fan to know much details (I’m a semi-casual fan – read the books when I was 9, loved them, loved the Peter Jackson LOTR films and lost count of how many times we’ve rewatched them, “enjoyed” the Hobbit films, but not enough to have re-watched them even once and agree with the criticisms of them). I didn’t finish Rings Of Power. I will at some point, but normally we binge-watch stuff from start to finish. Just not invested in them.
I’m more invested in Star Wars. I dislike the prequels, but not passionately. Of the sequels, The Last Jedi has some fantastic ideas and scenes – I liked the hinted-at concept that the Force was open to all people, and Yoda burning the tree down, but it also had some very messy execution. I found Force Awakens to be boring, and I thought Rise Of Skywalker was flat-out awful.
The TV series are mixed. Most are passable entertainment after a long day, as long I don’t think too hard (which is normally enough for me). Mandalorian was, overall, very good. Most of the others passed the “yeah, go on then, lets stick the next episode on” test. The Acolyte was the only one we didn’t get invested in – again, we’d normally binge-watch it until we were done, but I think we finished it in a kind of “yeah, alright, let’s finish it, nothing better to do”. I even liked Skeleton Crew in a “lol they’re doing The Goonies” fashion.
On the other hand, Andor is one the best pieces of Star Wars ever made, and a contender for being up there in the sci-fi “best ofs”. Flat-out, no fucking about, anti-fascism. Nemik’s Manifesto is so well-written and delivered it’s now a pop-culture reference point.
Also on the other hand…I’m afraid I disagree with this.
I’ve spent a while today trying to find old sources, without much success, but with some. So: “1-Click” was a gamechanger for internet retail.
From a variety of sources:
18% of people abandon their internet shopping at the basket stage due to complexity. 1-Click gets round that by saving your payment details, address and so on, removing a great deal of that complexity. It apparently increased sales at Amazon by 28%. They enforced it against Barnes & Noble, and licenced it out to Apple (for a paltry $1 million, to be fair – not being sarcastic, but that’s not a lot of money in this context). Half of all Amazon customers were using it by the time the patent expired in 2017. It is very reasonable to believe that Amazon’s success owed a fairly large amount to this patent. Be very clear, I don’t mean all – they’re a savvy company, after all – but a large amount. And their ability and willingness to enforce that particular patent contributed to their current position.
It’s worthy of note that a huge number of “1-Click”-like services appeared in 2017, as soon as the patent ran out. Bolt is, I think, the most well-known. Why? Because it’s massively game-changing.
On top of that, Amazon owned (as of January 2018, the best I could find on the internet in my lunchbreak) 7,096 patents, apparently more than most US firms, and more than Alibaba (their closest global competitor). So, again, it is not unreasonable to believe that their position in the market is backed up at least somewhat by patents – as in, their ability to stop other companies from competing with them on a level playing field.
But, so what? They’re brilliant, right? They can deliver me basically anything, the next day, and I get a decently large selection of films/TV etc, plus a load of other stuff, for a mere £9 a month, and their prices are very good! So, they offer a good deal, right?
Except…no, they don’t.
They’re a monopsony. Because they leveraged their patents in the early days, if you’re a seller, they became a platform where if you don’t have a presence, you are going to find it very, very difficult to compete. Their market share is almost incredibly huge (in the UK, 46% of households have a Prime subscription, and I believe it’s 75% in the US).
So, as a seller, you basically have to be on Amazon if you’re in a competitive market. Okay, fair enough. So far, so savvy.
But, there’s more.
You also need to be found on Amazon to sell stuff, which means signing up to their Prime Ts & Cs. It’s not controversial to note that most sales are from the first few results in a search, this is obvious. Amazon prioritise Prime sellers in their results – if you’re not a Prime seller, you will be on the second page.
In order to be a Prime seller, you have to give between 30% and 45% of the retail value of the product to Amazon in fees (numbers vary, but that’s the range I’ve been able to verify and stay confident about). That’s enormous. So, sellers have to raise their prices to cover this, so Amazon is actually pretty poor value.
“This is outrageous!” you say. “If that were so, they’d simply sell their goods elsewhere at lower prices, meaning higher unit sales!”
Ah. Yes, Amazon thought of that too. So, they also have something called “Favoured Nation Status” (Favored, I guess I should say, as they’re US). Not unique to them – again, I’m trying to be as fair as I can – but what it means is that the seller is contractually not allowed to sell at a lower price than Amazon on another platform. So the price goes up everywhere. If you have to raise your prices to cover Amazon’s 30% to 45% “commission”, you have to do it everywhere.
What this means is that Amazon always look competitive – you’ll search for a box of seeds or something, and note that Amazon is at the least, the same price as everywhere else – ergo they are “competitively priced, surely?” and also it pushes up prices everywhere. But you can’t see that, because everywhere is roughly the same price, and you’re left with a vague idea that stuff “used to be cheaper, when you were little but hey, that’s just how it is, right?”
The interesting bit is that the patent expired in 2017, but by then it was too late, they’d already leveraged it to become both a monopoly and monopsony.
I don’t have a pure libertarian/free market anarchist solution to this, btw. It might be one of those things where legislation is the only solution at this point.
Fraser talked about “advocating, reluctantly”, and that’s a position I have a lot of respect for (I have a lot of respect for Fraser, period, even though we argue: I’m convinced that he’s a decent chap); it’s hard to think of a solution that doesn’t involve anti-trust measures and break-ups.
I tend to view legislation as a “first order/second order” problem. “First order legislations” are those that cause problems but benefit the already rich and the ruling classes, “second order legislations” are those that ameliorate the problems, but don’t eradicate them.
A first-order legislation would be something like property taxes that require all individuals to be part of a market economy that use the currency that their government designates as legitimate, that you absolutely cannot get out of (for 99% of people who want to live a “normal” life); no matter how hard I live my “The Good Life” aspirations, I still have to rustle up £230 a month in her Majesty’s Sterling for the privilege of existing.
A second-order legislation would be something like welfare – it shouldn’t exist, it shouldn’t need to exist, but under current conditions created by the state over many years it absolutely needs to exist.
So the goal is to undo the first-order stuff first. Then, and only then, do you undo the second-order stuff.