Netflix's position on VPN users may be wrong, but in the context of a finance call, Hastings was completely correct.
Words like "inconsequential" have a specific meaning in a quarterly report call with Wall Street. It ONLY means that it does not have a material effect on the bottom line.
With 44.7 million subscribers, the fact that 40 thousand are upset with a strategic choice (but they're not all quitting) is financially irrelevant.
He's not saying he doesn't care. He's talking about the business numbers, because that is 100% the context of that conference call.
Clearly that sentence was about Netflix's vision on the matter. How clear? It actually includes the words "Netflix's long-term vision may be..." Meanwhile, the entire Techdirt article is about how that is a wrong-headed position.
If you want Karl's clearly stated viewpoint, it is also in the article:
"Netflix's crackdown on VPNs still managed to erode user privacy and security, since obviously there are countless people using VPNs for reasons other than engaging in global Netflix tourism."
So you propose that selling a tainted asset (or company) instantly 'cleanses' the asset? That would make it far too simple to launder dirty money.
Nope. Caveat emptor. Do your due diligence. Buy insurance on the deal if you want. But you buy the asset, you buy its problems.
But we even have a valid process that can cleanse assets when it's truly needed by the economic system. It's above board - when you buy assets out of receivership from some bankruptcy.
I don't think "everyone knew this" prior to the advent of so much smartphone video evidence.
The question is why does it still work. "The police's word against yours" should result in a "tie goes to the runner," innocent until proven guilty verdict.
To put words to it, chat data and meta data are the difference between unstructured data and structured data.
Structured data is data that is consistently structured, bu design, to carry specific significance. Think of a table with headings like: time, name, destination ID, caller ID, length of call.
Unstructured data is just a jumble of information that is captured, but is inconsistent in what it contains, has varied lengths, comes in many languages.
It's a bit like comparing a box of all the photos of your life (unstructured) with a perfectly labeled photo album, four pictures per page, in chronological order.
Even though there is far more "information" in the shoe box, the information in the album is more usable, and thus more valuable.
Um...did Judge Pepper just USE Edward Snowden as a justification for allowing additional government snooping?
That woman's got balls. It takes a special kind of moxy to cite the hero of personal privacy and the 4th as the reason "we're all informed that we're being watched, so now we know, so we're all good, right?"
Netflix cannot "throttle" using a precise definition of that word. Throttling occurs at the throat -- in the middle. If Netflix is reducing the encoding rate of their content, that is a "bitrate product decision", not any kind of throttling.
Don't use the language of the O'Rielly. It's like arguing copyright violations using the term "theft". Their language is deliberately a tautology.
I think it's clear that there will be copyright cases where the argument for "ownership" isn't clear. Is there no legal rule-of-thumb that in such cases, NO ownership can be enforced?
I mean, baseball has it figured out. Tie goes to the runner. I suggest the new legal precedent have a rhyme and model itself after the OJ Simpson "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit."
Something like: "If a monkey clicked it, then you can't have knicked it."
"I think this one is clearly the best, based entirely on the cat's "I'm concentrating here" tongue"
You thought the most salient thing was the tongue? Not the fact that the cat was lackadaisically snapping selfies while two ferocious, predatory, sworn enemies lurked in the background?
That's like me taking a picture of you hugging RIAA Cary Sherman, and saying the most notable element was the color of shirt you were wearing.
Tim, you let Cary Sherman off the hook for the most blatant feint in his article. He compares, IN HIS OWN WORDS,
vinyl album REVENUES against on-demand FREE music streams.
In a comparison of a retail priced service against a free service, the one with the price > 0 can usually be shown to have generated more direct revenue.
"Last year, 17 million vinyl albums, a legacy format enjoying a bit of a resurgence, generated more revenues than billions and billions of on-demand free streams: $416 million compared to $385 million for on-demand free streams."
What's truly amazing in that quote is that so-called "Free" services were able to generate such substantial revenue, which as Tim points out also substitute for pirated music, and lead to upsells.
Would it be OK for a journalism professor to teach his students that 2 + 2 = 4? Or that witness is spelled w-i-t-n-e-s-s? Because some things are like that, just facts.
And when there are facts -mathematical realities- that only go one way, it is good journalism to report that they can only go one way, and to dispel the false position that there is a middle ground, or a legit debate around the issue.
You, AC, are basically demanding Gillmor adopt a "false equivalency" approach, because he's a journalism prof.
"That reminds me of a philosopher who said that power should only be granted to those who don't want it."
I've often said the same of the 2nd Amendment battle. I'm for moderate rights to bear arms, but why is it that most of the people who want to own firearms are precisely the people I would rather not own them?
It turns out, you don't need to run false flag missions. You just need to wait a few months for a quasi-real one you can exaggerate.
Easier to wait for some real baddies to do some bad than to stage it - and bear the additional burden of a false flag operation, and a complicated cover-up.
