Even in healthcare alone, I would question whether the impact was net positive. You have to balance the "access to information" with how people need to deal with false information, health charlatans, ads shoving then supplements they don't need, people's inability to discern what to do based on even true information that they get.
What are the positives? Before, you had to go to a doctor to do stuff, now you do too. Maybe people are more likely to get tested. Maybe scheduling appointments is a bit better. What am I missing?
debating this isn't particularly useful of either person's time.
There are plenty of documented cases of reddit posts encouraging deeper investigations or legally authorized tele-health providers (where you can communicate directly with a licensed medical professional).
The number of people using telehealth services is significantly less than the number of people that have bad health outcomes from internet usage. If it were otherwise, ChatGPT, Reddit, and telehealth companies would be managed very differently.
1/ meta products trigger organic conversations. People post on Instagram and Facebook that they’re traveling and I will reach out to them if I’m close by. People don’t use Signal that way.
2/ the Facebook groups are very useful for local communities. As a traveler, I reach out to Expat groups for feedback.
> That inequality is not going down, only upwards.
This was talked about 15+ years ago when I was a young student. I saw the writing on the wall and made it a priority to live below my means and aggressively invest.
Unfortunately, many of my friends think I am crazy for not "enjoying life" more... We shall see what happens I guess.
I think the point is that it is his OPs opinion and they cannot read the future. Nobody here can, so the reply has just as much weight as the original.
So saving and living below means is a great strategy either way.
It doesn't cost life to eat modestly and live smaller than you can afford, you live life while doing this. Many think the best part of their life was when they were young and poor, its not a bad life to have low costs so you can live stress free.
Unless you think that the rich experiences of life are what make life worth living, that money grants you access to some of those richest experiences, and that you are more able to fully appreciate and incorporate those experiences into your personhood at a younger age.
I'd advise that person to change their attitude about that, because it's stupid and inhuman. Otherwise you get the absurd statement that average people in most countries, billions, a normal married guy in Vietnam, none of their lives are worth living.
I've traveled to 63 countries, I've had wonderful relationship with people across the globe, and love coding/building services.
I spent ~3 years living in Vietnam, having a more comfortable life than most Americans, while retaining US income levels.
My remote job enabled me to live with my parents longer, earning California-level pay in Florida, helping me save more money and have more time with them.
> Unfortunately, many of my friends think I am crazy for not "enjoying life" more
then, in 30-40 yrs time, those same friends all want gov't bailouts for their pensions, and higher taxation of people like yourself, to fund it (because, you know, you're rich enough to be able to spare it of course!).
I've always been heavily invested in the technology industry and companies that seem popular on HN.
Currently my quantum computing investments have done quiet well. In the past, Google, Apple, and Cloudflare were big winners for me.
Although, over the long term, my performance with more volatility and less tax efficiency barely better than $SPY (mine: 16.28% vs spy: 15.71% annualized return). Schwab says benchmarks an "aggressive, but diversified" portfolio (more bonds and international) to have 12.57% annualized.
Apple's upgrade cycle (for me) has moved from 4 years to ~6 years.
Maybe upgrading the RAM or HD could be useful, but wear and tear on all components is a bigger concern for me than just one. My laptop is a critical part of my life. I can't risk being out of service for a week while parts arrive.
Its like buying a car... you can repair and maintain it to 200k miles, but the reliability will go down as more things break. Or you can buy a brand new machine to reclaim your time.
You are probably correct, but... there is still higher risk of unplanned or extended service time as the car ages.
For example, my 2018 Honda fit has a part recall. The service center needs the car the entire day and the tank to be less than 25%. This isn't something new cars would have to deal with.
I'm in the same category as dbg31415. I've owned mbps since 2007. Never had any serious issues with them. I kept them for about 4 years each, before upgrading. My 2021 m1 has at least another year left in it.
Certainly if you're in the 0.01% of Apple purchasers that just have a terrible experience (broken device, out of warranty, etc) and one of your largest purchases doesn't work the way you want it, then that is terrible.
but I think the vast majority of Apple users have a stellar experience.
In a roughly 50 person company with refresh every 3 years, we send a macbook back for repair/replacement roughly three times a year. I would estimate that as a 2% hardware problem rate, 200x higher than what you quote.
Work computers have different usage profiles than personal computers. Employees move their laptop to and from home 5x per week, into offices, use them on trains, buses, etc. Work laptops are used 40+ hours per week. Whereas personal devices are closer to 5-20 hours.
Employees also take worse care of work laptops than their personal machines.
