For me it's not about politics at all. Just the thought of going through TSA and immigration is enough to discourage me, especially when I can hop on a plane to Spain, Italy or Cyprus and face 0 inconveniences along the way.

> For me it's not about politics at all. Just the thought of going through TSA and immigration is enough to discourage me

The conditions of TSA and the immigration system are...not independent of politics (or even independent of the top tier of most divisive partisan political issues in the current American context.)

Cyprus is probably best avoided right now.

Yeah I mentioned it because I have semi-permanent home there. Luckily we left before the war started. I am just getting government SMS with warnings now.

Gah that must suck. I hope you all ride this out without mishap. It's got to be so frustrating, it's like a bunch of gangsters having it out in the street where you live.

The whole social media history and phone searching thing makes me nervous, you're one bad-taste meme about Charlie Kirk and a butt-hurt CBP agent away from a very long and painful detention process.

you don't want to give up your DNS to visit the USA? /s

Almost certainly not. Microsoft was the only email provider we had problems with a few years back. We only sent emails to people who paid us several hundred USD to send that email. We didn't sent anything else - no follow ups, marketing, announcements, nothing.

I think the deal is quite clear: subscription for personal usage in their products, API token for everything else. You get a rebate for subscription because they get the data. I would be quite sad if they removed the subscription option just to not be "anticompetitive".

Are you sure? Israel is kind of notorious for having people in civilian clothes kill its enemies.

Sure, if that happens then it needs to be investigated as a potential war crime. It still doesn't change the fact that Israel is in no position to apply that standard because fighting Gazans don't use uniforms. Obviously they will not treat people shooting at them and launching rockets at them as civilians.

Rockets regularly target Israel. If that happened to USA the war would start with the first one no matter if it was intercepted or not. Same with any other self-respecting country. Israel is fully justified trying to eliminate threats to itself. It's not only about October 7th.

The evolution was also interesting: first the engines were amazing tactically but pretty bad strategically so humans could guide them. With new NN based engines they were amazing strategically but they sucked tactically (first versions of Leela Chess Zero). Today they closed the gap and are amazing at both strategy and tactics and there is nothing humans can contribute anymore - all that is left is to just watch and learn.

>>That's when a huge bubble will collapse.

Maybe there will be a "huge bubble" in the future but it doesn't look that huge right now. Forward P/E for S&P500 is about 22. That is 4.5% yearly return even if there is no growth beyond 2026. This is also real growth as earnings raise with inflation so nominal expected return is about 7% even if there is 0 growth beyond 2026.

Meanwhile risk-free rate (basically short term government bonds) is around 3.5% per year right now (nominal). That 7% is quite pessimistic as some "net growth" (growth - costs of generating it) is expected beyond 2026 and you can only get 3.5% "risk-free" I am not sure why people call current valuations crazy or what their expectations for "fair valuations" are. Equity risk premium seems to be still above 4%. Maybe that's on the low side but far away from bubble territory, let alone "a huge bubble".

>>As a European, I am glad that this is finally discussed in the open! I have made multiple comments in the last weeks that one of the most important things, for me, is an alternative to the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

The main reason we don't have an alternative to Visa/Mastercard duopoly is protectionism of EU countries. There are local alternatives that do pretty well (BLIK in Poland, Revolut Pay in countries where it's popular) but entering more markets is like pulling teeth because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.

>> Why isn't the European Commission mandating these app payments in different EU countries to connect with each other? Wouldn't that go faster than the digital euro, that is set to come no earlier than 2029?

It would but then their non-local alternative could win which they really don't want to happen.

> because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.

No, the gatekeeping is done by local banks and governments to protect their oligopolies/cartels.

There are many instant-pay apps across Europe and they are intentionally not interoperable outside of local markets. Each local banking oligopoly is trying to fence off competition. The main fear is from smaller neo-banks.

>>No, the gatekeeping is done by local banks and governments to protect their oligopolies/cartels.

If you are pointing the distinction between gatekeeping at the EU level and country level I am not contesting that. It's clear though that the gatekeeping is the problem here (and in many other industries in EU).

How dare you point that out on a discussion about gatekeeping being treated like a good thing.

> The main reason we don't have an alternative to Visa/Mastercard duopoly is protectionism of EU countries. There are local alternatives that do pretty well (BLIK in Poland, Revolut Pay in countries where it's popular) but entering more markets is like pulling teeth because EU throws regulatory obstacles at every step.

That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense? How did Visa & Mastercard manage to go through the "protectionism of EU countries" then?

> How did Visa & Mastercard manage...

I'd bet a combination of:

- Got through before the red tape ramparts were nearly as thick as today

- Ungentle arm-twisting by the US Gov't... at Visa & Mastercard's behest

- Amply greased palms... which can't be traced to Visa or Mastercard. At least not in any jurisdiction which would do anything about it.

You forgot the part where there is a bootstrap problem for any fintech.

You need the appropriate license to make money, but you can only get that license if you already have enough money.

On top of that is a requirement that basically demands that you have employees in charge that have worked and gained job experience at the established businesses.

This is good for stability, but it also means that innovation gets nibbed in the bud.

???

Neither my comment, nor the prior one, had anything to do with fintech.

Concerning "innovation" in financial systems, done by relative outsiders, with little experience or incentive to keep the system stable: Given the track record, I'd argue that such innovations should either be outright banned, or limited to some tiny percentage of the relevant financial market. The world does not need more FTX's.

For me the only feature I want from a taskbar/status bar is ability to hide it permanently so it never comes out until I press a key on a keyboard (like meta/Windows key or even a key combination if needed). Task bar auto popping just because you weren't precise with your mouse and moved it too far down or to the corner is very annoying to me. I treat it as a test if desktop environment have "we will force our way down your throat" or "we try to make it great for everyone" attitude. Windows and Apple are choosing the former. KDE is choosing the latter.

I am surprised because somehow they get it on phones (hidden by default, needs a gesture to bring down). Real estate on a laptop is a just as precious, especially vertical real estate.

Dividends in effect force you to sell while buybacks redistribute to people who want to sell/realize it. They are also more efficient tax wise.

The only good reason to pay out dividends instead of announcing buybacks is a view that your shares are overpriced. Then you can't buy them back without facing a potential lawsuit (you are making a company buy something you know is overvalued).