My company’s owner/CEO can stay, gives us all sizeable profit share bonuses. During covid people didn’t get layed off, even though there was no work. Sure hours were reduced, but work was found around the shop to keep people busy as much as possible.
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
Who stay small because they don’t squeeze their employees and their clients to grow. They care about risks when opening a new location, even if those risks are primarily to the people they’d hire.
What’s it called when something grows out of control without regard to the welfare of their peers or the sustainability of the system?
In other words, small business owners that care about employee and their clients.
YMMV
sure some do
I agree, hence specifying the ones who care.
Way too many do not care and wonder why no one is “loyal”.
I would rather focus on billionaire and millionaire than CEO since both are not automatically interchangeable… .
You can be a CEO In a small business without being a millionaire of the same category as the one of United HealthCare
This thread is cursed. First, “lets make a list of CEOs who are incredibly cool aktuly”. Then “you know who are better than the mega-rich? The delusional wanna-bes who nickel and dime everyone they do business with in the vain hope of hitting the big time”.
Worst human being I ever worked for was a guy who’d franchised out a college exam prep business and expected me to be on call 24/7 for $250/week. Guy was charging $2500/student for a six week course and my class had ten of them. Fuck small business owners.
So your one experience represent all small business owners… Just wow
Thankfully you don’t paint with a broad brush 🙄
So your one experience
Crazy to think anyone could have had more than one job.
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Well I know for sure ain’t nobody mentioning the Nestle CEO, Laurent Freixe, on here 🤣
CEOs should just be elected by the employees
That’s a feature of Market Socialism, but we can’t call it that because sOcIalIsM sCaRy, so let’s go with Democracy in the Workplace.
Socialism is of course democratic. When people say “socialism is bad” what they mean is Socialism is good, and they’re thinking about Communism, which is actually also good but has never really been implemented properly.
Communism could not be implemented properly, without first moving through socialism, that is, worker control and collective ownership of their productive workplace, but all over the world. A radical social transformation, international in scope, in which we can begin to assess human need and begin to distribute based on it, democratic from top to bottom.
But the ruling class won’t just give over control it has to be taken, with collective power.
I mean, that’s literally the conclusion that Richard Wolff came to. Call it whatever, just as long as we do it.
Pirates had some of the purest forms of democracy. Their captains were democratically elected in many cases as well. Not sure why they came to mind when you said this… But if your going to rip people off, and democratically pick your leader, pirates formed your company right
Seems like the pirate environment is especially suited to this type of democracy. Pirate ships operate outside the protections afforded by law, so the only thing really preventing pirate captains from being ousted (or murdered) is the crew’s support.
I guess a CEO would need to maintain shareholder support, but shareholders are generally fairly disconnected from the company’s day to day operations. Most individuals own shares through mutual funds or ETFs, which means they don’t actually have share ownership themselves and can’t vote. All you have is the fund owing you a fiduciary duty to vote in your best interests, which generally translates to whatever makes the most money. So the CEO just needs to keep a few large institutions happy, and possibly some large wealthy individual shareholders that he knows from the rotary club (where the heads of aforementioned institutions are also members)
In other words, the way the financial system is set up systematically deprives the less wealthy from their right to have a say in the operation of the companies they nominally own a part of.
At the start of the Russian Revolution, the Soviets tried that. Even they quickly discovered that pure democracy didn’t work well when choosing “the boss.” They even went so far as to remove ranks from the military. Which failed even faster.
Turns out, “the boss” often can’t afford to be popular or buddies with everyone when making decisions.
Che Guevara wrote about in his book Critical Notes on Political Economy about how workers who are given full autonomy in their enterprises actually can become antagonistic towards society because they benefit solely from their own enterprise succeeding at the expense of all others, and thus they acquire similar motivations to the capitalist class, i.e. they want deregulations, dismantling of the public sector, more power to their individual enterprise, etc.
The solution is not to abandon workplace democracy but to balance it out also with public democracy. You have enterprises with a board that is both a mixture of direct appointments from the workers at that company with their direct input, as well as appointments by the public sector / central government. The public appointments are necessary to make sure the company is keeping inline with the will of everybody and not merely the people at that specific enterprise, because the actions of that enterprise can and does affect the rest of society.
Workplaces need to be democratic, but also not autonomous from the democratic will of the rest of society.
“on a long enough timeline, the primary purpose of every organization becomes its own continued existence”
Yeah… no.
Reality is sometimes the boss has to be bossy. Quadrupling salaries and cutting 4 days a week from the schedule sounds great for employees until the business fails.
What should be implemented is a maximum ratio of executive/worker pay (including contractors so they don’t just outsource cheap labor to cheat the system) based on 5-year averages.
Without the 5-year rule, and new CEO can come in, give everyone massive raises, and burn the company down for a quick buck.
The boss can still be bossy if elected. Your 5 year rule is silly and does not address the overlying problem, which is that the CEO works for the shareholders and they only care about making record quarterly profit gains at any cost.
The boss does sometimes have to be bossy. If the workers have a stake in the company that actually matters, then they also actually care about the outcome that the company faces.
You’re not going to vote to drive something into the ground if you think it will provide you with more value not dismantled and in your pocket.
Workers aren’t idiots any more than CEOs are. It’s why worker owned co-ops that elect their management do sometimes vote to reduce their own wages. They have a fair stake and want what’s best for the business because it’s best for them.