Even in the extremely rare case my device has issues. I can take the device to an apple store in any city I am in and they will hand me a loaner laptop while a professional performs the repair.
If your Framework laptop dies, you have to debug the problem yourself, wait for parts to arrive, and pray that the part you ordered is the only part you need.
Has meta stopped producing new models? I figured they were just regrouping after all the drama they’ve had recently. Meta’s massive user base means they don’t need to be involved in the customer acquisition rat race. Once they have a model they’re happy with they can have a billion people interacting with it within a month.
disclosure: I have large (to me) investments in quantum.
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The US needs to keep leading innovations. We have permanently lost the ability to manufacture. For China (and the world) to stay dependent on us, we need to continue pumping out technologies.
Ukraine / Iran / Afghanistan / Vietnam has proved having the biggest baddest military is not that valuable.
My understanding for the money to be "illegally allocated", the court system would have to declare it so.
The article do not mention any lawsuits that overturn the allocation, just a couple senators disagreeing with the interpretation of the law. The senate does not interpret the law, but the judicial branch.
One thing I don't see is the other side of this story: the sellers.
I don't get why sellers are selling to PE. Can these services not "IPO"? Why do these companies need to sell?
When PE takes over medical practices, my understanding is there just isn't enough capital available for a dentist to "cash out". The options are either they find another dentist to buy it, the close the practice, or they sell the private equity...
How is local doctor's office going to IPO? An IPO is just selling to the public instead of a private buyer. Not to mention the amount of paperwork and ongoing reporting requirements of actually IPOing.
Talking to a single buyer is easier than arranging an IPO and I would imagine the diligence far less onerous.
My friends, whose parents own wealthy businesses were not well set up to take over those companies.
Some finished college and went back to work for their parents, but the dad told them “no, you can have a job within my company, but I’m not gonna hand it to you because I’m still young and you know only 25 years ahead of you in life.” In china they say, “when the grandfather dies, the children prosper.”
The kids either stayed working for their dad, giving him additional agency over their lives as he controls their career, or the kids left to go start their own business within their means using his funding.
Other kids just have no interest in their parent’s industry. They decided not to be a dentist because they like art more. They don’t wanna run a landscaping company, they would rather work for Google in an air-conditioned office and a 40 hour week job.
Out of the gate you need $27.5m in cash flow with $2.2m in profit. I doubt there are many single practice dentists doing that kind of volume.
You can’t just IPO because you want out of the business. There’s lots of reporting and regulatory requirements to ensure you aren’t screwing investors.
In the past farmers needed COOPs in order to make their products/the local community's economy viable. Today we need something like COIVs (community owned investment vehicles). Kiva for the rest of us I guess.
I'm trying to be generous here... but prisoner's dilemma says the people in a community are probably better to park their money outside of the community in order to protect (and grow) their retirement investments.
Yes, it would be better for the community if people chose to invest locally instead of the SnP 500, but running out of money in retirement is a very real fear and the SnP500 is much better/safer for most people than COIVs.
> I don't get why sellers are selling to PE. Can these services not "IPO"? Why do these companies need to sell?
Shifting private ownership to a publicly traded company is an awful lot of paperwork (especially for accounting) and upfront costs, you need to time it properly, you need to find banks willing to cooperate.
In contrast, selling a private company to a PE is a pretty much straightforward transaction.
My understanding is people don't like the PE / LBO with a single investor, because it loads the company with debt that it pays back via cutting quality and service offerings.
My assumption is publicly traded company would have access to better financing terms and a diverse set of investors with less "hunger" the financial shenanigans the PE investors have.
Totally agree - but I guess I was getting at is that largest mfg. per the article is a a public company, and the number two is private equity, would we think that there would be a meaningfully different dynamic if they both were public?
I think it's totally appropriate to hold it against them if they knowingly sell out to scumbags. Society used to look down on selling out. We wrote songs about it. But in 2026 it is glorified.
You're 55, making $400k a year as a HVAC Repair Company, and while you love the business and your kids are in expensive colleges (not taking over the business) you are offered $8MM to sell. Instant retirement. A buy out isn't the same as selling out because people live off of cash and not principal.
At the end of the day it comes down to how much money your principles are worth. People are commenting about dentists and doctors being bought out. Those strike me as the kind of people that can afford retirement without also contributing to the worsening of society.
What do you think they should do? Who are they holding out for and for how long can they hold out? Retirement is a financial situation and an age. Do they shutdown the business when they are too old to function as an owner?
My friend's parent's local services company shutdown when they didn't find a buyer. A business limping under interest payments IMHO is better than a complete shutdown.
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