Serious gambling in most industries like casinos, NFTs, F2P and PTW games is all driven by whales[0]. Horse racing has been taken over by math whales, too. The house knows the small fish are only there as food for the whales.
[0] Source: I'm a former dev at an NFT/F2P game studio owned by a large slot machine maker.
To your point... My dad once told me a story he'd heard about a casino that booked the hottest TV stars of 1979 to be the headlining show at their casino. Donnie & Marie Osmond. But despite the sold-out shows, they regretted the decision because it was such a family-friendly audience that almost nobody stuck around to bet big sums of money in the casino.
The point of the story was that casinos like to make their money from big spenders losing big chunks of money. So much so that it affects decisions they make about which acts to book.
They probably gamble more than Donnie and Marie fans (and probably order more drinks).
But I think you have to think of whales as high-bankrolled foreign tourists who want the opportunity to see big international superstars. (Celine Dion "gained international recognition by winning the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest," Wikipedia points out, and has sung "in several other languages including Japanese, Italian, German, Mandarin, Spanish, and Neapolitan...")
Agreed. This is an overblown explanation of a protocol for API communication between agents. Nothing more.
It could be useful if setup in a way that works for you on both ends. And we all know how likely that is with anyone else's API. Also, if you use MCP, you will be the one setting up your tool calls to use that protocol, when you could do them directly any way you want to. It's extra scaffolding that's not always an advantage by itself.
But this article isn't about fake brands or even fake perfumes. It's about legal imitation scents with their own house brand names.
To me, their popularity suggests that buyers want a less expensive product that also smells fancy. With wages and employment what they are, the value proposition has changed.
Disclosure: I bought fancy fragrance when I could afford but I can't at the moment. Can a great Chanel or Guerlain men's fragrance be copied? I'd be willing to try it out.
It's a brilliant on-ramp for that, too, with high free usage caps that let you get projects up and running at no cost.
Firebase hosting only charges you when an actual thing you've deployed starts getting significant usage. It's a terrific option for small devs who still want custom domains, backend data, and the freedom to code in JS/TS in the browser.
Yeah but if you need features like Cloud Functions or SMS auth you have to give your credit card... with no spending limit... and the standard practice is to expose your firebase creds on the client... and their stated stance is its better to let you get attacked and then maybe waive the charges than to interrupt service to your site for a few hours... lol. Your recourse is to go viral on social media and get them to forgive the debt.
Supabase does. It has a spending cap, so you won't wake up to a 100k bill if you get hacked. An app I recently consulted for used fireabase SMS auth. Someone spammed their sign-in page and they were hit with multiple 4-figure charges. Firebase refuses to refund of course. Its a great model until it really, really isn't.
Humanity, as a whole, would be best served by ensuring basic human needs are met for everyone, and there's more than enough money to do that now.
reply