Tag: Random Thoughts

So nowadays we are comfortable with two facts:

1. 1. Books can be digital. It is good for distribution, near zero marginal cost of production, no burden on environment, reducing the barrier of knowledge.
   2. There are public libraries that provide free borrowing for resources including books (physical).

Then here comes the question – why libraries don’t provide free digital version of books.

The Answer could be very simple.

No one will buy books then…..

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Then there is another question – since public libraries are funded by governments (tax payers) and donors, why are books not subsidized by governments like healthcare or education.

Why don’t governments make a list of knowledge-based books nearly free?

Authors should receive a stream of cash flows from taxpayers, for the contribution of their books.

This will be a large topic and won’t be easy to discuss in a systematic way. I will write down some thoughts in bullet points and revisit later.

• The idea has occurred to me several times. Essentially, government is an organization and so does a company. Although organizations have different scopes, different formats of running, there must be some similarities.
• We usually say companies are to maximize shareholders’ value (short-run and long-run). But when the long-run is long enough, we shall see something interesting: the companies are paying extreme attention to building an ecosystem, to maintaining a healthy community/marketplace, to maximizing users’ satisfaction, etc.
• Tech companies very much rely on users’ opinion. They listen to users. Users have the option to walk away just like immigration. Tech companies need users’ inputs/choices to build apps they use, to maintain the virtual world they live. The self-governance is impressive, especially in blockchain-based applications that users can decide/vote.
• Tech companies are responsible to protect users from malware or harmful contents/users. They can block an IP address or a user account just like putting someone into prison. They can reject his/her entrance into the community.
• Tech companies have their own rules or bottom lines that act as laws/judges, with the help of self-governance.
• There are many free services as long as you are one of its users (or citizens)
• They provide infrastructures and ways to interact (emails, postal services, freeways)
• Users pay taxes such as data. In other cases, users share what they earned through tech companies (e.g. marketplace organizers by them)

Recently I saw the state flag a few times with the bear and the name of “California Republic”. While the name may have new meanings now, it also represents its history.

Originally part of Mexico, the 1846 revolt declared independence of California Republic with its capital in Sonoma. Only lasted for 25 days, the republic later became part of the United States.

Despite the republic origin, California has been a strong democratic state since 1992.

It appears to me tho, that the “republic” or “democratic” name itself won’t convey much meaning going forward. Sure a party will start with a name that is closely related a specific opinion. After decades or hundreds of years, most of the founding ideas will fade away; it might be okay to just call them “party A” and “party B”.

Ultimately, most ordinary voters only care about if their feel good or not. And most of that feeling is correlated with economic status. So the flipping of the economy will change the control between parties.

California has been booming for years with the help from semiconductors, PCs, internet, etc. As long as tech industry remains strong, so does California and it will continue be won by the current party.

It is not necessarily something new/surprising – traditional media are PAYING tech companies to be promoted.

I found this really ironic in the sense that originally most media should BE PAID to promote something. The reach to readers is built in the gene of media and defines one of the two pillars of media business model.

Tech companies like Twitter/Toutiao, are not just selling promotions/ads. To me, they are more like real estate developers. They are building towns/offices for people to live/work and renting out the places such as tops of buildings… What’s more, they are doing this everyday and creating places everyday with little physical limits and marginal efforts.

When the town is getting crowded, it becomes Manhattan, where real estates are pricey. Those who were invited as “Official Accounts” now needs to pay more money to be seen. The tech companies can run those auctions which no one questions their eligibility (and why Manhattan is in New York).

最近愈发觉得自己在研究公司中有一个bias – 对于表现不好的公司花很多时间精力，表现好的就不怎么管了

这里的表现体现在股价。

具体来说 1. 开始投资的时候，是会花很多精力；如果近期有headwind会花更多effort。 2. 买了，跌了，这一类的公司占据很多时间精力 3. 买了，涨了，往往就不太花时间跟踪，反而错过新的机会或者对推出时机不敏感

这就是标题中 asymmetrical…

这其实不仅体现在研究公司中。比如以前上学的时候，熟悉的科目不怎么复习，复习花在学得不稳的科目上。

这或许是一个普遍的不对称性？所谓打江山易，守江山难也有这个因素？危机的时候人可能表现出超乎平常的能力？

这应该是个生物学+心理学共同解释的现象。