MetaFilter posts tagged with revenue

Imagine one percent, 129000 times

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:31:04 -0800

"Amazon’s markup of digital delivery to indie authors is ~129,000%" - author Andrew Hyde reviews the take for the most popular digital publishing platforms

Courtyard Marriott in Times Square is spying on and manipulating your Internet

gen — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:06:20 -0800

Web developer Justin Watt was staying at the Courtyard Marriott in Times Square, New York and using the hotel wifi to access the Internet. He noticed some strangeness on his website... and on every other website he visited (not to mention YouTube was broken.)

In short, Marriott is injecting JavaScript into the HTML of every webpage its hotel customers view for the purpose of injecting ads (and in the meantime, breaking YouTube). Marriott’s wireless internet service provider is a third-party company called Hotel Internet Services, so it is possible, though unlikely, that Marriott doesn’t know what’s going on. But it’s crazy to me that I’m paying $368 a night for a hotel room, and this is how I get treated.

It turns out he found out that the Internet provide at the Courtyard Marriott in Times Square was injecting JavaScript and CSS into his website via the Revenue eXtraction Generator network gateway. (Who in their right mind would name a spying software with such a name!) What can you do to make sure that your Internet experience is not controlled by the owner of a public network (such as a hotel or cafe) that you may be using? Either bring your own connectivity (3G modem or other mobile network access device) or make sure to use a VPN to encrypt all your data so that the public network cannot spy on your traffic. In this case it is the network owner that is manipulating the user's Internet but on an insecure WiFi network, any user can watch the traffic of other users of the network with a packet sniffer (i.e. you have no security at all. Use a VPN!)

The NoDeficits club

Kevin Street — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:04:48 -0800

How the Austerity Class Rules Washington. Tracing the origin of a political meme. (Via Paul Krugman.)

Taxes today are lower than they were under President Reagan.

blue_beetle — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:01:36 -0800

Ten Charts that Prove the United States Is a Low-Tax Country from the Center for American Progress.

Debtris

Cool Papa Bell — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:44:43 -0800

Debtris. From Information is Beautiful.

We regret to inform you...

VikingSword — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:36:41 -0800

'Illinois wants Amazon to collect 6.25 percent sales tax and send it back to the state.' Amazon fights back. Under current law, only companies with a physical presence in the state have to do this, but the new bill declares that even having affiliates in Illinois counts as "presence." 'An e-mail sent from the company to all of its Illinois affiliates this morning warns that, should Illinois Governor Pat Quinn sign a just-passed tax bill, Amazon is cutting off every affiliate in Illinois. "We regret to inform you that the Illinois state legislature has passed an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that, if signed by Governor Quinn, would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with Illinois-based Associates," said the e-mail.' The Associates are furious. Of course, 'this has been a long-running fight for Amazon. Back in 2008, it challenged a similar New York state law in court, calling it an "unconstitutional" attack that singled out a particular company. Amazon's threats to kill its affiliate program haven't been idle, either; the company has closed the program in Colorado, Rhode Island, and North Carolina thanks to similar laws there.' At issue is not the law itself, but compliance - the purchaser is supposed to pay the tax anyway, but few do. That is why the push is on, to compel the vendors to collect the tax on behalf of the states. The death of tax-free internet purchases has been forecast for some time now. However, now that states are starved for revenue, is the end of the tax-free ride in sight?

The Financial Documents Baseball Doesn't Want You To See

reenum — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:05:29 -0800

Today, Deadspin leaked financial documents detailing the finances of several MLB teams, including a few that are getting revenue sharing money. They show that several of MLB's "poorest" franchises turned a profit due to these cash infusions. Jayson Stark of ESPN fears these revelations may lead to further labor strife.

