Thanks for sharing this, I hope it gets off the ground soon.
Whilst I'm not interested in the offer itself, I thought it would be interesting for users to be able to subscribe to notifications regarding certain domain names, domains that contain certain words, or domains with a maximum of, say, 3-4 chars.
For example, I'd be somewhat interested in learning when domains that contain words like "identity", "linux", or "rob" emerge, as well as if/when a domain like amazon.com or one like four.com (4 chars) become available . Random examples, of course, but you get the point hopefully.
Hi Rob, thanks for your thoughts!
We're not planning on expanding to watching expiring domains yet, we're focused more on finding domains that were never registered.
But what you're interested in can be done by watching all the registered domains that you're interested in and either catching them when they expire (ex. https://www.expireddomains.net) or by registering a backorder (higher success rate but you have to pay, ex. https://www.gname.com/backorder)
> However, anyone terminated for copyright violations is out of luck—Google does not forgive such infringement as easily as it does claiming that COVID is a hoax.
In other words, public health can go down the drain for all Google cares, but when the private purse is impacted - that's where it draws the line.
Unfortunately it is yet another piece from the Economist defending neoliberalism, as it has done from the beginning. Europe is not short on issues, one would have to agree, but the (hidden) author basically frames labour protections as inefficiencies rather than social achievements or desirables, and assumes investor imperatives are the only measure of success. What fairness? And what is this nonsense with people needing shelter, food, and healthcare?
The business enterprise, in this hit piece, should not be simply another tool for improving the quality of life and helping create a society that's worth living in, but the sole purpose of the society itself.
The "cumbersome process for letting go workers comes with hidden costs" aren't really hidden, unlike the author, but transparent social protections ensuring fair treatment, preventing arbitrary dismissal, and stabilising demand. Something a decent society should fully embrace.
> the sheer difficulty of shedding staff en masse—a reality of corporate life—steers Europe’s biggest companies away from making risky bets in innovative fields
No, thank you. Europe's lag in high-tech sectors stems mainly from underinvestment, fragmented capital markets, and US monopoly power, not employment law. Labour rigidity has no strict correlation with innovation deficits (Germany, Scandinavia, France, Japan, and South Korea all had stronger labour protections than the US and managed to become rather innovative), but why bother with data when the point was simply to bash Europe for protecting its workers from predatory businesses? At best, the evidence is mixed and context-dependent (focusing on patents, for example, instead of genuine innovation)[0], and OECD and Eurostat long-term data show that some high-innovation countries have some of the strongest worker protections and unions.
> investments in disruptive breakthroughs [...] require the ability for big companies to hire lots of staff, then later fire most of them if the projects don’t pan out
Likewise, nonsensical economic justification for precarious work. For the most part, innovation depends on R&D funding, talent, and public infrastructure, not firing freedom (which businesses are guaranteed to abuse). Rather than treating humans as disposable risk capital, the author should take a look at US's own history and they will undoubtedly notice that a significant part of the innovation that it benefits from today was developed when the US had huge taxes, immense investments in R&D and public infrastructure. [1]
Strong social and environmental protections should be the bare minimum for any democratic society. Remove that, and no economic system, whether capitalist or not, is worth having.
specifically since enterprises are easier to monopolize since the purchasers are not users. and they need carteling to maintain dominance over a product so simple
Printes have been around for decades. All the major innovation are patent expired. There may be useful new things under protection but nothing critical.
Does it work with VPNs? I seem to see "WebRTC Connection: Disconnected" regardless of the browser. In some cases it's the result of security hardening, but in others that can't be the case.
It's distinctive, carefully laid-out content with smartly used negative space, uses fresh and modern colour palettes, bold typography, moving away from the “Courier New typeface”. (For font nerds, Courier was designed in the mid-50s as a typewriter face for IBM [0] and has been adopted by many publishers because it was considered cool and was in the public domain.)
For visuals, Reimecke Forbes' fresh style and creative direction is clearly a winner: the editorial illustrations are beautiful and artistic, as are the rich and playful infographics and data visualisations, many created via freelance art commissions. In fact, the magazine owes much of its success to the design of its print editions; as this article states, "It’s the single most gorgeous and visually clever magazine currently being published in print" [1]. It's argued that creating a beautiful object is essential to the magazine's business model, which centrally relies on a small base of premium subscribers [2] and because the majority of its content is available for free [3].
I quite like website as well. It's making full use of the space, the choice of colours is to my taste (bar the intense red in the footer navigation menu), and the content is smartly structured on the page for the various site sections, such as the author [4] and taxonomy pages [5].
B. The magazine's social and political analyses
Whilst US readers are their main audience, they do look at global events and often address political and social issues and challenges on a country basis. Depending on where you're based, there's a good chance that you'll find something of (political) interest.
One may not necessarily share the left perspectives for whatever reasons, but the quality of the writing is rather good and they don't mess around with their analyses: for the most part they are rigorous, historically grounded critiques of neoliberalism [6] and current events, little to no populist fluff or shallow takes, and employing clarity of language. They write a lot about democracy and its processes, wealth inequality, the power of mass protest, environmentalism, healthcare, collective action/unions, economics, politics, the BS of philanthropy [7], and building societies that work for all, not just for the rich.
