Reddit would implode instantly with only 2K moderators. According to this Reddit post, six years ago there were almost 75K moderators working in subreddits with more than 500 subscribers (i.e. this number only includes moderators who actually have to do some work because their subs are decently active). That number is certain to have grown since then.
Reddit has been around for 18 years, though. Surely that’s more than enough time to start turning a profit if the company is capable of it?
If the company can be made profitable, why isn’t it? Why wouldn’t the current owner rake in some profits before selling? Surely a company that is already profitable would be even more attractive for buyers.
Well if instances keep defederating each other, it does matter. Plus there’s the question of stability. Sure, you could make your account on some tiny niche instance, but what if the guy running it decides he’s had enough and terminates it? What happens to your account, your post history?
it’s a lot easier to find someone who thinks they can do it than it is to actually successfully do it yourself
That’s pretty much what I said, though. That’s the core of the scam. You sell something you know to be worthless to someone too ignorant to understand that. Maybe I’m just extremely ignorant and naive in matters of business, but selling a fake company like that seems no different than selling pyrite to someone who can’t tell it apart from gold.
I get that, but who would want to buy a company that’s never been profitable? It smacks of a scam. “Hey, bro! Buy my company! It never managed to make any money for me, but it’ll be highly profitable for you!” Sounds like the company founder is looking to pull a fast one and laugh all the way to the bank while their investor is left holding the bag.
The only way I can see this working is if the idea is to build a large user base by offering a good user experience, i.e. not monetizing the platform very much, just enough so that it barely pays for its own operating costs. Then you sell that user base to someone else for the express purpose of shoving tons of ads down everyone’s throat. In that case it’s still a fast one, only in this scenario the users are the victims. But even then I’m skeptical. If that’s the plan, why sell the company instead of enshittifying your platform yourself?
Sure, but it’ll be the same story all over again. The big platform will be ruined and the alternative option will be smaller and therefore not as good (since user base directly contributes to quality when it comes to community-based platforms; it’s the users who post all the content, so fewer users = less content).
Right? How the hell is a company that has never managed to turn a profit worth more than $0?
History repeats itself. The fediverse is going to go downhill too once it gets big enough for corporations to notice it. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Eh, Starsector is a very different kind of game. And I don’t just mean the fact that it’s top-down 2D, it’s much more of a management game. Freelancer is very aptly named - you’re just one guy in one space fighter doing your thing. It’s a space shooter first and foremost. If you try to play Starsector that way, you’re going to hit an impenetrable wall very quickly. You need a fleet, and the larger your fleet, the less significant your own personal contributions in battle. But the game also limits your ability to command your fleet pretty severely, so the further you progress, the more your agency shrinks to just moving around on the map between combat encounters that mostly play themselves. I can’t recommend Starsector to… well, anyone, to be honest.
I have a sinking feeling he might have made a mistake.
No information regarding the machine’s accuracy is provided, but the fact that you are asked to make a choice implies that it is not perfect. The question explicitly specifies that the prediction has already been made and the contents of box B have already been set. You can’t retroactively change the past and make the money appear or disappear by making a decision, so if your choice must match the prediction, then it’s not your choice at all. You lack free will, and the decision has already been made for you by the machine. In that case the entire question is meaningless.
Both! Critically, the contents of box B depend on the machine’s prediction, not on whether it was correct or not (i.e. not on your subsequent choice). So it’s effectively a 50/50 coin toss and irrelevant to the decision-making process. Let’s break down the possibilities:
Machine predicts I take B only, box B contains $1B:
Machine predicts I take both, box B is empty:
Regardless of what the machine predicts, taking both boxes produces a better result than taking only B. The question can be restated as “Do you take $1M plus a chance to win $1B or would you prefer $0 plus the same chance to win $1B?”, in which case the answer becomes intuitively obvious.
Wow, that’s extremely generous! Can I have Vane, please? I love games where you play a bird.