All politicians, including Bernie must cater to the rich and wealthy. It’s our jobs as voters to discern the true reason why they do it. It’s a cruel reality that without the support of the wealthy, no one will make it to congress to effect change. Every successful politician knows this very well. They know not to bite the hand that feeds, so each one (*that works for progress and not personal gain) must walk a very thin line to effect that change while also making sure they aren’t removed from office for fear that whatever they did could quickly be undone.

Bernie is in it for the right reasons. Biden and Clinton were in it for the right reasons. Having personally interacted with a few politicians in private settings (no cameras or hidden recorders) I can say that even some Republicans are in it for the right reasons, but differ in ideology and how to effect that change. In the end they play a fictional role when tv cameras are around.

Personally, I was most impressed by my interactions with Marco Rubio of all people. He’s exceptionally bright, and cares very deeply about the protection of this country, and it’s a very good thing he is vice chairman (or chairman during Republican senates) of the Senate Intelligence Committee as it seems to be his calling. It’s just unfortunate that in front of the cameras, he needs to dumb himself down in order to get elected by Republican voters.

As an Alaskan voter, ranked choice is the only reason we have a female, Native American, Democrat congressional representative instead of Sarah Palin filling Don Young’s deep red legacy. RCV is equitable and works, but not in the way progressives hope. It allows for the most centrist candidate to be chosen that appeals to the most possible people. A two party system just becomes a battle of political extremes. And like it or not, being progressive is far left for a reason, especially in America. And I consider myself fairly progressive leaning.

You are absolutely correct! I just couldn’t think of a way to further dive into that nuance, but I also wanted the example to be relatable and tangible. Thank you!

You used the phrase correctly, and your English is great!

The above commenter was rudely stating that your observation is not correct as it’s has always been this way.

This is the only response required. I’m quickly becoming exhausted of reading everyone’s epiphany on “enshittification” as if it’s some natural eventuality. Yes the money must eventually come, but not always at the expense of platform quality. If anything the results we see from “enshittification” are due to the fact that most businesses fail eventually due to poor leadership.

Just to echo what you have already said, money today is simply more expensive than it used to be. We even see the impacts of macro monetary decisions on households.

Buying a house or a car on loan is far more expensive than it would have been a year and half ago. A $500,000 house in 2021 would cost $2,000 a month at 2.75% interest and 20% down. Today same that payment is $2,800 or 40% more expensive at 7.75% interest.

Modern companies live on revolving debt, so if their suddenly gets 40% more expensive and that same amount of money is also less valuable at the same time (inflation), then they need to make up the difference somehow.

Corporations are trying to find the balance between squeezing more revenue to pay their ever increasing debt bills while also not destroying the environment that attracted the users (their products) in the first place. Twitter and Reddit are just going about it horrifically because of poor business leadership and decision making. Netflix’s approach appears to be sustainable, and there is no doubt that YouTube will be fine in the long run.

This is not meant to be apologetic to the decisions made by Twitter and Reddit. They’ve made their bed through their own horrible decisions, and now they’ve got to sleep in it.

Culturally, 18% is the absolute minimum nowadays. An average tip is north of 20%.

I typically do 20% and round to the next dollar. So if the meal was $56.14, I would calculate $5.60 as approximately 10%, double it to $11.20 and then add 66 cents for a tip of $11.86 do the final total is $68.00.

The servers only enter the total line in the system, so this makes it easier for them.