The magazine is considered to be the most relevant and important publication of the American political left today – "timely, globally oriented, and topically eclectic" [1]. Described by the Nieman Journalism Lab as a journal of "democratic socialist thought" [2], the magazine is involved with projects beyond publishing analytical essays, for example coordinating a nonfiction series via Verso Books. The shared commitment of the founder and the co-editors to advancing a critique of liberalism that is free of obscurantist academic theory or “cheap hooks” also matters [8].
People like Chomsky recommend it ("a bright light in dark times") [9] and professor Corey Robin says [1] in Vox Mag that "it’s completely in-your-face in its style and tone; it has this name, Jacobin, that just seems designed to push people’s buttons.” The article goes on to say that "Jacobin isn’t a traditional journalistic outfit, and purposely so. Seth Ackerman, one of the magazine’s earliest contributors, says he and Sunkara (the founder) wanted to explicitly avoid what the latter called 'rosy reports from the front'." Sunkara's approach is "put your ideas out there, write as clearly as possible, and let it be challenged," which I quite like.
The editorial standards are commendable, in my opinion: there's no clickbait, no "both sides" nonsense when holding power to account.
One can certainly disagree with many of the things written in it, but it would be hard to deny that its content is intellectually stimulating and informative, often providing a fresh view over the political situation in the US, Europe, and Latin America, as well as plenty of historical context that helps the general public understand how we got here and perhaps offer some lessons from the past.
[Message continues, as there's a limit imposed by HN]
Jacobin is genuinely independent, as all quality mags should be – primarily funded by readers and subscriptions. They understand the demand for journalism and long-form content for a left (and beyond) audience, and constantly deliver on that.
According to their site [10], the magazine has around 75k subscribers (and 3M online visitors), which I think I read in one of the sources quoteed below that it outperforms nearly all explicitly left-wing print publications (think Dissent, The Nation, and The Baffler), and whilst not exactly mass-market, they qualify for top-tier among political journals. It should be said that it's uncommon for explicitly left media to reach this scale without corporate ads or institutional backing.
I argue that it punches above its weight in terms of digital reach, syndication, and influence in academia and activist circles, but I don't yet have the data to back this conclusion up (mainly because it would take time to obtain it and I'm lazy). It may be small in absolute terms, but that in terms of influence per capita it's likely rather significant. If you spend a bit of time digging through its content (assuming your interests are aligned with theirs), it becomes obvious why. It's also surprisingly well-connected with policymakers around the world [1], and count among their clients the New Left Review and university presses like Duke and Stanford.
E. Popularity and whatnot
A few major media platforms have mentioned them in their shows, articles, news, and bulletins. MSNBC [12], NYT [8], the conservative National Review [14], Politico [15], Tablet Magazine [16], New Left Review [17], The Guardian [18], The New Yorker [19], CJR [3], and more.
In addition to their staff, it's likely that some or most important left thinkers alive who can write in English and are active have contributed to the magazine. Notable contributors include Nathan J. Robinson (of Current Affairs), Cory Doctorow, Hilary Wainwright (of Red Pepper mag), Sohrab Ahmari (of Compact Magazine), Slavoj Žižek, normative political theorist Bernard Harcourt, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bernie Sanders, the former vice president of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, the French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Annie Ernaux, the West Papuan independence leader, Benny Wenda, the co-founder of the independent publisher OR Books, Colin Robinson, the former president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, and a host of authors, journalists, researchers, sociologists, historians, political scientists, economists, philosophers, lecturers, union leaders, organisers, workers, and more. It is really a pleasure to read many of these, everything considered [20].
To me, and many like me who want to see a more equitable and fair world - one that we should exert more democratic political control over - Jacobin is a much-needed source of information and investigation that holds power to account and translates boring but important social, economic, and political research into plain English. A just and sustainable reality of our own making should not just include the views of the left; it should encourage it to participate meaningfully in politics and help temper the right-wing extremism [21] that has been taking over the US, Europe, and much of the world over the last 40 years. In the end, what we need is a society that addresses the needs of individuals, communities, and the environment - not just market outcomes or abstract freedoms, which are merely instruments or limited goals within a larger context. Whether the magazine will maintain its ethos remains to be seen; I'm prepared for disappointment, but I also recognise that it's just a medium at the end of the day. What matters to me is what's being said there, and I try not to become too attached to the magazine itself.
To those quick to demonise or reflexively dismiss the left's approach to politics, philosophy, social issues, and everything else, I would say there are strong arguments not to do that, especially if you value democracy. Most scholars, policymakers, organisers, economists, and researchers on the left advocate solutions that expand wellbeing across lines of class, geography, and identity. That should not just be acceptable, it should be taken seriously, pondered, and investigated. Otherwise, I'm afraid we're running out of options as a society. If the peaceful, honest, solution-focused approach is rejected, what the masses are left with is violence.
One can't ever know for sure, of course, but this reads like a US or Musk empire financed piece. Of course that a country that sees the US and its subsidised businesses as a threat would push back on things like this, considering the historical tensions between the two countries and the importance of (as-much-as-possible) independent communication infrastructure.
The article completely fails to mention the tensioned relationship between the two countries, framing the situation in terms of consumer benefits and competition, which could be seen as disingenuous at the very least.
Out of the many (~30) coups that the country has been plagued by historically, at least 6 to 8 were directly backed, supported, or facilitated by the US.
