I swear that most commenters are young people because back in the 90s-2000s, taxis and hotels were hot fucking garbage.
Taxis would go on joy rides to up the cost or refuse you if you were black.
Hotels would tell you to go suck a dick because their price listed outside is not for you, and if you want a place, they have a room with roaches near the heater.
Uber/Airbnb were gamechangers that broke that monopoly.
Unfortunately, they have gotten to shit. But you know what? Taxis and hotels have cleaned up their act. Because the moment they go to shit again, Uber/Airbnb will come in and eat their lunch.
Taxis in my country would routinely ask for extra (usually 25-30% of the total fare) or have you pay them a fixed amount that's way higher than if only the meter was used (about 2-3x the normal fare) . There are also taxis that have meters that are way too fast. Uber was a godsend when it first came out here.
In Italy taxis are a monopoly and uber is forbidden. For a 1h ride they ask you 120-150€. Luckily by train you can do the same ride quicker and for 5-10 euro.
I have fond memories of sitting drunk on a driveway waiting for the promised cab for hours. Because if they drive up and didn't see you, they were gone.
Where I lived and traveled, hotels never had a monopoly. Small B&Bs and hostels have always existed, it was never a choice between big hotel and staying in a tent. There was no need to wreak havoc on the housing market.
The problem with the gig economy is that these platforms are not content with being what they're advertising themselves as. "Be your own boss". "Make some money in your own time". Guess what, if you drive for Uber, Uber is your boss. You're an employee in anything but name. They penalise you if you reject too many jobs. They penalise you if you go on break too long. They penalise you for all kinds of other things. Here in Australia most rideshare vehicles have at least two badges, because the drivers can't make ends meet driving for just one. And then they've gone and fucked up the delivery market as well. It's an economy of rent-seekers and middlemen.
Uber and Airbnb DID break that monopoly but they got their competative advantage by simply breaking the laws that existing taxis and hotels were required to adhear too. Still do break those laws but weight of cash > law.
Calling AirBnB "a hotel chain" is an insult to hotels.
Hotels don't require you to clean somebody else's house while you are on vacation like a maid, and then charging you a cleaning fee for missing a spot. There isn't even much of a price difference nowadays, so staying at a hotel wins every time.
I would be charged a cleaning fee even though we're asked to clean anyhow, regardless of how well we cleaned. Toward the end, I stopped doing any basic cleaning and disputed additional fees relating to my not doing their job for them. Now I don't use them at all.
I have two younger kids. We can very close to renting a hotel on our last in-state vacation. It would have actually been somewhat cheaper. The reason we still went for the AirBnB was because our kids are asleep by like 7:30 and we didn't want to be 'trapped' in the hotel room and didn't want to rent a second. AirBnB made it significantly easier to find a house to rent.
That said, the number of AirBnBs in that area of the state has really grown. I can't imagine that's doing the people who live there any favors.
I'm bringing my dog. A house with a fenced yard beats a hotel for that hands down every time.
Using the house is a major feature of the vacation. We live in an apartment in a city so sometimes it's nice to just spend a week in a cabin in the mountains or a long weekend at a house with a pool.
I'm traveling with a group and I actually want to spend time with those people. It's nice to have a private social space that isn't someone's bedroom.
I prefer hotels if:
I'm traveling solo. If I'm not renting a whole house, I want the hotel amenities. Plusi can pretend to be a bachelor again and act like a slob.
I have an action packed trip planned. Every time I've been to Vegas I was pretty much only in my room to shower or sleep.
I'm traveling with a group and know I'll need some personal space.
It is really terrible for the housing market when real estate investors buy out homes on the market for the sole purpose of renting them out in AirBnBs.
I doubt that anyone would want to live next to an AirBnB house.
These days I mostly use Booking, they list hotels as well as private properties which are properly classified and taxed and all that. Haven't had an issue in years.
Oh there is a price difference these days. I used to use AirBnB because it was an actual saving. Now, unless you want to rent an entire cabin or something, you're almost definitely better off with a hotel or specific industry standard business. Also love how they handle pricing, at least when I looked last year:
$99
$249incltaxes/fees
This isn't even hyperbole, it was entirely common to see a $100+ cleaning fee for a one night stay, and still have a list of more things to clean than I expect actual hotel employees to do.
Tough question. I'm a big fan of making the plagiarism machine pretend to be a text based adventure game for my amusement, but I also like that the illegal cab company will also deliver food or groceries when I don't feel up to leaving my house.
Try out AI Dungeon which is an app that has it all set up for you. It's free to try, but pay for access to the best model. Last I checked there were some privacy concerns, so assume someone might read your adventure and don't tell it your real name or anything.
I've personally been tinkering with KoboldAI which is a way to run the models yourself, if you have access to a beefy computer or cloud computing workspace. This has the benefit of being free and controlled entirely by you, but requiring you to choose a model and giving you the opportunity to change your own settings might be a benefit or a drawback depending on how much you enjoy tinkering with your toys before (and while) playing with them. The models that will run on my RTX 3080Ti seem generally not as good as the paid tier of AI Dungeon, but I might also not be doing it right? It's hard to tell. Futzing with parameters and trying to divine what impact they're having on the output is still fun for me, though.
