My single biggest Reddit pet peeve was how they would idolize people who absolutely did not deserve it (see also: old Elon Musk). And lately they’ve been giving Mark Cuban the same treatment. I’m sad to see it happen on Lemmy as well.
Mark Cuban made his billions by quite literally scamming Yahoo. Like say what you will about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but at least they made products that people actually use. Then he followed the Trump path of making a shitty reality TV show which grossly inflated his business acumen. And now people are treating him as a saint for pedaling a new company that’s supposed to fix the pharma industry. First of all, he’s not doing this out of charity - it’s 100% strictly a business venture. And second, you know what would fix drug prices? Single payer healthcare. Like there are literally dozens of other countries that sell these same drugs for nothing because they have nationalized healthcare.
His dotcom-era company was a “radio on the internet” website (this was actually parodied in HBO’s Silicon Valley). As you’ve probably noticed, no one listens to radio on the internet because the entire point of radio is that it can be accessed by anyone with a radio signal, which is much easier to obtain than an internet connection and more importantly is free.
He then sold this doomed company to Yahoo. But not only that, he actually shorted the Yahoo stock that he received in compensation because he knew that his company was vaporware and as a result he got paid twice (once for the sale and then later because Yahoo shares tanked when they had to entirely write off his acquired company, among other dumb investments they made).
That’s not a scam, that’s just typical dotcom era stupidity. It’s probably the most egregious example and he saw the stupid Yahoo stock valuations and hedged his investment.
I’m not making apologies for billionaires but calling that a scam is stretching it. And, Internet radio was and still is a thing. I listen to stations that I can’t get on a regular radio or where I don’t have a radio.
Now, whether the current company is worthless, I can’t say.
a “radio on the internet” website
Why is that so bad? Back in the dialup era, one of the first things I did on the internet was search for radio stations that were impossibly beyond my horizon, things like KCRW, WFMU and the BBC, by searching for the station’s website and clicking on the “listen live” link that opened either the Real Player or Windows Media Player program.
Then there was TuneIn, by then my list of stations had expanded to include KFJC (Bay Area college radio station), KEXP (public station from Seattle), Radio Nova (electronic/soul station from France).
Nowadays, the MyTuner app might be the one I use most often than any other cellphone app except for the messaging one. Now I’ve included WPRB (Princeton), KALX (Berkeley), Soho Radio (London) and NTS Radio (also London) to my list of favorites.
My point is that radio on the internet, in one form or another, has been an integral part of my daily internet experience since basically Day One.
How about breaking Citizens United
He should do the “pay my fair share of taxes” plan instead
Maybe he should try to fix shit instead
