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Trumplicans ‘Successfully’ Kill Program That Helped Poor Americans Afford Broadband
from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept
The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), part of the 2021 infrastructure bill, provided 23+ million low-income households a $30 broadband discount every month. But the roughly 60 million Americans benefiting from the program are now facing much higher broadband bills because key Republicans — who routinely dole out billions of dollars on far dumber fare — refused to fund a $4-$7 billion extension.
There were several last ditch efforts to fund the program but none were successful, thanks largely to Trump loyalist and current House Speaker Mike Johnson, who refused to let any of those funding efforts get close to a vote.
It takes until the eighth paragraph in this CNN report on the death of the program before the author even acknowledges that Johnson and MAGA obstructionists killed the effort, and even then it’s framed in typical “he said, she said” fashion that frames Johnson’s obstructionism as possibly an opinion:
“Some US lawmakers proposed bipartisan legislation to extend the ACP in the months leading up to the deadline. But the bills languished in the face of inaction by Republican leaders who showed little interest in engaging with the issue. President Joe Biden and Democratic lawmakers have publicly blamed GOP leadership for allowing the ACP to end.
A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.”
The program did see bipartisan support, and was popular among Americans struggling to make ends meet (something Ohio’s JD Vance was quick to realize). Even legislation averse telecom giants liked the program, given it basically gave them money to temporarily lower high broadband prices that wouldn’t be high in the first place if they hadn’t worked tirelessly to crush all competition and regulatory oversight.
The ACP wasn’t a permanent fix to the problem that is expensive broadband, but it was the closest we were going to get in a regulatory and policy environment where Democrats and Republicans alike utterly refuse to even acknowledge that regionally concentrated monopoly power is the reason U.S. broadband sucks (much less actually propose any solutions that challenge companies like AT&T and Comcast).
Key Trumplicans like Johnson claim they opposed the program because they were simply looking out for taxpayers. In reality they routinely dole out billions for far dumber fare (including billions in regulatory favors, subsidies and tax breaks to telecom giants like AT&T in exchange for absolutely nothing), and didn’t want Democrats getting credit for a popular program during an election season.
Filed Under: ACP, affordable, broadband, donald trump, dsl, fcc, fiber, high speed internet, jd vance, low income, mike johnson
You Don’t Own The Video Games You’ve Bought: The Death Edition
from the death-and-video-games dept
In my basement at home, I have a handful of old gaming consoles that were left to our family after other family members either got too old to want them any longer or after they passed away. Coming along with them are a handful of games for those consoles. As a result of the physical nature of those products, my young kids at home have been able to play those games on their old consoles and using old controllers.
But if those games had been bought digitally, none of that would have happened. Ars Technica has a short but interesting post about what happens to your PC gaming library after you die. And the answer is essentially this: those games just go away.
The issue of digital game inheritability gained renewed attention this week as a ResetEra poster quoted a Steam support response asking about transferring Steam account ownership via a last will and testament. “Unfortunately, Steam accounts and games are non-transferable” the response reads. “Steam Support can’t provide someone else with access to the account or merge its contents with another account. I regret to inform you that your Steam account cannot be transferred via a will.”
This isn’t the first time someone has asked this basic estate planning question, of course. Last year, a Steam forum user quoted a similar response from Steam support as saying, “Your account is yours and yours alone. Now you can share it with family members, but you cannot give it away.”
Now, there are obviously workarounds for this sort of thing. I could very easily go into the will we have setup for our family and just jot down my Steam login and password. But that’s not really the same thing, nor does it address the overall issue that exists with the ownership of the digital game library I have. And from a purely logical standpoint, there is little reason why I should be able to will a boxed copy of a game I bought to a family member, but I cannot do the same for the exact same game I bought for the exact same price if it’s digital.
And these same ownership and transferability questions are present not just in matters of our own corporeal existence, but on matters of game preservation as well.
Beyond personal estate planning, the inability to transfer digital game licenses has some implications for video game preservation work as well. Last year, Jirard “The Completionist” Khalil spent nearly $20,000 to purchase and download every digital 3DS and Wii U game while they were still available. And while Khalil said he intends to donate the physical machines (and their downloads) to the Video Game History Foundation, subscriber agreements mean the charity may have trouble taking legal ownership of those digital games and accounts.