What if they work for a company where the vast majority of positions aren’t viewed as a “career” jobs?
Not many people want to flip burgers or stock shelves the rest of their lives. If 80% of the workplace doesn’t plan on sticking with the company anyway, why wouldn’t they elect the person who will triple their salary for a few months before they jump ship to another burger chain?
With that bump in payment, they can afford to spend a few months looking for a job after the one they have goes away because the business went under.
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You could in fact create a company that operates like that if you wanted. The problem is that you can’t force every company to organize according to your preferences.
You could if you worked together… And your preferences were the majority’s preferences
You can force a lot of things if you have the majority. Doesn’t mean you should.
If Congress writes the law then it can be so.
Except if it’s capitalism right, because this bullshit is happening now
Sam Reich of Dropout TV
He’s been here the whole time!
Is he even technically rich-rich? Or is he just my-parents-have-money rich?
It’s to my understanding that Dropout is doing pretty damn well, so I imagine he’s pretty rich from that. Not billionaire rich, but likely a millionaire.
Dropout’s doing well as an upstart company, but I don’t know if its profitable by a long shot. Sam pays well and he’s got a growing cast/crew with expanding budgetary needs. Who knows how much debt he’s carrying, either. I’m even willing to bet he’s not the sole proprietor. It’s been reported that cast and crew are in a revenue sharing arrangement with the company
Dropout officially retired all CollegeHumor branding in September 2023. Later that year, Dropout shared its profit with its employees and other workers
a habit that would definitely cut into its valuation if these contracts weren’t terminated.
With subscription in the hundreds of thousands, its undeniably a success. But how much does that actually translate to Sam Reich himself? Much harder to say.
Yeah I’m not sure he’s actually a wealthy CEO. According to some random articles I’ve seen Dropout is only recently profitable and has started to hire more full time employees which is great. Either way, assuming he’s consistent with his views, I think he’s one of the very few CEOs I would really want to spare.
Video game industry will collapse in on itself when Gabe Newell dies, and enshittification creeps into Steam.
CEO of Ben &Jerry’s. They are not just posting the black square on their insta and then moving on, like half their posts are about fighting inequity, encouraging people to vote for actual human rights, openly pro abortion, pro immigrant rights, pro black rights, pro women’s right, about fighting climate change etc. they are walking the walk, conservative dollars be damned
Also AFAIK they are one of the few companies that have been removed from the BDS list after improving behavior and leaving illegal Palestinian settlements. Recently they sued their parent company for silencing their statements on Palestinian rights.
I don’t love ever setting any people or corporations on a pedestal. Nevertheless this is reassuring behavior to see amidst all the Starbucks, AirBnB and Re/Maxes of the world.
Adding my vote of confidence to them
It’s a shame they don’t fully move to vegan ice cream
Edit: When the very base ingredient of their ice cream is based on exploitation and torture, how much are their initiatives really worth? It’s virtue signalling at its best
Plus I’m yet so see someone giving a valid reason as to why they shouldn’t. Just tell me you don’t care and I’ll move along
Why should they? I have no problem with people being vegan and I have no problem with vegan food being provided as an option but I don’t think vegans have the right to dictate to everyone else how they live their lives.
A. Ben & Jerry’s moving to exclusively vegan ice cream is in no way forcing people to live their lives a certain way. Recipes are not protected by copyright law so anyone can make and sell ice cream however they want.
B. The dairy industry wreaks havoc on the planet. It would benefit everyone if the dairy industry disappeared or at least shrank
It would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream (which may not be their preference) or switch to another brand (which also may not be their preference). What you’re saying is that you want people to have fewer options.
Would it be accurate to rephrase your argument like this?
“Ben & Jerry’s changing all their recipes to use only vegan ingredients would be anti-freedom”
If you want to make an argument against that, you can do that in your head. You seem to be good at making up things you want other people to say, so you don’t need me for your imaginary argument.
You could just say “no.” I was curious how far your logic would go because you said, and I quote, “it would be forcing people who prefer Ben & Jerry’s to either have vegan ice cream or switch to another brand”
Like, dude, come on. You have to hear how ridiculous that sounds. Nobody is forcing anybody to eat ice cream. And also, though this is just coming from my experience, I’ve never met anyone who exclusively likes Ben & Jerry’s. Bad ice cream is almost always better than no ice cream so I would challenge you to find someone who would be upset about needing to eat ice cream that was created by any brand other than Ben & Jerry’s.
Humans are literally forcing animals to live and die by their life styles. The only ones forcing anybody here are humans.
There is no sound reason as to why B&J doesn’t fully move away from non-vegan ice cream. They’ve proven that they can produce vegan flavours, that they cost them the same (probably less even), that they taste well enough for them to remain among the flavours they offer. It’s just stigma and prejudice that leads to people shutting off completely when veganism is even mentioned.
Realistically, like be frank with yourself for a second and don’t resort to a kneejerk reaction: would you mind if your ice cream was vegan? It’s a luxury item, it’s a sweet, so it’s not essential. Most sweets you eat are vegan already. What’s one more? Plus, you end up helping a bunch of animals.
Okay but that’s something you care about.
What we’re talking about is finding the lowest common denominator of what can be considered acceptable by the general populace, It is not about becoming the best version of ourselves.
