Post 9gCXSL6PbAT5uvs9se by ajroach42@retro.social
(DIR) More posts by ajroach42@retro.social
(DIR) Post #9gCUZtDcqyCftM9h3Y by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T17:05:42Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
Thinking about public spaces and microtransactions. These two things are not related. But I'm still thinkin' about 'em at the same time. 1) We got no public spaces. They're mostly gone, usurped by commercial spaces. 2) Payment processors have rendered payments of less than roughly $1.50 worthless. I'm going to discuss each of these things in thread form.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSKMKMVbZc0JM36 by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T17:08:52Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
There's a park in front of my apartment complex, and it has a giant electronic billboard facing it, that plays video and audio 24 hours a day. It's a public space made commercial.We treat coffee shops like public spaces, but they still close at 10pm, and give you dirty looks if you don't buy something.Hell, three nights a week when it's cold out the lady and I will just go wander around various retail establishments so that we can get some walking in, and not be out in the wind and the rain.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSKhb5QcQfyGLCa by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T17:09:32Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
When I get together with friends, we mostly have to do it in someone's home, because our options are that or a bar or a coffee shop, because even commercial spaces that were at one time geared towards socialization and drawing a crowd have either disappeared or shifted their business model to one that places greater emphasis on consumption.(Most arcades are gone, for example. Tabletop stores are moving towards a more event based model, where there is some kind of buy in for the evening.)
(DIR) Post #9gCXSKu0LIXlIS4FXc by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T17:11:57Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I can't blame these retail establishments for doing these things. Money is tight, inflation eats it away. Wages increase at a rate bellow inflation, anyway. Our buying power is lower than it has ever been. Of course businesses are struggling to keep up. Of course traditional public spaces are being eroded by more value extraction. There's so little to go around from all of us, and capitalism is a game with winners and losers.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSL6PbAT5uvs9se by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T17:12:17Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I never lived on a college campus, but I had lots of friends that did. I spent a large portion of my late teens and early 20s in the Public Spaces that college campuses provide. Every building, it seemed, had a huge ground floor with tables and electricity and wifi, and some of them also had free coffee. I imagine that this is what it would be like if we made libraries more focused on being community spaces, gave them longer hours, and encouraged socialization or events in the evenings.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSLQcO2dCvbKINM by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:03:53Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
And my apartment complex has that kind of a lounge area. Many apartment complexes do. But when I was hanging out on campuses, I would just walk in to a building, plop down, and start working. I've never been to an apartment complex that didn't have access control on the doors to the building, the doors to the lobby, the internet connection, and the printer. You know? Heck, at this place I have to swipe my dongle to get a cup of coffee. It's almost a public space, but it isn't really.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSLatlor3RU8VOq by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:05:57Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
In my home town, they have a "community center" that is allegedly available for community events. The sign says "community center" If you call them, they answer the phone "Senior Center" You can rent the building for events two nights a month, if you've already rented it before. Every other night of the month, it's closed. I'm not sure what even is the point.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSLmx30Uo2rm8Bc by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:07:34Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
But even in other towns that have "community" centers, you're still looking at a pay out of a few hundred dollars to get an empty room and some chairs for the evening. It'd work if you wanted to host an event, but it's not really what I would call a community center, in that it is by design not at the center of any communities. Anyway, I don't really have a point here other than that our lack of public spaces is wearing us down as people and we should work to create new public spaces.
(DIR) Post #9gCXSM0mDbYSjkFAjg by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:08:50Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
So microtransactions. Digital stuff costs nothing to copy other than power, bandwidth, and storage space. For most digital items those numbers are so small as to be actually negligible, you could charge a penny or a dime for access to an item and conceivably make a profit. Except payment processors won't let you.
(DIR) Post #9gCXvxK2ZqHyqsMy1Y by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:12:43Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
Even If I wanted to charge a penny or a dime for access to a digital copy of a penny dreadful or a dime novel, it's not actually possible. The best I can hope for is to charge $1 (of which I'll get to keep, what, 30 or 40 cents if it's paypal? While the buyer is still out a full dollar, and probably doesn't even realize that I only got 40% of it.) A lot of cryptocurrency people point to cryptocurrency as the solution to this problem, but it comes with it's own barriers.
(DIR) Post #9gCYej6CJ0fNlpF6qu by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:17:43Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
In some ways I see this as another symptom of the same problem which has been eroding public spaces which is the reduction in the buying power afforded to the average individual. We're being rendered more or less powerless thanks to the concentration of wealth. To paraphrase Piketty, having money makes money faster than making money, which is really just a way of restating Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
(DIR) Post #9gCYejNZGQYqdhMyvY by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:21:56Z
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Wealth is concentrated in the center, people are concentrated at the edges.Gatekeepers and landlords from the center are using their obscene wealth coupled with our decreased buying power to prevent us from supporting one another.
(DIR) Post #9gCYejc6OOBfMmAaa8 by ajroach42@retro.social
2019-02-25T18:22:00Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
That's the whole story. That's the full thought. We're being prevented from supporting one another by a lack of (access to?) public spaces and the transaction fees associated with a cashless society.
(DIR) Post #9gCpu38JndTTTC7wcy by leadore@toot.cafe
2019-02-25T18:42:01Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@ajroach42 With cash I can buy things anonymously. Sure they can see my face, but I don't have to provide my personal info-- name, address, credit card number, etc. just to buy a cup of coffee or something. To pay someone online I have to do that so it's a serious barrier.
(DIR) Post #9gCpuvEYeeYFGBSgqm by clew@octodon.social
2019-02-25T18:26:44Z
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@ajroach42 "nothing to copy other than power, bandwidth, and storage space" plus also sysadmin time and customer service had BETTER be included. And none of those are free or even cheap in bulk, and you can't "lose money on each transaction and make it up in volume", although I think that's the current standard practice online. Contrariwise, I don't trust payment processors to tell us what their real costs are although I think it's possible that micropayments cost them real money.
(DIR) Post #9gCpuvoiUDTV4KNZD6 by kingannoy@octodon.social
2019-02-25T19:50:24Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@clew @ajroach42For big platforms the trend is to downscale both of those as much as possible. Sysadmin time by ruthlessly optimizing and automizing everything (not necessarily a bad thing). Support time by just not offering any or at the very least making it as inaccessible as possible (leading to amongst other things the horrible moderation of Facebook).If your scale is "practically everybody on the planet" the relative cost per sysadmin or support employee is also negligible.
(DIR) Post #9gCpuyYsHZaLa3zSQy by kingannoy@octodon.social
2019-02-25T19:56:02Z
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@clew @ajroach42I don't think that's a sustainable business model. I do think it's the Facebook model, or the Google model. The ratio of employed humans to free users has to be as low as possible otherwise there is no way of making a profit by offering free stuff.
(DIR) Post #9gCpwxBONaszsqwwPQ by saltqueer@sunbeam.city
2019-02-25T21:26:32Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@ajroach42 I know my town has a community center that's technically a senior center because the voters wouldn't ok a community center in the budget, bit a senior center passed the first try
(DIR) Post #9gCpxAcSQHGBYYiEts by lordbowlich@mastodon.social
2019-02-25T18:11:50Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@ajroach42 And of course bars in the U.S. have become noisy loud affairs. Music and televisions blaring so all you can do is drink your beer -- you'll need to step outside if you want to actually socialize.I've really liked the kinds of places you find in Wisconsin. Quite snowed-in hole in the walls. Often with the best pizza and burgers for miles.Rural parts of Ireland also seem to get that right.