“There is no reasonable, legal path for the preservation of digital-born video games,” VGHF’s then co-director Kelsey Lewin told Ars last year. “Limiting library access only to physical games might have worked 20 years ago, but we no longer live in a world where all games are sold on physical media, and we haven’t for a long time.”
There are obviously differences between a digital and physical product. But game publishers mostly ignore those differences entirely. A physical copy of a game typically costs exactly the same dollar amount as a digital copy, despite the lack of a need to pay for the physical medium and packaging costs. Copyright laws apply to both equally.
So why aren’t customer rights around ownership and first sale doctrines likewise still applied to this content that has been “bought,” at least such that my kids or a charity of my choice can inherit my game library in the event that I get run over by a car?
Filed Under: copyright, death, ownership, video game library, video game preservation, video games
State Court Says There’s A Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy In Conversations With Non-Cops In Interrogation Rooms
from the caveats-apply dept
Kind of an odd bit of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence here, given all the factors. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)
Obviously, some conversations have an expectation of privacy, even when they’re held in police interrogation rooms. Those would be ones between the suspect and their legal representation. But that’s not really a Fourth Amendment issue as it is about privileged communications. The government isn’t allowed to eavesdrop on suspects as they work on a legal defense and/or make statements to their lawyer.
Then there’s the assumption that pretty much everything a cop would like to listen to is recorded, starting with anything said in interrogation rooms (minus attorney-client communications) and ending with phone calls placed from jail phones. (On the other hand, if a cop doesn’t want anyone to hear the conversation, recordings in interrogation rooms just disappear, or never spring into existence.)
That’s one assumption of the expectation of privacy: there isn’t one. But, as this decision [PDF] from the Supreme Court of Rhode Island points out, there can be an expectation of privacy in interrogation room conversations with people who aren’t cops. It won’t work for everyone. There are a lot of things that need to happen, beginning with a solid invocation of rights by the person being interrogated.
It began this way:
On February 6, 2020, at approximately 6:15 a.m., Providence police officers executed an arrest warrant at the home of [Marklyn] Brown’s mother and apprehended Mr. Brown. Later that morning, at approximately 9:45 a.m., five different Providence police officers began questioning Mr. Brown in an interview room at the police station about his alleged involvement in Ms. Pereira-Roldan’s death, and sought to obtain a confession from him. Throughout the duration of this interrogation, the interrogating officers engaged in repeated attempts (1) to convince Mr. Brown that the state had obtained overwhelming evidence of his guilt in this matter; (2) to persuade Mr. Brown to admit his involvement in killing Ms. Pereira-Roldan based on a theory that he accidentally shot her; and (3) to pressure Mr. Brown into accepting responsibility for his alleged actions through their insistence that he had a moral obligation to do so.
The usual coercion didn’t work. Marklyn Brown steadfastly refused to talk to the police officers. He repeatedly expressed his willingness to speak to only one person: his mother. This statement — along with all his refusals to talk to the officers — was captured by the PD’s recording devices.
“MR. BROWN: I want to talk to my mom. That’s all I want to talk to.
“[DETECTIVE] MICHAEL: I can make that happen. I can definitely make that happen. ’Cause we told your mom that we would call her. Your mom doesn’t know what’s going on, just to let you know. Okay? I will get on making a call to your mom to come down here. Okay?
“MR. BROWN: Yeah, ’cause that’s the only person I really want to talk to as of, like, right now. Only person I want to talk to.”
Despite explicitly acknowledging the facts that Brown would not talk to them and only wanted to talk to his mom, the officers continued interrogating him for another three hours. Detective Michael’s promise to “get on” that phone call to Brown’s mom was apparently just another of those famous cop conversational tactics. You know: a lie.
Finally, the officers did bring in Brown’s mom to talk with him. The officers then implied he was being left alone to have a private conversation.
“MR. BROWN: WHAT’S GOING ON?
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: Boss. Mom’s here.
“MR. BROWN: All right. How can I speak with her?
