I'd have thought that the niche for rugged smartphones might be small, but offer a relatively stable profit. What are the other competitors in that market? I know samsung offers some rugged phone, any other major brands?
It is not just more people for the same number of houses, but importantly also changed preferences.
If more people want to live in the city, then empty houses in the countryside don't help.
I'd have to look it up, but I also think the amount of living space used per person has increased. Especially for older people that keep on living in the same house (which they might own), even after the children have left.
I never had an Xbox and probably am not the target audience, but I can definitely see the value proposition.
Seems great for casual gaming with a very low barrier of entry. Who knows how long game pass retains the value it currently offers, but until then there is nothing wrong with enjoying it.
Personally Xbox never was for me because PC is just very different (I e.g. wouldn't want to play strategy games on a console) and if I were to get an additional console it would likely be a PlayStation since the exclusives usually seem stronger.
Google struggles with presenting a unified interface, design language, and overall experience across their scattered hardware platforms
Agreed, but that to me seems more of a conceptual and software issue, rather than the hardware side. Although the article makes it seem like the teams getting merged are also (at least partially) responsible for that:
Currently, all three teams operate separately, making standalone decisions on things like design, software, hardware engineering, etc.
However they also need to be more reliable to build an ecosystem that people buy into. It's kind of a meme that in every google thread killedbygoogle.com gets mentioned, but there is truth behind it. Especially in the smart home space you really need to project long term support for people to buy into your product suite.
I absolutely agree with this take.
This isn't something that will just go away. Especially for something like video games it just makes too much sense.
The best time to address this topic might have been a long time ago, but they are still in a position where they can shape how things will play out. In the short term it might be better to not do so, but eventually someone else will take the opportunity if they don't.
I feel like this reasoning would change character of the right to vote from something inherent, to something that has to be earned. Which i am not really a fan of.
If you are too young to work you shouldn’t have to vote
Makes it sound like a chore, not sure if that was intended. The phrasing however somewhat leads to another completely different discussion, whether or not it would be a good idea to require everyone to vote (even if they just mark their ballot invalid) to combat low voter turnouts.
But as with other arguments, we again don't tie voting rights to having a job otherwise we would deny them from the elderly or sick aswell. I think in this context the argument is sometimes made that when you have a job you are forced to pay taxes and therefore should be allowed to vote, but there are other taxes like sales tax that everybody pays earlier.
This of course won’t solve all the parties being shit tho.
I agree with you, but a baby can’t read a ballot or pull a lever
I absolutely get the sentiment, but with arguments like these i always end up running into hypocrisy and double standards. There are plenty of illiterate adults and we are rightfully allowing them to vote, so do the blind. Paralyzed people are also voting despite them not being physically able to move a lever. As you said, there should always be help available.
In practice i doubt many babies will articulate a desire to vote and the number of extremely young children will also be limited. So to me if a 6 year old comes up and says "i want to vote" i say let him, he certainly is affected by the consequences of the elections regardless.
let anyone who is able to register go to the polls.
I would note that depending on the implementation this can also be a unneccesary hurdle and be abused as seen in the US.
As an inherent right it really should be as automatic as practial limits allow it to be (some sort of register is ofc needed to prevent voting multiple times).
Here in Germany for example it's simply tied to your registered primary residence, which means that only people without such have to actively seek out registration wherever they live.
I would be concerned about a certain type of person trying to make as many little voters as they can crank out, but I suppose some people do that anyway and just wait until they turn 18.
And that's the slippery slope: Who gets to decide that "certain type of person"?
To go with your example of the number of children: I think statistically poor people have more than the rich. Is that what we want to fight? Also who is to say that children vote the same as their parents?
You stopped that quote a few words too early and left out the "as i hoped" part. I guess i simply had unrealistic high hopes that we would collectively move here, but the mods of /r/de opened back up at some point and the majority is still there.
But you are of course right that overall there are quite a few of us here. I guess expanding into a new space that is leaning towards communism is something we have experience with.
Agreed. Not that i dislike people doing stuff by themself on a small scale, but i really wish the focus would be more on larger scale projects and giving people easy access to invest in those.
Dont make everyone get a small solar panel and a tiny battery in their house. Let them invest in something like a large wind turbine in their area and maybe directly reap some of those benefits.
The german communities didn't transition quite as well as i hoped, but the like of !deutschland@feddit.de and !dach@feddit.de still see enough engagement to serve their purpose.
So i guess those are my favorites so far. Simply because they already function quite well.
Beyond that i am more of a Star Wars/Lotr guy, but i am warming up more and more towards Star Trek (liked it before aswell, but didn't dive into it too much). Especially since i enjoy some of the current series (Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks) quite a bit.
That and i think we also adopted technology differently. Places like China or india in a way skipped most of the PC/Laptop phase and went straight to smartphones as their main device to access everything. On a PC/Laptop you'll access most things through a browser, so many services already existed this way and also remain accessible through that.
And even to this day many will prefer to do some things on a larger screen rather than a smartphone, even if by now it is the primary device.
I'd have thought that the niche for rugged smartphones might be small, but offer a relatively stable profit. What are the other competitors in that market? I know samsung offers some rugged phone, any other major brands?