It's just that people are making the most out of social media. Others have decided to make a hustle out of it, and it's not a bad thing as it allows other people to have money to put food on their table.
Why are there even Netflix exclusives on a certain country? If they tried to release all of the shows, they need not worry about the IP address as some are using VPN to watch shows currently available in a certain country.
That's how influential he is. Even some rules can bend according to their will. It is not a surprise as other influential figures are doing this on multiple occasions.
I think "ultrarich" is far too tame. He controls a company that mediates our very relationship to "facts" and information. Together with Facebook, Google controls what the world thinks about. You can see that power being exercised forcefully over the past year in regards to vaccines, politics and conspiracies.
Agree that it's a bigger claim, so let me explain the mechanism. People think and talk about whatever is in their environment. Companies, marketers, PR agencies and political strategists understand this well and use it to pack the news and media we consume with the messages they profit from having us talk about. Maybe you agree with the message or disagree, but you will be likely taking part in the conversation. Often these topics are not even personally relevant to us, far outside our sphere of influence, but we talk about them anyway because that's what has been injected in the public sphere.
Together, Google and Facebook control an enormous percent of all information distribution. They make a show as being a neutral platform, only responding to the preferences of the user, but that is more and more obviously not true. I am not a republican, but I think their fear of getting cut off the internet is legit, because if you're not on the internet, your're out of the conversation.
I can't see why Toyota, one of the auto giants, is struggling with electric vehicles. I hope that they will allocate funds sufficient for EV research and development to become competent enough to stay in the space. They should avoid what Nokia did as it falls to its demise in the rise of touchscreens and the smartphone revolution.
I believe access to battery supply is one of the bottlenecks in changing course. Globally, batteries are in high demand and forecast supply is spoken for. Others like VW have been investing to ensure sufficient supply for their EV production. So my guess is that Toyota is unable to change direction quickly enough to meet proposed deadlines for full electrification.
It seems to me that there's a medium-term role for (plug-in) hybrids and that Toyota could serve that niche well if the legal structure allowed them to get "partial EV" credit for those cars.
The issue with hybrids is that they're often used as a regular non-EV car, resulting in very little reduction of emissions. Combined with more energy-intensive production, this makes them pretty useless when looking at their environmental impact (especially when considering long ranges, people aren't going to charge every ~40km).
The upside, though, is that having a plug-in hybrid with reasonable range allows us to make do with one car, whereas if we had a BEV we would likely also buy a gas car for long drives because charging on long drives makes the trip a lot longer or even non-feasible where charging is sparse.
We have a GM Volt. 50% of our annual mileage, including all in-town mileage, is electric. That's a 50% reduction in gas use, production of the second car eliminated, and 40+mpg when we do use gas.
I read that Toyota went all in on hydrogen fuel cells instead of the battery tech everyone else uses. Apparently it didn't work so they had to redesign the car which caused the delay.
I think the idea that they’re struggling isn’t exactly accurate. It’s mostly a matter of scaling up manufacturing capacity and they don’t want to do it for a market that’s the size that it currently is. They also know demand for ICE & hybrid vehicles isn’t going to go anywhere when you can’t buy a decent EV for less than $40k, so that’s where their focus is in the short term. This is just them asking for their hybrids and PHEVs to get similar treatment as EVs and get a subsidy because it would both benefit them and further lower emissions vs only subsidizing EVs
