>you'd end up with another junk food company

i'm not sure if i can agree with you on this. if i can create a successful junk food brand like mcdonalds, i'd do it in a second.

that's just plain wrong. if you even used tiktok, you'll understand how truly frighteningly powerful their algorithm is at finding exactly the kind of content you want to watch. i was never the kind of person to scroll my phone right before sleeping, but somehow i found myself doing that these days on tiktok, mindlessly just swiping up over and over again, not able to stop because almost every video seems to appeal precisely to my taste, even in the weird humor stuff.

Wow I get downvoted to make room for "it's magic".

the entire TikTok India is filled with content from the lower caste. like, literally if you check out all the viral ones like the cringey indian joker, or the very popular one with the 2 really bad acting siblings, they were all shot in the slums.

there's a follow model, it's just secondary. when you log into tiktok, the first page you see is called the For You Page, where content is pushed to you algorithmically. to see the content you actually subscribed to, you'd need to swipe left.

i mean, it's definitely not "ethnically" wrong LOL. (ps: in case people missed it, it's ethically, not ethnically)

man, i often hear people complain about aliexpress, i just don't understand it. i've been buying and using headscratchingly cheap products from china through aliexpress, and seriously as long as you're not a complete newbie to online shopping, it's not that difficult to find a legitimate store selling perfectly usable generic or unbranded products at a fraction of the cost of the branded version and they all work just fine. i've easily saved thousands of dollars over the years this way. i don't understand why people are so against this - a lot of what they buy from amazon or supermarkets in fact come from china as well.

I think Aliexpress is great. Amazon is a marked up aliexpress, and that’s not great.

When I pay a markup, I expect something extra like curating of products so I know what the low-mid-high tier options are without sifting through tons of search results and reviews. Or at least not commingling of stock, so I know what I’m getting.

Pretty much. If I search Amazon for something and there's a bunch of brands I don't know selling the exact same product with their brand name screen printed in the exact same location? Just go to AliExpress and buy it there.

Is that stuff tested by Underwriters Laboratories?

It makes sense that if Amazon is just dumping the same stuff under fake brands, why not go to the source. But anything that uses electricity could burn your house down, couldn't it?

i mean... that's a legit theoretical concern, but so far i've bought many dirt cheap electronic products from ali for years and so far they've all worked as advertised.

or in a more Black Mirror-esque reality, maybe after the human dies the robot no longer detects a heart rate or pulse and considers the corpse as trash and just disposes of it automatically.

move to Singapore then. they have full-time, live-in maids from indonesia or phillipines that can cost as low as USD 300-400 a month. i grew up in Singapore, where I had 3 maids on staff at all times, and they took care of everything, 24/7.

I think a lot of people would prefer a non-conscious entity to do their cleaning, who has no ability to judge them in any way.

Most people also don’t live in Singapore.

not sure if this comes across as dehumanizing, but trust me, the employers don't give a shit if the maids judge them. i don't know of anyone who has ever worried about being judged by their maids.

Not everyone is ok with treating a fellow human like a robot.

I am not defending the situation except to point out .. people at the lowest rung of the social ladder need to eat and have work with dignity. This is a complex issue. I'm glad I don't live in a developing country anymore so don't have to come face to face with it. I would like to raise awareness that you , I and a bulk of people on HN live in absolute abundance compared to a wide swath of the population in places such as Philippines, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. It is better not to judge others like the original poster (who may be providing people with dignified labor opportunities).

If Alice hires a full-time live in maid and her just-as-wealthy neighbor Bob buys a robot instead, all else equal, which is having a better impact on the world?

i don't think this is the message you're trying to convey, but seriously i'm reading so many stories in this post about how non-technical people can get into these (presumably) high-paying architect jobs where they are not expected to do any coding... how do i apply for those jobs? i have 2 degrees, business and computer science, but i hate coding. so far, the most value i could have leveraged out of my CS degree without having to do coding is working as a technical project manager, but i know architects get paid WAY more. how do i find those jobs?

Way to strive for the prize.

is there something wrong with my approach? i'm a hard worker, i just want to be paid the maximum i can get for my work that's all.

not sure about collusion between the big 3, but for both my mobile and internet provider (2 different ones), i've successfully pitted them against each other by calling to say i'm switching over to their competitor and repeatedly got discounts for it. i'm currently paying $45/mth for 20gb from Fido Pulse BYOD plan with unlimited talk and text, and for home internet i'm paying $55/mth for 750mbps fibre from Telus.

Wow, teach me how! I pay $67 for 13GB data and $60 for 40mpbs at home in Montreal. Which province?

this is in BC. every 3-4 months, i keep calling, ask for "customer retention department" and threaten to leave. sometimes i just say "got any promos for me?" and they'll just offer whatever they can. sometimes if they have an attitude, i just hang up and call back for another more friendly agent. i've done this for the past 2 yrs and always ends up with at least a new $5/mth discount added to my bill, so by now my bill is super low.

I will give this a shot!

13gb for $67? What the hell. I thought I had a great plan at 6 gbs for $55. I remember everyone getting the 10gb for $60 deal a while back but I missed out on that one.

That's $67 before taxes. I'm with Virgin (not a recommendation). They tend to call every 6 months (less lately) and ask if I'm happy. I always say it costs too much and I want more data. They gave me two bonus packages (something like $5 for 1GB or 2GB). That's how I got to relatively cheap 13GB.

Nowadays they just look at other plans and say, nope, you're on something better than anything we offer now.

FWIW Fizz is the new hotness here. They have worse coverage outside of metros, cheaper base plans, zero phone customer service (problem for negotiating cheaper deals I imagine), and rollover data, which Virgin does not.