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna bring Mom in here.
“MR. BROWN: Okay.
“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna leave this room.
“MR. BROWN: Fair enough. I appreciate that.”
The detectives then physically left the room to give Brown the privacy they insinuated they were providing him with. But they didn’t shut off their recording devices. They listened in on this “private” conversation, interrogated Brown for three more hours, and then finally allowed him to return to his cell.
This led to the trial court suppressing the evidence the cops had obtained by eavesdropping:
Ultimately, the trial justice suppressed both the interrogation, beginning at page twenty-two of the interrogation transcript, and Mr. Brown’s entire conversation with his mother. The trial justice determined that Mr. Brown asserted his right to remain silent when he stated that he wanted to speak with his mother and only with his mother, thus clearly implying that he did not want to speak with them. With respect to Mr. Brown’s conversation with his mother, the trial justice determined that those same statements to the interrogating officers, recorded on page twenty two of the interrogation transcript, also clearly implied that Mr. Brown reasonably expected that the officers would not involve themselves in his conversation with his mother when left alone with her. In evaluating Mr. Brown’s expectation of privacy, the trial justice noted the lack of evidence indicating that the interrogating officers informed his mother that they would record their conversation. Finally, the trial justice supported his decision to suppress the remainder of the interrogation by referencing Mr. Brown’s affirmative statement, once the interrogation resumed, that he did not wish to answer any further questions.
The government appealed this decision, arguing that there’s no expectation of privacy in conversations held in interrogation rooms where cops have access to recording devices. But that’s simply not true, says the court. And the Rhode Island State Constitution. And the US Constitution.
Brown had made it exceedingly clear he was going to exercise his right to remain silent by refusing to talk to the officers. He also made it clear he only wished to speak to one person, who definitely wasn’t a cop. The cops led him to believe this conversation would be private. They made the same insinuation to his mother when she was allowed to speak to him.
It was only after they’d already violated the Constitution that they went in and made it clear to Mr. Brown that they’d done exactly that. Unbelievably, it’s this unforced error the government thinks should have waived any privacy expectations Brown might have had.
“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: Trying to help you out, man. She’s trying to help you out, man. She told a few things, what you guys discussed, man. That’s all. I’m just telling you. How the * * * would I know that?
“MR. BROWN: Camera.
“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: The cam-, what’s the camera got to do with it?
“MR. BROWN: There’s a camera in this room, and it’s probably being voice-recorded. I know what you guys do in an interrogation room.”
Aha! said the government. He did know his “private” conversation was being recorded, ipso facto no expectation of privacy.
But that’s not how this works, says the court. Not under the Constitution, whether it’s the one put together by the federal government or the one we’ve erected in Rhode Island.
Mr. Brown’s acknowledgement of Sgt. Zuena’s awareness of the content of the conversation simply demonstrates that, during this interaction with Sgt. Zuena, Mr. Brown learned that the police had eavesdropped on his conversation. The fact that Mr. Brown identified the medium through which the police monitored the conversation does not necessarily imply that Mr. Brown knew, from the inception of the conversation, that the interrogating officers were recording it.
And arguing that Brown should have assumed any conversation he had in this room would be listened to by cops misses the point, as well. Just because it might be reasonable to assume this doesn’t mean a reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations with non-cops simply doesn’t exist. Especially not when a suspect has already invoked (even indirectly) the right to remain silent by making it clear they will not talk to cops. That all of this occurred in the confines of a police interrogation room changes nothing.
First, we have unmistakably held that the Fourth Amendment and article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution protect people, not the locations they find themselves in. Where, as here, interrogating officers create an environment that reasonably allows an individual suspected of a crime to believe that they may have a private conversation, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the content of that conversation exists.
Second, we have held that law enforcement officers lack the authority to engage in an indirect interrogation of a suspect when they do not have the authority to proceed with a direct interrogation. Even if this Court assumed that Mr. Brown had a full awareness that the interrogating officers recorded his conversation from the outset, Mr. Brown’s invocation of his right to remain silent prevented them from attempting to extract further information in support of their investigation.