Yeah I still stand by the technology (Eth and other smart coins, not Bitcoin), but there's just so much bullshit surrounding the tech that it makes it really unpalatable and trashy
Reality/causality also moves at the speed of light, and observations of time and space are relative to the observer. So it's still present reality, for you at least.
This means that you should feel touch from your finger before your toe, since it has less far to travel.
What actually happens is that you feel both your toe and finger touching at the same time. Your brain buffers the signals and plays them back at the same time, giving the illusion of simultaneity.
So yes, not only are you experiencing the world slightly behind, but it's in differing amounts of delay.
You can search for "brain buffer simultaneity" to find tons of research on this topic.
Those aren't the only alternatives, lmao. Do you think humans stop innovating if they share tools and democratize production, rather than having a bunch of unaccountable mini-dictators?
Do you think the Capitalists are the ones who innovate, or is it the Engineers and Scientists that do?
I know, and here I am walking around using my legs to walk around like some kind of idiot. And living in an apartment full of GRAVITY for god'ssakes. Isn't this supposed to be the 21st century?!! Where's my ice palace on the moon?? And my moon maidens in anti gravity maid costumes waiting on my every need??
May be there’s a way to use tech to illegally infringe on people from the sky even more, then you might be onto something. Just think like a government then a capitalist in that order. May be some kind of flying device that spies on people like a blanket satellite network that operates 100m above peoples homes. It can monitor people coming and going from your home like a real time google maps/street view. Use facial recognition on an angle with high zoom lenses to build a richer advertising/intellegence profile of peoples movements and activities to fill the gaps that mobile phone/mic spying lets through plus it could be used to look into peoples windows and through the gaps in their curtains/blinds. Make sure you pollute the air a fair bit, turn them into gay frogs. And also make them flying cars. The government can call it OBSNAD - the Opressive Blanket Spy Network Aerial Dome and we regular folk can call it Good Times Flying Cars
It's true, I heard about that part of iceland that just got wiped out from rising sea levels. It's already a reality. And polar bears starving because their ice sheets are melting and leaving them without a way to hunt for food. I won't be around to see the next century, and I've very glad I won't be!!
I don't think it is ihe primary purpose of cryptocoin either. It's just that crime found a great valuable tool in it. Just like nuclear fission is not just for atomic bombs. Or the internet for porn. The most known use case is not always the only or intended one.
Not defending the money-grabbing, resource-hungry spectacle that it has become, but the original intent was probably a bit nobler than the current results.
ETA: ah, I see what you mean. Purpose as in current main use, not "intended purpose". I think I picked up the wrong meaning. My mistake.
Also, nothing wrong with porn, but everyone knows the internet should be about cat pictures.
I wish "illegal cab company" would too, but I also have no sympathy for shitty actual cab company. It's not even about the money for me, they had many chances to innovate their systems and squash the illegal cab companies before they got started while at the same time generating more fare revenue, but instead tried to use the status quo to smother out the competition.
Sorry, but Taxis have left me waiting for hours and ripped me off 1 too many times on top of every cab I've been in has been quite dirty. They tried using their near-monopolistic position in most places to ignore basic innovations, like having an app to request a taxi (and having that app not look like it's a time capsule from 2008) or even taking card.
This is quite a shitty way of portraying these technologies.
Uber/Grab might be banned by some countries, but I'm sure as hell I'll never take a traditional taxi. They haven't earned my trust, while Uber and such allow reviewing the drivers, and the driver wouldn't think of scamming you. (Generally speaking.)
For longer stays I wouldn't book a hotel room because it lacks basic facilities like microwave, cutleries, washing machine, etc.
Blockchain itself is a great thing, it could be definitely useful for something. Cryptocurrencies, however, are indeed evil. Toy money for criminals.
AI tools are useful for many things. Plagiarism is just one (ab)usecase. There are tons of other things that you can achieve with it while not committing plagiarism.
You're right in all except crypto.
It's not just criminals. It's privacy. I prefer paying cash outside to remain anonymous. Why should i give my data for free to a company just because i needed toilet-paper.
And CC is the cash for the internet. Just not as widely accepted as cash is (in most countries)
I like privacy too, but currently way too much harm is being made by the fact that people can keep their income private. Think about all the corruption using offshore accounts. It's not even cryptocurrency, just some other solutions. In a world where everyone's income is public, politicians won't be able to explain their financial gains. And you wouldn't have to worry about whether you're underpaid at work compared to your colleagues who do the same job with the same efficiency. And if you receive your income from a legitimate source, you earn that money, then it's nothing to be ashamed of. And nobody gives a damn crap if you use it to buy your toilet paper. On the other hand, if you're buying a HIMARS system on the black market, and then pass it onto the terrorists, you would very well deserve to be caught by the authorities and then rot in jail for decades.
Of course, this is a very extreme scenario. I'm not saying the ideal world is when everyone's finances are flat out published and advertised like "hey, look, I'm rich and ready to get robbed", but this is definitely an area where total privacy hasn't worked out well.
It's not even really private unless you're using Monero similar (which you can't buy on most exchanges for that very reason). Most CC blockchains are entirely public ledgers that are very thoroughly mapped out by government agencies and by private companies looking to monetize the data.