I've been using Autopilot for years, but recently subscribed to FSD for a long weekend roadtrip. It changed my mind on the value of FSD.
While unfortunate for consumers, it cleans up the offerings. For four years, I didn't buy FSD because Autopilot was good enough to cover highway driving and I couldn't justify $99/month for the "last mile". If you strip out Autopilot and given the latest FSD, I would 100% buy the FSD subscription.
Removing the lifetime purchase option also simplified my mental model. Before, I was always stressed that if I bought a few months, loved FSD, and then bought the lifetime, I would have "wasted" those few months. Plus, every month I owned the car yet didn't buy lifetime FSD made it worth "less" to me: I'd eventually sell the car, so I'd missed out on those few months of usage.
I do wish Tesla offered a price lock: so long as you maintain your FSD subscription, your price is guaranteed for 5 years. Otherwise, it does feel scary: I spend 50k on a car for its FSD and over time, they jack the price to $200 or $500/month. Also, if they jack up FSD prices and then lower base car prices, your Tesla's value decreases effectively, which feels even worse.
Emotionally, I agree that the current system sucks. But how exactly do you "[put] median housing titles in the hands of median people"? Government seizure and redistribution of property titles? That's where I always get stuck: criticizing society ills is much easier than proposing concrete, pass-able policy.
"No mainstream economists touch this problem" because it's a damn hard problem without painless solutions.
I mean the problem will solve itself eventually. As wealth continues to centralize and urbanization continues unchecked, the “renter” voting block will eventually be state-level majorities in places like New York and California.
There are plenty of ways for people to “vote themselves” property, whether it happens peacefully or not is a decision of those in power. The spectrum runs from land value tax to punitive landlord taxes, improving tenant rights, squatter rights, and outright seizure.
I don’t know which path we’ll go down, but some step in that direction feels inevitable within the next 60 years.
I'd agree that China is preparing to be cut off, but it's not because of Taiwan. Dan specifically mentions this:
"In vain do I protest that there are historical and geopolitical reasons motivating the desire, that chip fabs cannot be violently seized, and anyway that Beijing has coveted Taiwan for approximately seven decades before people were talking about AI."
Consider the historical timeline: "Fortress China" policies coincide with the rise of American protectionism on both sides of the aisle and the introduction of chip restrictions and punishing tariffs. Taiwan is an emotional/nationalist issue for China, but it's only one part of their policy, not the lynchpin as your comment suggests.
Early Google search only provided web links. Google Images, News, Video, Shopping, Maps, Finance used to be their own search boxes. Only later did Google start unifying their search experiences.
Yelp suffered greatly in the early 2010s when Google started putting Google Maps listings (and their accompanying reviews) in their search results.
OpenAI will eventually unify their products as well.
I disagree with your "natural" person qualification. "Non-natural persons" includes anyone with a work visa or green card. It's hard enough for most people to get these, much less become fully naturalized citizens. Plus, the waiting time isn't guaranteed in length: it's variable based on the political climate. It's hard enough for immigrants today. Making the viability of home ownership based on political whims only worsens it. Shouldn't we prefer these immigrants become homeowners, increasing their "investment" in their local communities?
"Natural" and "naturalized" do not refer to the same concept. "Natural person" includes those with work visas or green cards.
>A natural person is a living human being. Legal systems can attach rights and duties to natural persons without their express consent.
>The concept of a natural person appears in business law and bankruptcy law, where it provides a contrast with an artificial person or a legal person which is an entity that is treated as a person for legal purposes. While natural person describes an actual human being, artificial person describes a partnership, corporation, or some other entity that has been provided with legal personhood by statute.
You misunderstand why I brought up him being from Xamarin.
The initial conversation was about how Nat was likely leaving because his contract ran out. The counterpoint was that he was from the Microsoft side and therefore he didn't have a retention contract. I brought up Xamarin because he was likely under a retention contract from that acquisition.
That being said, these contracts probably had little to no effect on his decision though, as I'm sure he would have made more money than he could spend in a lifetime regardless of whether he had stayed or not.
> I brought up Xamarin because he was likely under a retention contract from that acquisition.
Microsoft bought Xamarin in February 2016. I'm sure five-year retention contracts are possible, but that seems extraordinarily long; I've rarely seen longer than two years.
While unfortunate for consumers, it cleans up the offerings. For four years, I didn't buy FSD because Autopilot was good enough to cover highway driving and I couldn't justify $99/month for the "last mile". If you strip out Autopilot and given the latest FSD, I would 100% buy the FSD subscription.
Removing the lifetime purchase option also simplified my mental model. Before, I was always stressed that if I bought a few months, loved FSD, and then bought the lifetime, I would have "wasted" those few months. Plus, every month I owned the car yet didn't buy lifetime FSD made it worth "less" to me: I'd eventually sell the car, so I'd missed out on those few months of usage.
I do wish Tesla offered a price lock: so long as you maintain your FSD subscription, your price is guaranteed for 5 years. Otherwise, it does feel scary: I spend 50k on a car for its FSD and over time, they jack the price to $200 or $500/month. Also, if they jack up FSD prices and then lower base car prices, your Tesla's value decreases effectively, which feels even worse.
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