WoW had an absurdly high recurring fee that it tried to make you renew again and again and again. Because there was no micropayment infrastructure, it didn't use "pay to throw dice", it used "pay to retain your investment". By contrast, many of the modern games don't do that and are perfectly happy with their high turnover rates.
The point is, though, it costs the same amount of money if you take one chance at winning or a hundred. A monthly recurring fee makes the devs optimize for lasting engagement, not impulsive choices. Sure, lasting engagement may be created by having mechanics that make the player feel guilty about not playing regularly but it's not the same sort of incentive as a slot machine.
It was definitely less abusive, but I think it was more malevolent - like payday loans instead of horse racing. Both prey on the destitute, but one builds itself into your life (like a need), the other is merely novelty (like opportunity).
The point I'm making of that a subscription model isn't like horse racing. Loot boxes are like horse racing - an immediate chance followed by an immediate reward or loss. Subscription models don't go for that, though. They go for long term engagement. Usually through progression mechanics. The main draw of games like WoW is levelling your character, not getting loot. It's not like a horse race.
Right. I was making the comparison that mobile games are like horse races, and WoW was like payday loans.
Now, I don't really have a solid base of experience to form these generalizations with, so a lot of it is just being judgmental. But I want to make the point that while the endorphin loop of loot boxes (or worse, time boosts) is rightly condemned, the WoW model of milking your audience for literally billions was - aside from revolutionary - malignant. It wasn't just the good old days, it was a cash cow that consumed Blizzard for a decade until they too switched to the loot box model.
The article does briefly discuss a slightly more accurate version of that definition, and why it's bad (it's convoluted and relies on the poorly-defined kilogram).
The kilogram will get a better definition this year if nothing holds it up (atleast, redefining it based on the planck's constant is planned for the 2018 meeting according to WP).
The cloud isn't there to meet processing needs, it's there to meet tech support needs. Everyone gets handed the same keys, so if something's wonky you just get a replacement. No debugging and repair costs, no standards adherence requirements, no getting shoved out of the software layer by a competitor - and the price is just the uncool segment of the early adopters.
That depends on what you use Office for - which is why I qualified my statement. I wouldn't recommend them as general replacements, but they exceed my documentation needs.
The claim is that there may be a market for AI-powered technologies, but that market is suppressed by non-AI competitors exploiting information asymmetry.
Wouldn't that suggest however that AI is not the best tool for the job? AI should be the great equalizer if the tech actually was useful, but I have seen precious few examples. The usual triumphs are almost all actually human sourced and then delivered by algo. (google image, etc.)
No, the point is that dishonest marketing distorts the market. The companies use human labour to deliver useful services, but falsely advertise as AI-driven to capitalize on the novelty factor. This makes life more difficult for both companies delivering the same service, but advertising honestly, and for companies actually trying to deliver the product by means of AI. The result is that money flows to dishonest people, instead of honest people and/or people actually trying to push technology forward.
This is an issue if the non-AI company using humans is not profitable (supported by VC funding) with the goal of "eventually replacing humans with AI". If they are not transparent to investors about this point, then investors may have preferred to invest in a company that already has AI that works well enough (but not as well as the humans in the first company). Perhaps the first company will never be able to build the AI, leading to a market failure.
But they should be honest about their claims. Perhaps the customer is expecting that humans don't process their personal information on a routine basis.
I paid attention to the part of the article that mentioned that the pizza slice comes packaged with a protein shake. That sounds just like veggie crackers to me.
I've had a number of devs, when receiving feedback, tell me that I should instead seek out their bug tracker, register with their feedback system, open a support ticket, give detailed instructions about how to identify and fix my problem, and then wait for a decision about how I'm wrong.
