Except Squarespace does not just sell hosting. Their main business is selling a CMS and website builder that is supposed to be easy enough for complete noobs to use.
You and I know how to build and host websites, ok, but it had likely taken us dozens if not hundreds of hours of learning everything between TCP/IP to ARIA attributes to get here. The average small business owner does not have this knowledge or the time to learn it. They keep Squarespace in business.
> Their main business is selling a CMS and website builder that is supposed to be easy enough for complete noobs to use.
Yeah, like I said, it costs close to $0.
> The average small business owner does not have this knowledge or the time to learn it. They keep Squarespace in business.
My point is, SquareSpace could charge a fraction of what they do and still be rolling in cash. Instead they charge ridiculous fees that simply go to pay for more ads.
I think you're thinking marginal costs. Only charging for marginal costs will put you out of business almost immediately. There are plenty of non-marginal costs that need to be covered, which will make it "not close to $0".
If you think I'm talking nonsense, make sure you know what the term actually means: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalcostofproductio... There's a common misuse (unless it has become so common that it's just another definition, if you're a descriptivist grammarian) to use it to mean "small, negligible", but I'm using it in the real business/accounting sense. Of all the industries, tech is among the worst in terms of being unable to charge based on marginal costs; so often our marginal costs are effectively $0 but the fixed costs of what we have are millions to billions of dollars.
To think about this from another angle, imagine yourself as a worker selling your labor in exchange for money. Would you voluntarily negotiate a pay cut just because you can charge a fraction of what you do and still swim in cash, or would you take as much your company is willing to pay you to work there? If your answer is no, then why should a company selling a product act any differently?
If squarespace following free market 101 upsets you so much, maybe you should start a squarespace competitor and charge whatever you think is a fair price. If what you said is true then you should be able to undercut squarespace by a huge margin and still make a profit. Give it a try and tell us how it goes.
> My point is, SquareSpace could charge a fraction of what they do and still be rolling in cash. Instead they charge ridiculous fees that simply go to pay for more ads.
This is the classic sentiment by which one can tell that the person has no idea how businesses/markets work.[1]
The only relationship between the cost and the price is that the former is a floor for the latter. The price is determined by the value it brings to the one paying for it. If it is less than the cost to build, you don't have a business. If it's 1000x the cost to build, then you charge 1000x. Why would you charge less?
If the cost was so close to $0, and they charge $20/month, all that means is that there's an opening for you to set up the same business and charge, say, $15/mo.
I thought SS charged a lot more. Frankly, $20/mo is a steal. If a restaurant can't afford to pay $20/mo to acquire customers, they're not in good shape at all.
I can't believe how many betting ads I see or hear every time I consume US media. It's worse then all the ads about drugs they want you to request from your doctor.
In my part of the world, a burger is a type of sandwhich, and the definition doesn't require meat. So it's a burger whether it contains beef, fish, chicken, a vegan patty, a large slice of tomato, or whatever.
What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
Given all sandwiches, what in your part of the world makes a sandwich a burger? I think for many of us it's a ground patty. If said patty isn't meat, yes we might say that is fake as in an imitation of the original. It's not a negative thing.
> What part of the world, and how recently? Sure a burger is a sandwich, likely being a spin off of Hamburg steak.
The 95.8% of the world population that isn't in the US. This is simple to deduce because everywhere else calls "a piece of fried chicken in a burger bun" a "chicken _burger_". Only the US calls it a "chicken sandwich". Some of Canada might now use the latter through US influence - any Canadians here?
KFC is a representative example, they call them "KFC chicken sandwich" only in the US, "burgers" effectively everywhere else.
I suspect Commonwealth or Asia. Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun?
A piece of hot chicken between bread in Italy would likely be a panino, france a sandwich, spain a bocadillo, Portugal sandes, Japan a sando, mexico a torta, Argentina a sanguche.
I think you overestimate how many people use burger for things that don't refer to the American concept. A lot of cultures have hot sandwiches and thus (ham)burger is often distinctly the American concept of a ground beef patty. Where this breaks down outside of the Commonwealth is often from cultures without things in bread that got exposed to the generic burger via fast food chain terminology. Not surprising there.
What are you even arguing about? KFC and McD uses "Burger" everywhere outside of NA. There's nothing left to discuss besides that, it shows that indeed the rest of the world all calls it a burger even though it's not a ground meat patty. Good luck finding a country outside of NA where they call their chicken burgers a "chicken sandwich".