Let’s not muddy the waters by making this about something other than basic human decency.
That would be an absolute disaster.
Why?
vegan icecrean is apparently terrible… said no one ever
There aremore very bad milk-substitute ice creams than bad regular ice creams. It may be the age of the market, though.
This CEO, Gabe Newell, and (if he was still alive) the founder of Little Caesars, who, if I recall correctly, secretly paid for Rosa Parks apartment until her death.
The founder of Little Caesars was a typical magnate developer who bought up much of downtown Detroit and let it rot until he received tax incentives to build, and kicked out many low income residents from apartments he let sit until they got city money. His family continues this tradition. The Rosa Parks thing is the only good thing I’ve ever heard of that man and his family do.
Add Steve Wozniak to the list of the ones to be protected. The Woz has done more to pull people up and we should all aspire to that level if we ever have the means.
Woz isn’t a CEO and was stabbed in the back so many times he makes the Ten of Swords look like a sign for future friendships
He’s been on multiple board of directors and founded several orgs. While not a CEO, he’s certainly in the same sphere and must be protected.
Woz is the true Tech Jesus
in terms of being betreayed? sure.
In terms of being the salvation and the light? Nah, that’s Linus
Linus is the drunken uncle of the tech backbone, let’s be real here. Woz is the supportive one after being in abusive relationship after abusive relationship.
After every instance of getting relatively screwed over (he still made bank, just not as much) he still founded and ran groups that focussed on pushing the envelope of tech or improving less advantaged youth into stem fields
Linus is the drunken uncle of the tech backbone, let’s be real here. Woz is the supportive one after being in abusive relationship after abusive relationship.
Woz is Bill Dautrive, Linus is Rusty Shackleford :P
Woz is the true Tech Jesus
No that would be Stallman. In so many ways, but most importantly by establishing the concept of free software and pushing hard for progressive values. Also by being unpopular with the masses.
You mean GNU/Stallman
Gabe Newell owns fleets of yachts and private jets. The man is using your sweet gaming money to burn the planet.
Yeah but daddy gaben let’s me play my games 😩 so it’s okay
Yeah we need a source.
Also, as far as CEO’s go, speaking from an outside perspective obviously, the man is wonderful. Valve makes solid business decisions in favor of long term growth instead of short term profits. They do this buy making sure that their platform is easy, safe, reliable, and not abusive for their consumers. They institute their own consumer protections into the platform that make them less money, just to make sure they remain a place we WANT to shop, when everyone else tries to make themselves the only place to shop, and then fucking over their consumers at every opportunity. Valve is a fucking case study on how companies should be ran, and a perfect display of how modern american capitalism is ruining everything, by being the antithesis of it.
maybe he’s just buying up all the yachts and private jets so no one else can have them.
He was going to have them laser-scanned for a Half-Life 3 level, but nevermind.
Sources or STFU.
aww
Nah people need to stop jerking off Gabe and valve I general.
They started predatory lootboxes, ridiculously expensive cosmetics, early access, owning a licence instead of the actual game, had to be sued just to get refund policy and the vast vast majority of his wealth has come from just skimming a bit off from people who actually make games he distributes.
If you look at valve without the “omg steams sale XXXDDD”" mentality, then they are no better than ea or Activision.
Do you understand how much work goes into distributing terabytes of content around the world?
Valve give you AAA games. For free. No material restrictions on game-play or competitive advantage. They pay for the server hosting, anti-cheat and matchmaking.
The provide a storefront that anyone can sell their games on. And they don’t contract you into exclusivity periods like others do. Do you think it’s coincidence that they have, by far, the largest games store in the world?
They have supported games, for free, for over 10 years. You could have 10 years of world-class online gaming (CS:GO/2 or DOTA2) and have not spent a single penny, with no hit to your ability to play and win.
Sure, they’re not perfect, they are at their core a profit-driven company and they can do things that are not in the consumers best interest.
But to compare them to shitbags like EA and Activision/Blizzard is an incredible thing to do. And removes any weight from your argument.
Virtual Casino. More addictive than IRL ones. Insidiously pushed on kids. Predatory. As Fuck.
I knew comments like this would turn up. But it still saddens me that even Lemmy users, who ar in general much more cognizant of these things and less likely to get caught up in the circlejerk, can’t acknowledge that Gabe Newell isn’t your best freind, he is in fact just another money hungry corporate CEO.
You say comparing valve to say, blizzard is incredible, but the points you use to defend valve can also be made of them.
Is Overwatch 2 not free? With no pay 2 win features? Does Blizzard not pay for the server hosting anti cheat and matchmaking? Do they not also support there game for years? ( also I find that funny given the fact the TF2 community is going ballistic right now over the fact valve isn’t doing shit to support it against cheaters and bots)
Yes they provide a store front anyone can sell on. Including shitty asset flips, early access pump and dumps, predatory spyware etc. And are very reluctant to do litersly anything about it when those scams are called to attention.
And again, that storefront isn’t some altruistic endeavour Gabe took on out the kindness of his heart. No he’s made BILLIONS by exploiting the worl of others, just like every other billionaire. And if providing a basic service makes up for your predatory bullshit, well we might as well let literally every other CEO off the hook then right?
