Twitter, Reddit, and Unity have not been profitable. This was fine when money was cheap (near zero interest rates). The market was awash with capital trying to find something that could turn a profit. A business plan that was basically underpants gnomes (1. Gather underpants 2. ???? 3. Profit!) was acceptable. Twitter’s and Reddit’s 1. was “gather users”, Unity’s “gather projects”. Now money isn’t free anymore, and capital is demanding that these businesses fill in 2. with something. Twitter is doing whatever Musk thinks is good, Reddit is trying to monetize its API to make AIs pay and to serve real users ads through its first party app, and Unity is trying to monetize the projects it has gathered. All of them have been offering a product below cost, and users are understandably angry that the cost is going up. (And in many cases, finding that the product isn’t really worth anything.)
Blizzard is different. It operates in a creative field and has been very profitable. Games are art as much as they are products that are sold. As such, they’re fickle: you can’t assembly line manufacture games and make a hit after hit. Artists in music that turn out bangers decade after decade are rare, as are authors, directors, etc. Blizzard’s streak of awesome games was bound to end eventually. AAA games are also extremely expensive to make: if you make an AAA game, it must be a hit or you’ll lose money. Alternatively, you can use dark patterns to monetize it, then it doesn’t have to be as good to make loads of money. Banking on your creatives to keep beating the odds is risky; infesting a good enough game with scummy monetization is a safer bet.
Siis yritys siirtäisi kasvaneet voittonsa kuluttajien eduksi alentamalla hintoja?
Ei, vaan yritys maksimoi voittonsa laskemalla myyntihintaa, joka nostaa myytyä määrää. Mainosten lisääminen mahdollistaa halvemman myyntihinnan, koska televisio tuottaa koko käyttöikänsä valmistajalle rahaa pelkän myyntihetken sijaan. Televisioita voidaan jopa myydä tappiolla, jos elinkaaren aikana mainoksista ja tilauksista päästään plussalle.
Shipping? Shipping is about 2 % of global CO2 emissions.
Large ships emit a lot of sulphur oxides (SOx). E.g. cruise ships emit more than all cars of Europe. SOx is not a greenhouse gas, but it’s a nasty pollutant nonetheless.
Englanti ei ole Suomessa pakollinen kieli. Pakollisia kieliä ovat yksi vieras kieli ja toinen kotimainen. Käytännössä kaikki ottavat englannin, koska se on hyödyllisin. Lisäksi monilla paikkakunnilla ei edes aloita muiden kielten ryhmiä.
It’s cheaper. In Japan manga volumes are about 700 yen, which is about $5 currently. No budget for color printing there. Manga is often drawn by one person who is already massively overworked just to hit serialization deadlines, so no time (nor budget for assistants) for coloring.
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