That’s the key part there: because he had invoked his right to remain silent, even without a recognized expectation of privacy, the officers would have still been denied access to this evidence because it was obtained by someone else and never offered directly to the officers by the person on the other end of the conversation.
Of course, this just means the cops are free to try to sweat down the other end of the conversation. But since they’re not suspected of any criminal acts, they’ve got more options, including a flat refusal to discuss the conversation. And if the only reason officers are interested in this person because they eavesdropped on a conversation the conversants assumed would be private, they can’t even use this illicit information gain as leverage against the non-suspect.
So, it is held: there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy in some conversations occurring in cop sweat boxes, but probably only in cases where rights have been invoked and cops have been dumb enough to ensure people their conversation would be private shortly before they all put their headphones on and started listening in.
Filed Under: 4th amendment, evidence, expectation of privacy, interrogation, marklyn brown, privacy, rhode island
Grandma’s Retweets: How Suburban Seniors Spread Disinformation
from the get-the-karens-to-log-out dept
In recent years, there have been concerns about social media and disinformation. The narrative has three dominant threads: (1) foreign troll farms pushing disinfo, (2) grifter “influencers” pushing disinfo, and (3) the poor kids these days suckered in by disinformation.
A new study in Science suggests that instead of the kids or the trolls, perhaps we should be concerned about suburban moms. We discussed this on the most recent Ctrl-Alt-Speech episode, but let’s look more closely at the details.
The authors of the report got access to data on over 600,000 registered voters on Twitter (back when it was still Twitter), looking at data shared during the 2020 election. They found a small number of “supersharers” of false information, who were older suburban Republican women.
We found that supersharers were important members of the network, reaching a sizable 5.2% of registered voters on the platform. Supersharers had a significant overrepresentation of women, older adults, and registered Republicans. Supersharers’ massive volume did not seem automated but was rather generated through manual and persistent retweeting. These findings highlight a vulnerability of social media for democracy, where a small group of people distort the political reality for many.
The researchers found that although the number of supersharers seemed low, they had a decent following. It’s not surprising, as people are more likely to follow those who share “useful” links (though, obviously it depends on what people consider “useful”).
… we found that supersharers had significantly higher network influence than both the panel and the SS-NF groups (P < 0.001). The median supersharer ranked in the 86th percentile in the panel in terms of network influence and measured 29% higher than the median SS-NF (supplementary materials, section S11). Next, we measured engagement with supersharers’ content as the fraction of panelists who replied, retweeted, or quoted supersharers’ tweets relative to their number of followers in the panel. More supersharers had people engaging with their content compared with the panel (P < 0.001), and more panelists engaged with supersharers’ content compared with all groups
None of this is to say that there aren’t Democrats who share fake news (there are) or men (obviously, there are) or young people (again, duh). But there appears to be a cluster of older Republican women who do so at a ridiculous pace. This chart below is fairly damning. Even as the panel had a higher Democratic component, Democrats were much more likely to share “non-fake” news (“SS-NF”) as compared to fake news or, and much less likely to be “supersharers.”
The age distribution is also pretty notable as well:
Basically, the further you go down the spreading false info chart, the likely you are to be older.
This isn’t wholly surprising. It’s been said that the worst misinfo spreaders are boomers on social media who lack media literacy to understand that Turducken301384 isn’t reliable source. But it’s nice to see a study backing that up.
What will be more interesting is to see what happens over time. Will the issue of disinformation and misinformation diminish as younger, internet-savvy generations grow up, or will new issues arise?
My sense is that part of this is just the “adjustment” period to a new communication medium. A decade and a half ago, Clay Shirky talked about the generational divide over new technologies, and how it took more or less a century of upheaval before people became comfortable with the printing press existing and able to produce things that (*gasp*) everyone might read.
It feels like we might be going through something similar with the internet. Though it’s frustrating that the policy discussion is mostly dominated by some of that older generation who really, really, really wants to blame the tools and the young people, rather than maybe taking a harder look at themselves.