It’s not a bad in to admit you got sucked in my propaganda or marketing or just general Internet circlejerks, what is a bad thing is to vehemently refuse any introspection on your current beliefs and defend them to the death simply because they are what you currently believe. I really hope I can reach out to people on Lemmy and that you guys can actually take a step and try to look at things objectively instead of doubling down.
I knew comments like this would turn up. But it still saddens me that even Lemmy users, who ar in general much more cognizant of these things and less likely to get caught up in the circlejerk, can’t acknowledge that Gabe Newell isn’t your best freind, he is in fact just another money hungry corporate CEO.
I encourage you to point out where I did that. I think, you’ll find, I agree with you, for the most part.
You say comparing valve to say, blizzard is incredible, but the points you use to defend valve can also be made of them.
Is Overwatch 2 not free? With no pay 2 win features? Does Blizzard not pay for the server hosting anti cheat and matchmaking? Do they not also support there game for years? ( also I find that funny given the fact the TF2 community is going ballistic right now over the fact valve isn’t doing shit to support it against cheaters and bots)
Yes, one of the two companies you listed have one free-to-play game. If you want to focus on that and ignore the decades of anti-consumer, money-grubbing behavior, I don’t think I can help you.
Yes they provide a store front anyone can sell on. Including shitty asset flips, early access pump and dumps, predatory spyware etc. And are very reluctant to do litersly anything about it when those scams are called to attention.
Are you referring to Steam: Greenlight? Because, you know, they shut that down 8 years ago. Or, maybe you’re referring to the mod marketplace they tried to start, and then shut down because of the backlash. That was 9 years ago.
And again, that storefront isn’t some altruistic endeavour Gabe took on out the kindness of his heart. No he’s made BILLIONS by exploiting the worl of others, just like every other billionaire. And if providing a basic service makes up for your predatory bullshit, well we might as well let literally every other CEO off the hook then right?
Actually, Steam originated as an effort to block Microsoft’s plans to turn PC gaming into a walled garden, like the consoles are. Sure, Valve make money off it, but there IS a consumer-friendly reason for it to exist.
It’s not a bad in to admit you got sucked in my propaganda or marketing or just general Internet circlejerks, what is a bad thing is to vehemently refuse any introspection on your current beliefs and defend them to the death simply because they are what you currently believe. I really hope I can reach out to people on Lemmy and that you guys can actually take a step and try to look at things objectively instead of doubling down.
Try this yourself.
Your post has an arrogance to it that smacks of “I’m always right, agree with me or be wrong.”. I’m not saying it’s intentional, but it comes across pretty strongly.
Also, don’t pigeon-hole people who disagree you into GABEN4LYEF RIDE OR DIE fanatics, and we might just have a constructive conversation.one of the two companies you listed have one free-to-play game. If you want to focus on that and ignore the decades of anti-consumer, money-grubbing behavior, I don’t think I can help you.
That’s my point to you exactly. You’re ignoring all of valves anti-consumer bullshit because they made a video game you like.
Are you referring to Steam: Greenlight?
No, I’m just referring to the steam store itself, that just allows all that shit to this day.
Sure, Valve make money off it, but there IS a consumer-friendly reason for it to exist.
So what’s the “consumer friendly” reason they don’t let you actually own your games?
Try this yourself.
I did. I used to be on the “omg Gaben so cool! Steam sale take my money you XD” circlejerk too. Then one day I heard about his fleet of luxury mega-yatchs and that made me look at things properly, that he was again just another billionaire leaching off the work of others.
Also, don’t pigeon-hole people who disagree you into GABEN4LYEF RIDE OR DIE fanatics, and we might just have a constructive conversation.
I’m not. That’s what you are doing to yourself by just completely disregarding decades of anti-consumer bullshit because they made a couple games you like.
You’re just outright dismissing undeniable shitty behaviour from Valve for entirely superficial reasons, then when I show you you’re justifications can be used with other gaming companies that get hate, you dismiss that without reason too.
You will probably consider this over dramatic but this interaction has 100% genuinely killed my last remaining scrap of hope for humanity. If people on Lemmy who are generally both left wing and intelligent, can’t even acknowledge that billionaires that push anti-consumer bullshit are bad (even when they make a bideo game you like) then what hope is there of the general public understanding that? We’re truly never going to change anything and we’re just going to let the billionaires destroy us.
Thank you, goodnight.
Until you acknowledge that my position has nuance and is not diametrically opposed to yours, there is no reason to engage in debate.
You’ve repeatedly misrepresented my stance to make it an easy target for dismissal.
I asked you to point out where I made the claims you attributed to me, you did not.
I think you also need to give up the idea that everyone on a given platform will be as ‘enlightened’ as you are.
Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions. There is infinite room for microscopic differences. Straw-manning and pigeon-holing does nothing but annoy people and make you look boorish. Nobody wants to engage with that.
I will acknowledge that if and when you make a position with actual nuance. “You can’t compare Valce to Activision because valve makes free games” isn’t nuanced and is just ignorant.
I asked you to point out where I made the claims you attributed to me, you did not.
??? No you didn’t? I even just re read this whole thread. You literally never asked that???
I think you also need to give up the idea that everyone on a given platform will be as ‘enlightened’ as you are.
Clearly.
Everyone has their own thoughts and opinions.
Yep, some people have class consciousness and actually want to talk about the failures of capitalism and the atrocity of people having billions of dollars while others starve and live on the streets. And others want to defend those billionaires because they run a company that made a video game they liked 20 years ago.
