It’s not the same. Blaming a group of people without understanding who is in that group is not very thoughtful. This reeks of “kill the rich” or, more accurately, “kill whoever is more rich than me”. If you want to target someone with your frustration, understand at minimum who you are targeting.

The highest data point referenced in the article you link to is Monaco with $12.4M. Not sure where you are getting the $30M number.

Anyway, as I said, globally you and I most likely are in the 1%. Not in the US, a very wealthy country.

Edit: here is an interesting data point for you: Kenya is listed last on that graph with just $20K. Do you know how wealthy Kenya is overall? It’s at the 59th place globally. Out of 173 countries.

So yes, you and the majority of people posturing in these comments are the 1% globally. Enjoy this realization, fellow onepercenter.

I agree. In general, lobbying is a much bigger issue than the “billionaires”. Lobbying exists at all levels. You can have a dinner with a local politician for a very affordable fee ($3-5K), and meet the former or the future president (maybe even the current) for $200-300K. Lobbying is everywhere, it’s not limited to billionaires.

Being in 1% by income makes one barely a millionaire. Most likely not even that if they live in an expensive city and have a family.

No, I wouldn’t solely blame Kim Jong Un if a soldier from NK kills a member of my family. The ultimate goal of a totalitarian regime is to convince people that they are powerless, that they need a leader to guide them. This takes away all agency and responsibility (where it matters).

Don’t fall into the same trap. Everyone is an individual, everyone can and should learn. Everyone is ultimately responsible for their life (excluding situations where people are physically constrained by an abuser).

Blaming the “billionaires” is a fruitless endeavor. Do you think if we get rid of billionaires we will automatically live in a just society? There will always be people with more power, billionaires or not.

Worldwide, I am in the 1%. You are most likely too. For a lower class family in Pakistan you are a billionaire.

I see. So it still means the same but is just not authentically expressed? I guess I have never been to a place where these words are always expressed with a deep feeling.

Well if that’s your angle, then the main reason for choosing WhatsApp over telegram is the first-mover advantage. WhatsApp came out years before telegram and is a very popular app in many markets.

I’d argue that not many people care about sending 2gb files either. In my experience, more people care about privacy when prompted than about sending 2gb files.

Everything is connected if you look deep enough. People who drive rolling coal cars and hate “the libs” are responsible for their action. Choosing an ideology, watching propaganda, immersing oneself in hate are all actions. Sure, billionaires are having an outsized impact on the world. That’s power. In general - power does corrupt. We, the people, have to take responsibility for our actions, not expect billionaires to stop growing and exercising their influence. It’s easy to blame “the billionaires” for making someone a shitty person.

What does it mean that “please” and “thank you” mean nothing? I am genuinely confused.

I mean - I dislike financial inequality as much as the next person, but attributing the failing education system and polarization to “billionaires” will get us nowhere.

The vast majority of politicians, educators, propagandists and just insecure people are not billionaires. Don’t take away their responsibility, they are not mindless babies.

In a similar boat but switched to Apple Music. I tried Tidal for a couple of months but it seemed like they are more interested in promoting Beyoncé and other friends of the owner than to help me discover music I love.

Haha I also complained about that on their support forum. They claimed it was a recommendation.

Coincidentally this is the reason I quit Tidal after just a couple of months: they would push commercial hip-hop artists everywhere even though I am not into that.

I would bet that on Spotify most people discover music by listening to personalized generated playlists and not by waiting for ads to guide them. Have you ever used Spotify?

After trying to find an app with something even close to Spotify Connect I gave up and switched to Apple Music and replaced my speakers with newer Denon that have Apple streaming support.

It was the choice between letting Spotify fuck me over again and again and spending a few hundred dollars on new speakers. Annoying but fuck Spotify and their relentless upsells, ads, podcasts, books, etc

(I feel pretty strongly about that because I used it daily since they released their beta version close to two decades ago).

That’s an odd take. You are conflating completely different things. It costs close to nothing for artists to get their music on Spotify ($25 a year for several releases if I remember correctly).

There is no promise from Spotify that they will guarantee discoverability. Tens of millions of releases are uploaded to Spotify annually, how do you surface that to users?

Paying for promotions is ads. Artists (or their labels) are fully responsible for buying ads. They are advertisers. They spend money because they want to become more popular.

Users, on the other hand, buy a paid product. When they become the product it’s not by choice and it’s not because that improves user’s experience.