Filed Under: disinformation, misinformation, republicans, research, senior citizens, supersharers, superspreaders
City Council Votes To Keep Paying ShotSpotter For Tech That’s Done Nothing To Make The City Safer
from the taking-on-the-mayor-and-common-sense dept
It appears Chicago’s city leaders (well… excluding the mayor, Brandon Johnson) aren’t afraid of spending nothing on do-nothing tech that even the city’s watchdog says is a waste of money. They’re not afraid to blow money on stuff that’s doing nothing to make residents safer, even as residents continue to complain about the level of gun violence in the city.
Back in 2021, the city’s Inspector General took a look at the ShotSpotter tech being used by the Chicago PD. Here’s the most damning conclusion, stated as succinctly as possible:
The CPD data examined by OIG does not support a conclusion that ShotSpotter is an effective tool in developing evidence of gun-related crime.
That’s what residents were paying at least $11 million a year for: something that didn’t have any effect on crime and was likely far less accurate than ShotSpotter’s denials and overstatements claimed.
On the other hand, it seemed to keeps cops busy, even if it wasn’t actually reducing gun crime:
[The] 2021 [Inspector General’s] study in Chicago found that, in a period of 21 months, ShotSpotter resulted in police acting on dead-end reports over 40,000 times. Likewise, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office concluded that ShotSpotter had “minimal return on investment” and only resulted in arrest for 1% of proven shootings, according to a recent CBS report.
So, the city decided to terminate its $49 million contract with ShotSpotter, which would end the fiscal bleeding by the end of September of this year. That would have resulted in a savings of at least $11 million annually. And that’s just in terms of the ShotSpotter contract. Presumably another few million in savings would hit the bottom line once the PD stopped scrambling officers to “dead-end” ShotSpotter reports and stopped wasting the time of prosecutors who weren’t being given enough evidence to successfully prosecute gun-related crimes.
That’s what happened earlier this year. Now, things are changing. ShotSpotter has created its own site to save itself from being kicked out of Chicago. That would be fine, but its efforts are being aided by news sites that seemed to think SpotShotter’s self-serving campaign deserved to be presented as “news” even though 100% of the “save this poor tech company” effort was just some former Chicago PD official insisting the tech that had failed for years be allowed to keep failing for years to come.
Whether or not ShotSpotter’s “please save our paycheck” site had anything to with this is tough to say, but it appears Chicago lawmakers have decided it’s better to keep spending money on questionable cop tech than… you know, not spending money on questionable cop tech.
Here’s Dave Byrnes with more details for Courthouse News Service:
The Chicago City Council Wednesday approved a measure that could keep the controversial ShotSpotter gunshot detection system in town, potentially upending Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan for the city to end its $49 million contract with ShotSpotter’s parent company SoundThinking this September.
We’ll see how far this pushback goes. As for the mayor, who’s one of ShotSpotter’s (several) critics, this vote means nothing. The contract will be terminated as previously declared.
Even if the mayor can’t shoot this down, the outcome of this vote by the council doesn’t mean ShotSpotter will continue to make as much money as it historically has in Chicago. A measure proposed earlier this year would prevent a city-wide expulsion of ShotSpotter tech, placing the yay/nay vote in the hands of individual alderman and the areas they oversaw.
The passed order revamps the earlier language. And that might still end up being a good thing for Chicago residents, who hopefully won’t have to continue to pay for cop tech that doesn’t work and/or their own surveillance (especially if they live in predominately black or Latino neighborhoods).
A revised version of the proposed order from March eliminated [the individual alderperson provision], instead stipulating that any decision to remove ShotSpotter from a city ward would have to go through a public safety committee meeting and a full city council vote. It also called on the Chicago Police Department to gather as much data as possible on Shotspotter’s efficacy by September.
This does two good things, but attaches them to a bad thing. Certainly this should be opened to public comment. And forcing the Chicago PD to deliver ShotSpotter data is also useful, especially when the city’s Inspector General noted in 2021 that the department’s collection of data was, at best, (um) spotty. (At worst, it bordered on obstruction.)
But then the same city council that originally proposed holding onto ShotSpotter tech should be left to each alderperson (due to the mayor’s alleged “overreach”) now suggest individual alderpersons shouldn’t be allowed to make these decisions on their own. The just-passed order says each individual decision by neighborhoods and their direct representation can be overridden by the city council, which just transfers the “overreach” from the mayor to the council.