Truth.
Valve been private company allows them to avoid some shortsighted decisions of public corps, but they’re no saints.
We need more stores, with an interstore protocol allowing you to move your licenses. EU get on that please
He also normalized hosting kid’s content and adult/gambling content on the same platform. Anyone who tried to open up a game store that also sold adult material would get crucified nowadays.
The reason Steam is praised so much is because unlike EA and Activision, regardless of what they try to push that they shouldn’t, they do put in the effort of going back and looking at issues from gamer’s eyes. Those cosmetics? They came about at a time when P2W was much more of a concern, and paying for something merely visual was considered much more acceptable. Early access? It came about from trying to open up development to more indies instead of just the big devs and publishers. Licensing instead of owning? The alternative were much more costly physical copies that also degraded with time and which you had to maintain a backup of yourself. If your local game store didn’t have it, you were screwed, and there could be no discounts. Porn on the platform? Don’t care, not a child and I’m responsible.
Even then, I still damn Valve on both normalizing licenses on a subscription service that were it not for its market dominance could easily be teetering right now along with most people’s game library’s, and for not bothering to make an adult/gambling only version of a game store. GOG needs a competitor (remember Devotion and now Nine Sols), and it has none. It is possible to make money and be a digital distribution service without being a subscription service. There should be far more distance between adult and predatory content and normal gaming content, not all parents are responsible and it more easily creates communities predators can target from overlapping interests.
Making the claim that adult content = predators preying on children has a couple issues:
- Predators are incredibly rare, and it has been repeatedly shown that these claims of predators-behind-every-account are blown out of proportion for political scare reasons (see Satanic Panic, all of human history for more examples).
- Even if the above weren’t true, why on earth would those people be spending their time on adult content instead of, say, roblox or minecraft? You know, games for children, that children play?
The debate over steam hosting adult content is some really regressive stuff. An alternative take, the one I hold, is “It’s really heartening to see a major content platform not giving in to the conservative moralists that view anime tiddies as somehow damaging to the fabric of society. Making sexuality a less shameful topic for discussion also, conveniently, reduces ‘shame’ as an effective lever for preying on children, and makes them more likely to come forward and tell people when they’re actually in danger”.
All it takes is another client, a lot of argument for not wanting to take one iota of minimal responsibility. Predators are not rare, they literally fuel television series regarding them. They don’t have to be many to be a threat, either, all it takes is a small number of very active ones. They do target children’s game, having adult content facilities introducing children to it as “lol lemme gift u / giv u dis CD key its so sik”. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/07/us/video-games-child-sex-abuse.html - What alternate reality do you live in?
The first sentence of that article lists Minecraft and Fortnite.
Neither of those games are available on Steam.
…
So, and stop me if this is too wild a conclusion, it maybe just might possibly be the case that having separate storefronts doesn’t actually have any impact on sexual predation of minors in videogames.(Edit: actually, none of the games listed in that article are available on steam. Did… did you even read it?)
You were the completely utter moron who said predators “are incredibly rare”, I was just disproving it. Now you are just moving the goalpost. Yeah, time to disconnect from pervs who are asking to handhold them through basic logic they don’t want to see when all they will do is try to troll on whatever minutiae they think they can focus on to move the goalpost again.
That’s not moving the goalpost, that’s keeping the goalpost on the original topic. “Is steam making online predation worse by not having two separate storefronts” - Answer: Clearly, no, since there are multiple storefronts and that has nothing to do with how children are exploited online.
But if you want to talk about the rarity of predators (I’m taking the numbers in the article here): 1500 reported cases / year of sextortion in the US and nation partners is pretty damn rare. Even assuming non-reporting rates are 500x the value given in that article, that’s still 750,000 victims among ~1,000,000,000 people, or a 0.00075% victim rate. You’re only twice as likely to have been victimized per year as you are to have been struck by lightning. I don’t… like, I don’t know what else to call that but rare.
(The above numbers are just about sextortion, a very broad category of crime and that which is the crime in question here. Broadly, “pressuring kids online to send naked photos of themselves”. This number doesn’t include physical abuse crimes, I did confirm that in their sources.)
Fine, kick the kids off. It’s better that way. Heaven forbid there be a place with both kinds of content. Imagine what would happen if bookstores or streaming services or years ago video rental places would do if they had all kinds of content. Oh and imagine that Steam had a filter to hide all that adult content wouldn’t that just be absolutely crazy?
Not everything has to be safe for kids. Kick them the fuck out if it’s an issue. Don’t dumb down the adults experience.
Your analogy falls flat the moment your realize that G rated movies are served right beside R or unrated movies.
And steam has a filter to hide all adult content, and it also askes for your birthday all the damn time regardless of your account settings.
The first half of my comment was dripping sarcasm. I think the puritanical pearl clutching about steam having both types of content is stupid as fuck.
But what about the people who’ve got the maturity and responsibility of one, such as yourself?
Oh we will survive. Somehow! Thank you for your concern young knave but do not waste your fretting on us! Chin up!
can’t decide yay or nay for Mozilla but
Valve and CloudFlare.