> Is your definition of sandwich cold things between sliced bread and burger hot things in a bun?
> As a kid who grew up in 90’s I would say it is easily better than what cinema had back then.
The best thing a home theatre system has that is equivalent to the 90's experience and superior to current cinema is that you can have an intermission to take a leak.
In the 90's, the intermission was long enough to visit the bathroom and then buy some more popcorn and candy. These days I have to miss some part of the middle of the movie.
> Canada is a bit like Europe where they have statist mentality
If the last decade and a half has taught us anything, it's that you can't rely on the state and arms of the state to remain consistent permanently.
In the absence of a free media, as in the US where it's controlled by a handful of billionaires, the people can be manipulated to vote in a government that will run roughshod over precedent and norms.
I totally agree, but that's a question aside from the institutional authoritarianism of statist countries.
Canada and European nations are not very 'liberal' in the sense a lot of people would like - they are communitarian.
We lament Trump breaking norms ... the office of the Canadian PM is almost only bounded by norms, he has crazy amounts of power - on paper.
A Trump-like actor in Canada (maybe UK as well) could do way more damage.
I think that the quality of the judiciary is subjective but real, it can be characterized.
I don't have a problem with this law as it is written, to the extent it's used judiciously, which I generally expect in Canada - but that's only because of an understanding of the system as a whole, not as it is written.
On paper, there is no Canadian PM. The Constitution reads: "The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen." The existence of a Prime Minister and the fact executive powers are delegated to them are customary.
A Trump-like actor in Canada would do far less damage than in USA. There is no position they could held that would give them the power to do lot of damage. The Queen (nowaday King) has no power. If they tried to use it's constitutional powers as written they would be laughed out. The Governor General, who may act on behalf of the Queen would be laughed out too if they tried to take any decision. The Prime Minister seems all powerful but they are one motion from the House of Common from being overthrown. When one's become POTUS, they are basically POTUS until the end of their term. The exception is impeachment which is a very complicated process that never worked. In Canada, the House of Common can simply vote the Prime Minister out. The Prime Minister is very powerful, I agree, but only as long as they behave.
"are one motion from the House of Common from being overthrown." - so this is a form of political constraint, which we can see in the US doesn't work very well if the ruling party wants to ignore concerns and acts at the behest of the Executive.
If the PM holds enough popular support and has even a narrow majority that he can effectively whip, he's almost above reproach.
Everything at the top in Canada is 'convention' even the Constitution and there's barely any real constraint at someone driving a truck through all of it.
Yes but that's marginal because support is entirely contingent on whether the legislative branch members believe that support won't get them voted out.
The US executive is very different because it's an independent election: it's almost impossible to get rid of a President, and relatively easy to deflect blame.
Australia's round of axing prime ministers had some essential logic to it despite the move being relatively unpopular with the electorate: it wasn't about whether the party would lose power, it was about whether replacing the prime minister would let them retain seats they faced otherwise losing.
It's a mammoth difference when the election for executive power and legislative power are linked and it shows.
I think one major difference is that MPs are far less beholden to their party for reelection and it is not uncommon for them to cross the floor when they feel the interests of their constituents are not being represented by the governing (or opposing) party.
Yes, a PM with a whipped majority is tremendously powerful, but getting that whipped majority is not an easy task and requires significant politicking and negotiating within the party precisely because individual MPs are proportionately more powerful than legislators in the US.
> are in a position where they wouldn't be useful.
No such country exists. So long as enemies are likely to put boots, wheels, or tracks on the ground in your country, landmines are extremely useful, extremely cheap, and extremely effective.
The point is that almost all of the signatories considered themselves to be immune to a "real war" in their futures at the time they signed. E.g. basically all of the European signatories assumed that the end of the cold war and existence of NATO would ensure the end of any possible threat. Given that assumption, as obviously flawed as it was, signing on to a ban was cheap PR (literally cheap, too, because it meant they could divest those weapons and their delivery mechanisms to reduce defense expenditures).
> Given that assumption, as obviously flawed as it was, signing on to a ban was cheap PR (literally cheap, too, because it meant they could divest those weapons and their delivery mechanisms to reduce defense expenditures).
Doubly so, since they understood themselves to be backed up by a non-signatory (the US).
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