And that revision makes it clear the council will almost always override any removals approved by individual alderpersons. The council objected to the first contract termination by trying to take the decision away from the mayor. Now, it appears the council wants to take that decision away from the public as well, which makes any period of public comment mostly performative. Individual alderpersons may actually listen to their constituents but it will be the rest of the city (the other alderpersons) that gets to decide whether or not ShotSpotter remains in their neighborhoods.
Filed Under: brandon johnson, chicago, chicago pd, gunshot detection
Companies: shotspotter, soundthinking
Daily Deal: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro is designed with the modern professional in mind. Whether you are a developer who needs a secure platform, an artist seeking a seamless experience, or an entrepreneur needing to stay connected effortlessly, Windows 11 Pro is your solution. This version is designed for PCs that need a new license for Windows and meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11. If your PC is running Windows 10 and you are unable to use Windows Update to install the free upgrade to Windows 11, you will not be able to install this version of Windows 11. It’s on sale for $40.
Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.
Filed Under: daily deal
Georgia Prosecutors Stoke Fears Over Use Of Encrypted Messengers And Tor
from the prosecutorial-fud dept
In an indictment against Defend the Atlanta Forest activists in Georgia, state prosecutors are citing use of encrypted communications to fearmonger. Alleging the defendants—which include journalists and lawyers, in addition to activists—in the indictment were responsible for a number of crimes related to the Stop Cop City campaign, the state Attorney General’s prosecutors cast suspicion on the defendants’ use of Signal, Telegram, Tor, and other everyday data-protecting technologies.
“Indeed, communication among the Defend the Atlanta Forest members is often cloaked in secrecy using sophisticated technology aimed at preventing law enforcement from viewing their communication and preventing recovery of the information” the indictment reads. “Members often use the dark web via Tor, use end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal or Telegram.”
The secure messaging app Signal is used by tens of millions of people, and has hundreds of millions of global downloads. In 2021, users moved to the nonprofit-run private messenger en masse as concerns were raised about the data-hungry business models of big tech. In January of that year, former world’s richest man Elon Musk tweeted simply “Use Signal.” And world-famous NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden tweeted in 2016 what in information security circles would become a meme and truism: “Use Tor. Use Signal.”
Despite what the bombastic language would have readers believe, installing and using Signal and Tor is not an initiation rite into a dark cult of lawbreaking. The “sophisticated technology” being used here are apps that are free, popular, openly distributed, and widely accessible by anyone with an internet connection. Going further, the indictment ascribes the intentions of those using the apps as simply to obstruct law enforcement surveillance. Taking this assertion at face value, any judge or reporter reading the indictment is led to believe everyone using the app simply wants to evade the police. The fact that these apps make it harder for law enforcement to access communications is exactly because the encryption protocol protects messages from everyone not intended to receive them—including the users’ ISP, local network hackers, or the Signal nonprofit itself.
Elsewhere, the indictment hones in on the use of anti-surveillance techniques to further its tenuous attempts to malign the defendants: “Most ‘Forest Defenders’ are aware that they are preparing to break the law, and this is demonstrated by premeditation of attacks.” Among a laundry list of other techniques, the preparation is supposedly marked by “using technology avoidance devices such as Faraday bags and burner phones.” Stoking fears around the use of anti-surveillance technologies sets a dangerous precedent for all people who simply don’t want to be tracked wherever they go. In protest situations, carrying a prepaid disposable phone can be a powerful defense against being persecuted for participating in first-amendment protected activities. Vilifying such activities as the acts of wrongdoers would befit totalitarian societies, not ones in which speech is allegedly a universal right.
To be clear, prosecutors have apparently not sought to use court orders to compel either the defendants or the companies named to enter passwords or otherwise open devices or apps. But vilifying the defendants’ use of common sense encryption is a dangerous step in cases that the Dekalb County District Attorney has already dropped out of, citing “different prosecutorial philosophies.”