Cloudflare provides valuable services this day on age but they’re building into a dangerous monolith of internet structure. Not sure how comfortable I am with that
CloudFlare’s dns seems like a better choice than Google’s (from a mullvad dns user)
Definitely valve. Say what you will about the man, or don’t, I’m not your manager, but he has kept the same formula to steam since it was created. While other empires crumble and fall to enshittification, valve simply is.
We need Gabe to stick around as long as possible. If he wants to buy yachts and gamble with the money he has, let him. He didn’t get to where he is by chasing every last dime and dollar, he got there gradually by running the company in such a way that it served the user base. As long as Valve’s Software continues to focus on the user, we should leave this one alone.
Gabe has like 7 yachts doesn’t he?
He’s filthy rich and makes some of his money with gambling addiction. But his company invests million into Linux and I really enjoy Valve’s products. There are thousands of worse CEOs and companies.
He’s also the original ceo of valve. Didn’t sell it out and have corporate ceos just casually going in and out.
And by all accounts, runs a great company to work for. Tons of freedom to experiment. Small staff. Great pay and benefits.
Yup. I’m an electrician in Seattle. We’ve built his offices and got to interact with his staff. I remember him mentioning to our GC the idea of having his offices open 24/7 to his staff with amenities was because the guy who came up with the idea is steam liked to work at night.
It has to be one of the most profitable companies on the planet. So much revenue with so little staff
Gaben is number 107 on the Forbes top 400 billionaires list.
Dude is fucking stacked
Is the CEO of costco still a decent guy?
Costco recently got a new CEO. The company had been pushing scummy tactics ever since.
That’s disappointing.
The hot dogs are still $1.50
And the roast chickens are still the cheapest in town.
nuff said
'Frade not. They are currently executing union busting measures against their workers.
Did they actually go through with it? I remember them attempting it, but then immediately backing down and issuing a very reasonable response letter basically saying they were clearly in the wrong and allowed the union to form. I could totally be unaware of any more recent developments though.
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Think the CEO of Costco did a similar move with the hot dogs
Close. The founder told the CEO if he raised the price on the hotdog “I will fucking kill you”.
So, who really gets the credit here is up to you.
The person who threatened to kill the CEO if the CEO fucked his customers, or the CEO who didn’t fuck his customers out of self-preservation?
They also bought 2 hotdog factories to minimize the loss.
Costco does pay decent as well.
Could they do better? Yes, but they are pretty decent for employees and consumers.
Oh come on, don’t be naïve. They bought two factories so they could switch from “hot dogs” to “mechanically-recovered animal-based byproducts” let’s be realistic
Aw man I thought they were still free range prairie dog peckers. Oh wait, they’ve always been cheap sausages.
You wouldn’t legally be allowed to call them sausage in the EU 😂
What do you think a sausage is? They have always been animals scraps ground up and put into animal intestines. That’s why people have been saying “you don’t want to see the sausage being made” for 200 years.
Frankfurters and Vienna sausages are the types of sausages used in hot dogs, both legal sausages in the EU.
My point is “with a legally mandated meat content in the EU” but the folks in this thread ate so much fucking slop they have no clue what they’re shovelling in their fat faces 😂
I’ve never heard anyone refer to a hotdog as a sausage in the states either and I even grew up poor
It’s more like everyone knows it’s a sausage. What else could it be? We don’t call them frankfurters either.
Do you really expect hot dog sausages to be made from premium meat? They use the scraps that can’t otherwise be used, same as chicken nuggets. This is a good thing. Those sausages and nuggets are perfectly fine to eat and we get to reduce waste.
Except hot dogs are cured meat which is terrible for you.
Hurts people some, hurts animals less. I’m ok with that. I am actively in love with hot dogs though for what that’s worth.
We all pick our poisons.
We’re you under the impression any hot dogs were ever anything other than mechanically-recovered animal-based byproducts?
That is literally what a hot dog has always been bud.
They bought the same hotdog factories that they were already buying hotdogs from. It was literally a one-to-one transition.
“they’re the same picture”
well to be fair, I’m not buying a hotdog for 1 USD and expect premium meat in that thing.
I mean, aren’t those the same thing?
What if the killer was the Costco founder? He told the United Healthcare CEO the same thing and then followed through.
So what your saying is, Costco’s founder and the shooter have a similar energy?
Costco also puts a maximum percent profit on items.
Really? That’s awesome.
Apparently they make more money from memberships than from sales margins, which are capped.
Last I heard, their profits were nearly entirely from memberships. This was probably five years ago though. I don’t know if their numbers have changed since.
I first heard about that like twenty years ago and apparently is still true today
Does anyone have a source for this?
I left reddit after the API fiasco and didn’t return, but I remembered seeing this on Data is Beautiful before that, so I just looked it up for you. (My search query in DDG was “data is beautiful reddit Costco profit margins” and a few popped up; this was the most recent.)
Transcription: infographic states
Net sales +$77.4B
Merch costs -$69.2BMembership fees +$1.5B
SG&A -$6.9B (Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses)
Taxes -$0.8BNet profit $2.2B (2% margin)
Source listed as: Costco Q4 FY 23 earnings
Edit: format failing :(
Great graphic, thanks
Thank you very much!
Also. I believe, he also said , if the workers think they need a union, we’ve failed as managers.
So. Yeah
I mean, it’s an understandable viewpoint.
It’s when union busting tactics are being brought in that things are problematic.
That’s because you view it entirely positively, instead of from the angle that he doesn’t want them to even know of the possibility.