Look at it this way: It's CYA. "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". And nobody ever got fired for exaggerating up some minor threat. But people often get burned/jailed/impeached for foul play (ex: Nixon, Ken Lay, McCarthy, Madoff). Why would the spooks take the chance of repercussions when they can just play the safe bets, and still win.
I basically stopped reading print media years ago. I read a lot of news and articles, all online. For me this last decade, print is reserved for airplane trips, during takeoff and landing. Really. And as of a couple of years ago, we're allowed to use our electronics during that time, too.
OTOH, I still get a number of print publications sent to my mail. Some of them good, some bad. I get them because I am a member of a variety of organizations, alumni, etc. And some of them are pretty good.
My question is, how is is that these publications are able to offer me good content, with expensive ink and paper, and with expensive distribution costs. So, IAB, answer me this:
How can these print media firms monetize the business with un-obtrusive, non-tracking ads??
If they can do it, why can't online content companies? Online, you have lower costs. No ink, no marginal cost of production, and small distribution fees per digital copy, for which I pay half the freight.
You guys at the IAB are doing more for print media than any other group, pulp or digital. I've already shifted some of my consumption back to paper.
How come all the sites that I go to that made me want to use an adblocker are exactly the sites that want to DEAL with me now?
You guys are the very reason I sought out and chose a blocker in the first place. No, I don't want to whitelist you! You want to track me, expose me, and over-sell me.
How bout, Imma start with an assumption that you are on the blacklist, and you convince me that that was a mistake. Here's some deal-breakers: - tracking, especially by third party ad networks - pop-ups, pop-unders...any fn popping - things that make the page's actual content bounce up and down for 30 seconds while it loads ads from god-knows-where - offer me a fair DEAL, not "accept ads or pay us $5/mo". We should be talking penny increments, not $.
Here's a idea. Serve your own ads. Make them decent, put them on the side.
On the post: Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are 'Inconsequential'
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are 'Inconsequential'
Reed Hastings was Correct
Words like "inconsequential" have a specific meaning in a quarterly report call with Wall Street. It ONLY means that it does not have a material effect on the bottom line.
With 44.7 million subscribers, the fact that 40 thousand are upset with a strategic choice (but they're not all quitting) is financially irrelevant.
He's not saying he doesn't care. He's talking about the business numbers, because that is 100% the context of that conference call.
On the post: Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are 'Inconsequential'
Re: Re:
Clearly that sentence was about Netflix's vision on the matter. How clear? It actually includes the words "Netflix's long-term vision may be..." Meanwhile, the entire Techdirt article is about how that is a wrong-headed position.
If you want Karl's clearly stated viewpoint, it is also in the article:
"Netflix's crackdown on VPNs still managed to erode user privacy and security, since obviously there are countless people using VPNs for reasons other than engaging in global Netflix tourism."
On the post: Australian Case Shows Why Corporate Sovereignty Isn't Needed In TPP -- Or In Any Trade Agreement
Re: Re: Re: Misleading story
Nope. Caveat emptor. Do your due diligence. Buy insurance on the deal if you want. But you buy the asset, you buy its problems.
But we even have a valid process that can cleanse assets when it's truly needed by the economic system. It's above board - when you buy assets out of receivership from some bankruptcy.
On the post: UK Drug Dogs Finding Way More Sausage And Cheese Than Actual Drugs
Re:
I believe the technical term, though, is "The pikey is in Her Majesty's Prison Brixton doing 20 years for bangers and mash".
On the post: The Body-Worn Camera As State's Witness: How Cops Control Recordings
Re: Your word against ours
The question is why does it still work. "The police's word against yours" should result in a "tie goes to the runner," innocent until proven guilty verdict.
On the post: Adding End-To-End Encryption To WhatsApp Is Great...But Not Quite As Secure As People May Think
Structure
To put words to it, chat data and meta data are the difference between unstructured data and structured data.
Structured data is data that is consistently structured, bu design, to carry specific significance. Think of a table with headings like: time, name, destination ID, caller ID, length of call.
Unstructured data is just a jumble of information that is captured, but is inconsistent in what it contains, has varied lengths, comes in many languages.
It's a bit like comparing a box of all the photos of your life (unstructured) with a perfectly labeled photo album, four pictures per page, in chronological order.
Even though there is far more "information" in the shoe box, the information in the album is more usable, and thus more valuable.
On the post: Another Federal Judge Says No Expectation Of Privacy In Cell Site Location Info Because Everyone Knows Phones Generate This Data
Snow Cover
That woman's got balls. It takes a special kind of moxy to cite the hero of personal privacy and the 4th as the reason "we're all informed that we're being watched, so now we know, so we're all good, right?"
On the post: FCC Commissioner: Gov't Should Never Interfere In Private Markets...Unless ISPs Have A Chance To Mock Netflix
Not Throttling
Netflix cannot "throttle" using a precise definition of that word. Throttling occurs at the throat -- in the middle. If Netflix is reducing the encoding rate of their content, that is a "bitrate product decision", not any kind of throttling.
