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Is the TV licence a subscription? I see it closer to a tax for using a public service or good, like the road or council tax.

I consider it a subscription because it is collected directly by the BBC and spent by the BBC.

Taxes, on the other hand, are collected by the government.


While the BBC is in charge of collecting it, and it is largely (but not exclusively) spent on the BBC, the TV licence is imposed by and paid into the government's funds. The government then "grants" the money back to the BBC.

> The revenue and associated expenditure [...] are those flows of funds which are handled on behalf of the Consolidated Fund and where the BBC acts as agent rather than as principal

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&b...

The Office for National Statistics also classifies it as a tax: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldbb...


It falls between the two.

It is, effectively, a subscription. But it is partnered with statute law which makes it an offence to receive TV broadcast signals without paying this subscription (and now also an offence to watch iPlayer, etc.)... which is unlike most subscriptions.

It's similar to how other governments fund their national broadcaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#Television_...

It's seen as strictly better than the government providing funding from general taxation, which would mean directly controlling the state broadcaster and its purse-strings.

And generally speaking, there are very good reasons to fund your country's own film/TV industry, rather than rely on other countries supplying the funding and the media (and the opinions and the cultural sway and the power and the control).


Perfect example of the "Yet you participate in society" meme.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/259/257/342...


The commenter acknowledges this: "I was always impressed that the laundry managed to get them pristine white again."

I think it's pretty clear they were taking ephemeral notes, not using them for long-term archiving.


I had to abandon it because of the memory leak, it would fill up all my memory in a matter of minutes. The devs don't seem to pay it much attention: https://github.com/anomalyco/opencode/issues/5363


> It is further ordered that all ISPs (including without limitation those set forth in Exhibit B hereto) and any other ISPs providing services in the United States shall block access to the Website at any domain address known today (including but not limited to those set forth in Exhibit A hereto) or to be used in the future by the Defendants (“Newly Detected Websites”) by any technological means available on the ISPs’ systems. The domain addresses and any Newly Detected Websites shall be channeled in such a way that users will be unable to connect and/or use the Website, and will be diverted by the ISPs’ DNS servers to a landing page operated and controlled by Plaintiffs (the “Landing Page”).

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/judge-rules-ever...


ISPs just ignored that order.


One of my banking apps didn't even run if I had accessibility settings turned on. I've since closed my account with them, just because of that.

The amount of control we've given corporations over our computers is incredibly disappointing.


Was this in EU/US? This sure has to break some disability act to discriminate visually imparied in such way.


It was in Moldova. Probably illegal there too if someone bothered to challenge it. I just downloaded it again, still won't work.

https://i.ibb.co/6c1MgkJQ/Screenshot-20260320-115310.png


It is interesting that most of these are coming from apps outside the US including the fully developer mode lock outs. US companies seem more comfortable with the mode being enabled which explains why I've never really run into issues with having it turned on.


Isn't this exactly what LLMs themselves do? They ingest other people's data and reproduce a slightly modified version of it. That allows AI companies to claim the work is transformative and thus fair use.


3) If I won't do it, someone even worse will.


The source is a company that works with Polymarket and sells Polymarket data (as well as Kalshi and other gambling platforms).


Marginal revolution has been talking up prediction markets since before they existed. In fact polymarket probably was created after its founder read Cowen's thoughts on prediction markets.


The findings are consistent with academic research that these markets are well calibrated.


Could be, you should reference the academic research then.


I don't see why UBI would necessarily be an increase of income for everyone. It could be that, but it could also be a decrease in hours worked, or a more equal distribution of wealth, or any combination of these.

I don't want a higher income, I want to benefit from the productivity gains I and everyone else made happen by having more time to do things I like.


> I don't want a higher income, I want to benefit from the productivity gains I and everyone else made happen by having more time to do things I like.

Why don't you just do that now and work half the amount of hours you're currently working?


> Why don't you just do that now and work half the amount of hours you're currently working?

Show me the job like mine where this is an option, and I'll take it in a second. Hire another me and we'll split duties.

These sorts of "professional job that pays a professional hourly rate but is for 20 hours a week" are exceedingly rare. You'll usually be taking far less than 50% pay - far worse if you include benefits in the calculation.

I've been halfway keeping my eye open for such an opportunity so I could fund the basics of my life, plus have time to do personal projects with utterly no chance of monetary payback. Just stuff like paint the house, teach myself how to weld, work on backyard art, volunteer, etc.

I could certainly find a job that pays 50% of what I get now for working the same number of hours though. Perhaps moderately less stress and no "off hours" chance of being called in for an emergency. But that's not a great tradeoff since I'm looking to trade money for time.

This may not be the point you're making, but it really is sort of frustrating this isn't an option. I get why - I employ folks too and understand the overheads involved - but man it's the dream!


The biggest opportunity for it is to work for yourself as a consultant or other hired gun at $X an hour; and just only schedule half-work.


Money.


More precisely: purchasing power.

And that's my point.

Your purchasing power will not change.


If we worked fewer hours for the same pay, our purchasing power would remain the same. I'm not saying there won't be any disruption at all, but we did it before with the five-day work week.


If "we" means everyone, yes. But the reality is there is a sufficient number of people willing to work more to earn more, and therefore they will raise prices of everything which destroys your purchasing power.

Your purchasing power is defined in a competitive equilibrium with your peers.

If you're assuming you can band everyone together to all decide to work fewer hours for the same pay, fine, but you just invented a union, not an improvement to UBI.


There are people working 80-hour weeks now. I don't think "some people want as much money as possible" is the basis of how we should think of labour. Plenty of middle-class workers will be happy to work fewer hours if they can maintain their current lifestyles.

> If you're assuming you can band everyone together to all decide to work fewer hours for the same pay, fine, but you just invented a union, not an improvement to UBI.

Why should this come solely via unions? I elect people to represent me, and I want those people to tax AI/tech companies and their beneficiaries, and return some of the wealth they've generated to the people it's been extracted from. The entire point of UBI is that it's universal, including in industries poorer and more vulnerable workers who can't self-organise work in.


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