I wish more companies had this mindset. If you treat your employees well and listen to their needs, they won’t need to unionize. When they do unionize, it means they don’t feel that they have been treated well and listened to.
It seems that the end result of this philosophy would be to treat your employees well!
If you have an employer that does the right thing, you should have a union that doesn’t need to do much. But you should still unionise, because it’s niave to think the company will always continue to behave that way. If anything, they naturally drift away from that state and it’s only a matter of time until it changes. The union is about having a level playing field with the company when you need it.
Unionize it’s not only about raising your working conditions. It’s about helping other to raise theirs. If you have better conditions you can tell other business owners that what the Union is asking, you already have it. One less point where they can grab themselves.
its an interesting difference in perspective for sure. here you join as a matter of course because you can push back against changes that are bad.
To be fair, he’s not really wrong, meaning that they’ve failed to take good enough care of their people, and my understanding is he didn’t stand in the way of one forming…
“I came to [Sinegal] once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty. We are losing our rear ends,’” Jelinek recalled in a 2018 interview with 425 Business. “And he said, ‘If you raise the effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’”
https://thehill.com/homenews/4696314-costcos-new-cfo-makes-announcement-about-1-50-hot-dog-combo/#:~:text=We are losing our rear ends%2C’%E2%80%9D%20Jelinek,effing%20hot%20dog%2C%20I%20will%20kill%20you.
Out of curiosity, how is it legal for Sinegal to say that to Jelinek? Or it isn’t but no one cares to press charges?
I’m sure the guy can tell the difference between a genuine threat and a hyperbole.
Prob same reason you can say “choke me daddy” ‘OK’ in bed
Not all jurisdictions consider that kind of phrase illegal without an apparent attempt to carry it out.
GabeN has been pretty cool.
Gabe has 6 yachts worth about $1 billion dollars. Not very cool at all, imho.
He didn’t kill anyone by denying them insurance or anything like that tho. Just took a commission on every game sold on Steam, a platform nobody’s forced to use.
And by running a casino that rakes in millions of dollars off kids. I can appreciate the positives he’s done with Steam, but I’m not about to ignore the negatives.
Yeah, he’s getting kids to play at a virtual casino that has absolutely no chance of returning and financial winnings, but he’s not taking millions of dollars off of kids. Considering those kids have the ability to own a gaming computer, I’m assuming the vast majority of that money comes from their parents. I don’t condone the kids gambling, but he’s not taking hard-earned money from kids that are in need and leaving them broke.
Can you explain? What cassino? Is it like a game with micro transactions or something?
Loot boxes are effectively gambling as there is no guarantee on what you’ll get. People in general can get addicted to the rush of getting that rare item the first time (which is usually what happens with a first open to get you hooked) and then either buy more loot boxes or the keys to open them.
Tbf knowing valve and looking at how their loot boxes work I don’t think they were malicious in their creation
Reminder that valves loot boxes interact with the community market, you can open a lot of boxes without spending a dime
Oh, I’m not shitting on Valve or anything. Just explaining how they could be called a casino.
Yeah this is something that everyone always seems to forget about this. If you get a lootbox in, say, Overwatch or Fortnite then you will pay out a fiver to open it or else it will never be opened. End of story, Blizz/Epic want their key money. *
You can open an infinite amount of Counter-Strike crates for free forever, by interacting with community marketplace. Unopened crates can be sold to other players. Steam Cards can be sold to other players. Good skins that you pull from your crates can be sold to other players sometimes at absurd prices that can finance another 200 crates. All without ever spending a dime of real money. Sure, Steam Cards and unopened crates may only sell for 5c apiece, but you get a steady stream of them for free just for playing the game, and that stream doesn’t dry up. It is perfectly feasible, if a little slow, to flip those into crate keys to loot your boxes.
And THAT’S the difference that makes me take notice. Sure, they still want you to shell out five bucks for crate keys, but an alternative path has been provided. And Steam makes money on marketplace transactions too, so they aren’t about to get rid of that option.
* I figure it should be noted here, that these are outdated. I went to double check myself as I remember this from Overwatch 1 and it would seem that neither OW2 nor Fortnite still use loot crates of that style. So to be honest I actually can’t think of any games that are still up and running that still use keys & crates in this way. The gamer outrage might have actually gotten us somewhere for once.
I sold all my hats and bought an Index. I’m so happy they can be resold.
Being a bit greedy =/= Killing millions of people through death panels
Huge difference
Nobody becomes a billionaire by being “a bit greedy”
One billion dollars is an insane amount of money.
Reminder, 1 billion dollars is:
- 1,000 millions
- 1 million thousands
- At the highest minimum wage in the world (Denmark @ USD$44,252/year), it would take just under 22,598 years to earn (11.2 Jesuses-ago)
- If a Dane earning min wage were to work 24 hrs/day non-stop, it would take them just under 4,977 years to earn (2.46 Jesuses-ago).
Billionaires have all that money even after their expenses. It’s their “savings account”, but their savings account makes much more interest than ours because they are actually invested in the market. If they need money beyond their regular pay, they use their investments as collateral for loans with interest rates lower than investment returns. They’re making money even if they are spending it.
Wealth is not money.
Point being?
