For one thing, this page should have just linked to the original rather than replicating it in full. HN doesn't replicate work done by others, and is superior to "Greater Wrong" in that respect.
Just FYI, the page replicates the work in full because the author has set up automatic crossposting from her blog to LessWrong (and GreaterWrong is a mirror of LessWrong).
Yes, but the GP was asking to avoid linking LW altogether — not just when there’s a better original source —- which seems ... overbroad (and flamebait).
LessWrong can be reasonably characterized as a recruiting ground for pyramid schemes and/or a cult of personality. It is an attempt to reframe libertarianism as apolitical and as the only rational, correct course of action. Effective altruists are urged to donate to unaccountable AI research projects controlled by LW essayists.
For many reasons, I don't believe it's responsible to link people there.
Some starting points below, but please do your own research:
I don't believe this was a good call. The title was accurate before, and the meaning of the submission has been substantively changed. Now it uses the title of the site - something we're explicitly asked not to do as part of the HN Guidelines.
As a reader, there's a real difference between deciding to upvote the original title (an observer's description of an inherently deceptive project) versus casting a vote on what it's been changed to (a brand name used to promote that project). I would absolutely upvote an article critical of The Spinner - while at the same time, I'd downvote a promotional submission.
OP did not intend to advertise The Spinner, they intended to expose it as a deceptive project without linking to third-party press coverage. The submission title absolutely matters.
If this changes your mind, please go with the original again.
This is a pretty rare case. I'd say the commenters made it abundantly clear that the project is not to be taken at face value, so in a way the title is not so important. Upvoting the submission doesn't mean you support what the site is saying or doing. It's more that you think it deserves attention, relative to the other articles that are in play that day.
I referred to "if the title includes the name of the site, please take it out, because the site name will be displayed after the link" but I get that this may apply in particular to "Washington Post: " etc.
Point about importance vs. endorsement is well taken; I would rather not give any publicity to this project without couching it in explicit criticism, but that's a personal choice.
Absolutely this. A bubble doesn't look like one until it pops, so you can't just say "everyone's buying $2000 spin bikes, everything must be fine." For starters, Peloton does a majority of its sales through Affirm and other consumer financing instruments, and books them as revenue. It's more accurate to say "everyone is buying $2000 spin bikes using 30% APR installment loans."
In the risks section, Peloton says that their revenue could decline due to changes in credit markets and decisions made by credit providers - a.k.a. if a bunch of people start to default on their expensive luxuries.
"In the future, we cannot be assured that third-party financing providers will continue to provide consumers with access to credit or that available credit limits will not be reduced. Such restrictions or reductions in the availability of consumer credit, or the loss of our relationship with our current financing partners, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial conditions, and operating results."
Instead of $1,995 up front, it's $3,783 over 39 months due to a subscription contract bundled with the financing. This is a very clever way to claim "no interest" but actually charge 27% APR. There are absolutely customers who buy this but can't afford it.
If you didn’t buy the bike on financing you’d still have to pay the subscription if you wanted to use it as intended. Not sure why you’d consider the subscription an interest-like fee. The only criticism is if you stopped using the bike before you paid it off then yes you would be paying subscription fees for all the remaining months you never used.
For what it’s worth, according to the S-1 they stopped bundling the subscription as part of the bike financing in 2018, so people are just financing the bike alone now.
And this is no different than the typical phone financing plan.
You pay for the phone over 24 months but they “bundle” the cost of an additional line. You would pay for the cost of the line over 24 months but no one would call that “interest”. You could buy the phone outright and just use it over WiFi just like you can use a Peleton without the subscription. But, in both cases, it reduces the functionality of the product.
In both the case of the phone and the Peloton, it allows someone who can't afford the item to pay for it on an installment basis. On an individual level that access to credit might be useful, but it's another form of leverage which is not always a great indicator.
In fact, if people are making use of that option unusually often, economists get worried. Prior to a recession, consumers often feel more confident (and take on more financial obligations) than they have the resources to keep up with.
Phone is very different IMO. I always lease my phone not because I can’t afford to buy it outright but because the upgrade cycle is so short (a year with iPhones) that if you are someone who likes having a new phone then it makes more sense to just lease one and upgrade whenever you want than to buy it and deal with the hassle of selling it later on.
The equation has changed more recently as smartphone innovation has really slowed and very incremental. In either case you can just keep you phone for 18 mo and buy it outright.
Leasing is different than what the phone companies are doing now. They just take the retail price of the phone and divide it over 24 or 36 months if you want to cancel your included service contract early, you pay off the remaining balance of your phone. They often allow trade ins or upgrades as an option, but there is functionally no different from 0% financing 24 months with a phone + service plan than 0% financing + subscription with Peleton.
I have a 128GB iPhone 6s from 2015 that my son is still using and will at least get the current version of iOS through September 2020. Phones have been “good enough” since the 2013 iPhone 5s.
Tell that to furniture stores that have had 5+ years of no interest financing forever. Of course they raise the prices to pay for the “free financing”.
By "tech" is meant "the community." You can't get policy change without enough people getting involved and supporting that change. Do you want to fix this?
Join YIMBY Action. Support pro-housing candidates at the polls. Tell your friends.
We in tech or the tech community live in a world where everything has a solid yes or no answer there are very few grays. The rest of the world is not like that. It's full of grays and they change constantly. If I can pick between a great politician or a great Techie to lead a community I will always pick the politician. They can lead a group of people. Techies can come up with the right answer given solid facts but that's not the real world.
"Politics is an organizational problem, not a technological one."
If we could just build more houses by saying that we decree them into existence, we wouldn't have this problem. The author proposes some ways to bolster the pro-housing community and get tech voters involved in local politics (including joining https://yimbyaction.org/), and here we are still wondering whether we want to have lower rents or not.
"Let it get really bad so people notice" isn't even close to a solution. We all know there's a housing crisis; the solution depends on who you ask.
Some folks are going to say "let's have high affordable housing requirements in new projects." They may genuinely want lots of affordable units, or they may want to freeze housing supply and thus preserve the value of their single-family homes. Pro-tenant renter groups may not care about a "neighborhood character" argument, but they may care quite a bit about a "gentrification" argument, which is almost the same thing. Depending on what kind of YIMBY you ask, you could get someone who cares deeply about affordability, or someone who believes the market will fix everything.
All of this to say: this is a political problem about getting enough different groups with distinct interests to work together. Nobody gets a magic wand to deregulate everything, nor would it help.
If creating that coalition is something you care about, join the group the author recommended: https://yimbyaction.org/
For even more context here: they're part of a biotech incubator called 4Catalyzer. The other companies are also working on potentially life-changing products too, including cancer drugs and seizure detection.
As far as bringing in some UK sources that were traditionally print, I'd probably go with The Guardian and the Telegraph - caveat, they do have a left- and right- leaning bent, respectively. There might be an AP feed you can get in addition to Reuters so people have more newswire options.