Don't use the language of the O'Rielly. It's like arguing copyright violations using the term "theft". Their language is deliberately a tautology.
On the post: Will PETA Now Sue To Control The Copyright In These Cat Selfies?
Tie Goes To The Runner
I mean, baseball has it figured out. Tie goes to the runner. I suggest the new legal precedent have a rhyme and model itself after the OJ Simpson "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit."
Something like: "If a monkey clicked it, then you can't have knicked it."
On the post: Will PETA Now Sue To Control The Copyright In These Cat Selfies?
Elephant [dogs] In The Room
You thought the most salient thing was the tongue? Not the fact that the cat was lackadaisically snapping selfies while two ferocious, predatory, sworn enemies lurked in the background?
That's like me taking a picture of you hugging RIAA Cary Sherman, and saying the most notable element was the color of shirt you were wearing.
On the post: Comcast Fails To Connect SmartCar's Silicon Valley Office For 10 Months, Wants $60,000 Anyway
Re: In Fucking Mountain View!!
On the post: French Police Report On Paris Attacks Shows No Evidence Of Encryption... So NY Times Invents Evidence Itself
Re: Re: Re: You are under arrest
Now the legal system judges me, saying "tusk, tusk". They should not just switch U for I all the time.
On the post: Despite Massive Streaming Revenue Gains, RIAA Still Lying & Crying
You Let Him Off The Hook
vinyl album REVENUES against on-demand FREE music streams.
In a comparison of a retail priced service against a free service, the one with the price > 0 can usually be shown to have generated more direct revenue.
"Last year, 17 million vinyl albums, a legacy format enjoying a bit of a resurgence, generated more revenues than billions and billions of on-demand free streams: $416 million compared to $385 million for on-demand free streams."
What's truly amazing in that quote is that so-called "Free" services were able to generate such substantial revenue, which as Tim points out also substitute for pirated music, and lead to upsells.
On the post: French Police Report On Paris Attacks Shows No Evidence Of Encryption... So NY Times Invents Evidence Itself
Re: Re: You are under arrest
- Smoking imaginary Marijuana. Three years. How bout you?
- I killed a pink elephant.
- Man. That's cold.
On the post: Journalism Professor Dan Gillmor On Why You Should Support Techdirt's Crowdfunding Campaign
Re:
And when there are facts -mathematical realities- that only go one way, it is good journalism to report that they can only go one way, and to dispel the false position that there is a middle ground, or a legit debate around the issue.
You, AC, are basically demanding Gillmor adopt a "false equivalency" approach, because he's a journalism prof.
On the post: Having Lost The Debate On Backdooring Encryption, Intelligence Community Plans To Wait Until Next Terrorist Attack
Re:
I've often said the same of the 2nd Amendment battle. I'm for moderate rights to bear arms, but why is it that most of the people who want to own firearms are precisely the people I would rather not own them?
On the post: Having Lost The Debate On Backdooring Encryption, Intelligence Community Plans To Wait Until Next Terrorist Attack
Re: The next terrorist attack...
It turns out, you don't need to run false flag missions. You just need to wait a few months for a quasi-real one you can exaggerate.
Easier to wait for some real baddies to do some bad than to stage it - and bear the additional burden of a false flag operation, and a complicated cover-up.
Look at it this way: It's CYA. "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". And nobody ever got fired for exaggerating up some minor threat. But people often get burned/jailed/impeached for foul play (ex: Nixon, Ken Lay, McCarthy, Madoff). Why would the spooks take the chance of repercussions when they can just play the safe bets, and still win.
On the post: What Should We Do About Linking To Sites That Block People Using Ad Blockers?
The Savior of Print Media
OTOH, I still get a number of print publications sent to my mail. Some of them good, some bad. I get them because I am a member of a variety of organizations, alumni, etc. And some of them are pretty good.
My question is, how is is that these publications are able to offer me good content, with expensive ink and paper, and with expensive distribution costs. So, IAB, answer me this:
How can these print media firms monetize the business with un-obtrusive, non-tracking ads??
If they can do it, why can't online content companies? Online, you have lower costs. No ink, no marginal cost of production, and small distribution fees per digital copy, for which I pay half the freight.
You guys at the IAB are doing more for print media than any other group, pulp or digital. I've already shifted some of my consumption back to paper.
On the post: What Should We Do About Linking To Sites That Block People Using Ad Blockers?
How Come?
You guys are the very reason I sought out and chose a blocker in the first place. No, I don't want to whitelist you! You want to track me, expose me, and over-sell me.
How bout, Imma start with an assumption that you are on the blacklist, and you convince me that that was a mistake. Here's some deal-breakers:
- tracking, especially by third party ad networks
- pop-ups, pop-unders...any fn popping
- things that make the page's actual content bounce up and down for 30 seconds while it loads ads from god-knows-where
- offer me a fair DEAL, not "accept ads or pay us $5/mo". We should be talking penny increments, not $.
Here's a idea. Serve your own ads. Make them decent, put them on the side.
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