They do in any advanced economy…
But steam don’t tax plebs like housing, health, and education does
A billion dollars is never “a bit greedy”. It is always a failure of the system to regulated exorbitant wealth through effective taxation and fair market economic policy.
Isn’t the Steam business model to charge less than everyone else though?
That seems like the exact opposite of greedy.
30%, same as apple, gog and… Well epic takes less then 15, microsoft takes even less, itch also takes less (unclear to me if 10% or set your own).
Anyway steam is only good for game makers because it is steam. Financially that is, because it is the biggest.
Edit: Itch default is 10%, but you can set it to 0% or even up to 100% if you want.
Well epic takes less then 15
But forces you to stick with the Epic platform for a year; bad for gamers, IMO.
Which is why I don’t use Epic. GoG and Steam all the way, baybee!
When did I compare those two things as being equally as bad? What the hell is with this black and white stance in my replies, absolutely wild to see people defending a man owning 1 billion dollars in yachts.
Im a huge steam fan.
I am not a fan of someone who can own multiple yachts.
Sorry GabeN.
Still seems like a nice guy. 🫡
This but with GabeN
Hawk’s response 😆👌
Couple of British examples of what should be the standard for modern business:
Julian Richer, founder of Richer Sounds (hifi store in the UK), seems like one of the better capitalists around. He signed over majority control of the company to an employee trust when he turned 60, donates 15% of their profit to charity, runs a nonprofit dedicated to exposing corporate tax avoidance, campaigns against zero hours contracts, and devotes company resources to promoting unsigned bands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Richer
James Timpson recently stepped down as CEO of Timpson, another UK retailer that specialises in things like key cutting, shoe repairs, passport photos etc. He made it company policy to hire people who had been to prison and help them get back on their feet, and his campaign for prison reform saw him step down from the company to become Minister for Prisons in the current government. The company has a “Director of Happiness” who is paid to keep the front line staff happy, resulting in policies like getting the day off work on your kid’s first day of school, compassionate leave for the death of a pet, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timpson_(retailer)
Timpsons apparently has really interesting business models.
A friend of mine has worked on a few of their conferences, and apparently it’s both fascinating and they come across as a genuinely wholesome business.It’s a franchise, but the franchisee (ie the shop) has complete control over what they sell and what services they provide (I dunno if there are any guard rails). So if they want to offer dry cleaning, they can. If they want to offer phone repairs, they can. If they want to only partially offer something, then they can rely on the Timpsons service network to provide the actual service (so dry cleaning without owning dry cleaning equipment).
https://www.timpson.co.uk/about-timpson
The management teams delegate authority but retain responsibility and we have only 2 rules:
- Look the part
- Put the money in the till
And apparently they look after their staff really well. Actually good/useful perks & benefits. In addition to the compassionate leave you’ve mentioned, I’m sure my friend said something about timpsons owning some property that they allow their staff to book for free (like free accomodation for holidays). Or maybe they do block bookings of stuff, or something. I wasn’t hugely paying attention tbh.
franchisee*
Editted
Plus their stores smell even better than petrol.
Newman’s Own salad dressing. Privately owned and all profits go to charity.
Seconding this, Paul Newman was probably the best person to ever come out of the state of Ohio.
He co-founded Newman’s Own, a food company which donates all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of May 2021, these donations totaled over US$570 million. Newman continued to found charitable organizations such as the SeriousFun Children’s Network in 1988 and the Safe Water Network in 2006.
(Pasted from his Wikipedia page)
And, sadly, no longer available in Canada for some reason :-(
Same with their frozen pizzas? I had never bought one before, then saw they were on sale the other day and figured I’d try them. Think it was 4.99 a piece. (Bogo 9.99) The pepperoni and ricotta one wasnt bad. The sourdough wasn’t very decipherable, but better than many cheaper pizzas. The 5 cheese I can’t speak for… As I overcooked it. The timer went off and I checked it, said to myself the cheese could melt a bit more and closed the oven. Saw the bottle of strawberry wine I was making didn’t look like it was bleeding air properly next to the sink and decided I should slowly turn the cap to drain the pressure and let the fermentation continue. (Have gallons of strawberries I froze left over still from spring that I grew). Turned the lid a bit and it of course exploded so much worse than I expected. Ceiling, floor, cabinets and everything within 10 feet got hit. I went to the bathroom and took my shirt off washed myself, started cleaning up the mess and cleaning the ceiling, cabinets and finally the floor when I remembered, oh shit the pizza… Yeah. The cheese was melted by then… just a bit darker than intended
Privately owned doesn’t mean anything. SpaceX, Twitter (I’m not calling it that), and Tyson are all privately owned.
Privately owned at least means they aren’t slaves to their quarterly reports. Every time a company goes public, they’re subject to the delusion of infinite growth in a finite system.
Really depends on the ownership structure. Backbiting private boards composed of kids and grandkids of founders that are just trying to claw as much out of their inheritance as possible are just as toxic. Coops are about the only thing I can respect.
So what? Private corporations are just as cruel.
Corporations are the problem, not their trading status.
I stand by my statement. I think you sped over the “at least” part of my comment.
In fairness SpaceX isn’t run by Musk, which is why it’s actually doing constructive things and not getting into culture war arguments every 15 minutes.
Craig Jelinek the (CEO of costco until recently) was always considered a good guy for putting his employees first and concentrating on keeping a high bar for product quality.