Using messengers which protect user communications, browsers which protect user anonymity, and employing anti-surveillance techniques when out and about are all useful strategies in a range of situations. Whether you’re looking into a sensitive medical condition, visiting a reproductive health clinic with the option of terminating a pregnancy, protecting trade secrets from a competitor, wish to avoid stalkers or abusive domestic partners, protecting attorney-client exchanges, or simply want to keep your communications, browsing, and location history private, these techniques can come in handy. It is their very effectiveness which has led to the widespread adoption of privacy-protective technologies and techniques. When state prosecutors spread fear around the use of these powerful techniques, this sets us down a dangerous path where citizens are more vulnerable and at risk.
Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.
Filed Under: encrypted messaging, encryption, fud, georgia, stop cop city
Companies: signal, telegram, tor
Netflix Co-CEO: I’m Very Sorry That I Promised We’d Focus On Quality A Decade Ago
from the growth-for-growth's-sake dept
Back in 2013, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos noted that his company’s goal was to “become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” His point, at the time, was that Netflix wanted to become synonymous with quality and creative artistry in the same way HBO had after decades of hard work.
11 years later, and everything has changed dramatically. HBO is a mockery of its former self after a series of pointless mergers by AT&T and Discovery resulted in thousands of layoffs, higher prices, and the death of the HBO brand. Product quality has deteriorated, with high end television programs steadily being replaced with cheaply produced, lowest common denominator reality TV drek.
And as streaming subscriber growth hits a wall, many other streaming giants have stopped being innovative in similar ways. Netflix, Amazon, and most other streaming giants have resorted to familiar tactics in order to goose quarterly revenue growth. Namely, more pointless mergers, price hikes, annoying nickel-and-diming efforts, layoffs, new restrictions, and sagging product quality.
Speaking recently with the New York Times, Sarandos says he regrets ever having said they were hoping to emulate HBO’s approach to quality content. In short, he’s forced to admit that focusing on quality won’t deliver Wall Street the unsustainable, unrealistic, impossible and permanent growth investors so crave:
“Look, if there’s one quote that I could take back, it would have been in 2012, I said we’re going to become HBO before HBO could become us. At that time, HBO was the gold standard of original programming. What I should have said back then is, We want to be HBO and CBS and BBC and all those different networks around the world that entertain people, and not narrow it to just HBO. Prestige elite programming plays a very important role in culture. But it’s very small. It’s a boutique business.”
Sarandos kind of pooh poohs the obvious sag in Netflix quality by pointing out that the streaming service is still winning Oscars. But, as a leading executive, Sarandos can’t really acknowledge a foundational truth: Wall Street’s need for impossible unlimited quarterly revenue growth means that, sooner or later, Netflix is on an unrealistic path toward self immolation just like the cable giants that preceded it.
The result: a bottomless roster of terrible reality TV shows about people trying to have sex on remote islands, peppered with a lot of movies like Under Paris.
As a publicly-traded company you can’t just consistently offer a quality product people love. So inevitably, sooner or later, once normal subscriber growth taps out, you’re forced to get “creative.” That creativity, especially in media and telecom, almost always results in pointless mergers to goose stock valuations and nab tax cuts, cutting corners on customer service and support, going cheap on product quality, while simultaneously raising rates and imposing more and more annoying restrictions.
Add lazy automation to the lowest common denominator chase for eyeballs at any cost and you have to wonder what mainstream television looks like a few decades from now.
To be clear, I still think Netflix offers a decent value proposition. Especially in comparison to traditional cable TV. But there are endless warning signs that Netflix executives are dead set on pushing their luck in terms of weird restrictions, sagging quality, and price hikes, and that will end badly.
Executives think they can strike a balancing act between quality and mass adoption at unlimited scale, but Wall Street’s demand for impossible, unlimited growth isn’t an achievable or realistic ask. And this inevitable trade off, where consumers consistently are asked to pay more for less, ultimately isn’t sustainable, opening the door to another wave of disruption.
In Netflix’s case that will increasingly come in the form of free or ad-based short form video apps, or piracy. And when piracy surges in response, which data suggests is already happening, streaming executives will blame absolutely everything but themselves.
Filed Under: competition, hbo, lowest common denominator, quality, streaming, ted sarandos, tv, video
Companies: netflix
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