In the future, everyone will monetize their 15 minutes

mrgrimm — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:42:15 -0800

Shaquille O'Neal's Payer Player (WARNING: scary plug-ins and pop-up video men) is ... "[o]ne central location for sharing, socializing, creating while honoring and rewarding you for the value you bring to the network." On Tuesday, Google announced it would expand revenue sharing to single (i.e. "viral") videos. Does community-contributed-video revenue sharing have a future? (see also: Flixya, Revver) (via Shaq on Twitter) (previously)

It lacks a professional white background

djgh — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:47:48 -0800

Why Craigslist is such a mess. (via)

Zen and the Art of Classified Advertising

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:26:08 -0800

craigslist could make $500 million a year. Why not?

an off the books slush fund that both the Americans and their Iraqi allies could use with impunity to cover expenditures they would rather keep secret

amberglow — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 18:43:47 -0800

How Much Oil Has Iraq Been Exporting Since We Invaded? And how much revenue should be recorded? --Iraq’s oil exports hit another post-invasion low in December and January, according to the Oil & Gas Journal. How do they know? Good question: according to Reuters, production and exports have gone unmetered since the Coalition Provisional Authority took over the country following the 2003 invasion; until new meters are installed (in 1-2 more years), everybody’s just guessing. Our Government's Energy Information Administration has all sorts of statistics--anyone wanna figure out how they're derived regarding Iraq?

Spare Any Loose Change For An Innovator?

Blue Stone — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 12:32:21 -0800

The hugely popular iTunes is a success story. But not for Apple, which makes virtually no revenue from the online download service. "When that 99 cents leaves your wallet, the RIAA monopoly swallows most of it, and the credit card companies swallow the rest. As the supplicant in this relationship, Apple is left holding the can." Steve Jobs - "We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it's not a money maker,"

"we're good at growing hogs, and we ought to be selling our hogs all across the world."

crasspastor — Sat, 08 Jun 2002 02:57:37 -0800

"we're good at growing hogs, and we ought to be selling our hogs all across the world." Bush stumps at Pork Party about nixing the Estate Tax.

Salon tightens its belt...

BGM — Wed, 31 Jan 2001 01:19:28 -0800

Salon tightens its belt... No surprise there, things are tough all over. But what caught my eye was a quote in paragraph 5 from an industry pundit who said he "hasn't seen any site that can be profitable with a revenue base of less than $15 million per quarter". What future does the web have if every site that creates its own content has to bill $60 million a year?

Maybe I spoke too soon.

Steven Den Beste — Fri, 05 Jan 2001 19:12:01 -0800

Maybe I spoke too soon. A lot of semipro tech-zines, sort of like blogs except with specific subject matters to cover, are financed by ad networks. In the recent past a bunch of them have lost their funding when their ad networks went out of business. Now one of the biggest networks which remains is changing their terms to the detriment of the web sites. I gather that a lot of the ad networks were running at a loss, and of course new funding has dried up. [more inside]

Amazon dead by Mar 19, 2001

lagado — Mon, 23 Oct 2000 20:58:25 -0800

Amazon dead by Mar 19, 2001 Just thought you like to know the exact time of death of Amazon.com That's according to Downside's Deathwatch is a cash-flow analysis. The death date is simply the day the company will run out of cash, based on their reported liquid assets and loss rate. When the cash runs out, something bad for stockholders has to happen.

WTF!?! Everyone's favorite band (back in high school) Metallica is suing Napster and a handful of universities

mathowie — Thu, 13 Apr 2000 23:03:59 -0800

WTF!?! Everyone's favorite band (back in high school) Metallica is suing Napster and a handful of universities for unlawful trading of their music. This is ridiculous, and I hope it doesn't set a precedence. If anyone would just slap a revenue model on napster so artists could get paid for their work, none of this piracy crap would happen. And Metallica, what about the other apps that do the same thing, are you going to sue them too? And what about every other band on earth? What do you expect to get out of universities, tighter controls over bandwidth, or student monitoring of internet usage? What about every cable modem and DSL provider that lets people use Napster, are you going after them too? Why don't you sue everyone on earth that's heard your songs but didn't pay for them? Side question: Is it better to burn out or fade away?