I wholeheartedly agree.

I've worked for a few tech companies before they went public - while they were awesome to work for - and each time the Street took over it was literally the worst thing for the rank and file. Before, we were able to pick our clients, pick our peers, etc., and felt like we had some say in the way things got done. The moment they went public, all of that went poof - and the companies went downhill, fast. Not necessarily in the amount of money they made - but they burned out their good people and we all left. Each time, leaving behind a dead, souless giant beholden to the death grip of the Street.

They all eventually die, and small companies form around the little customers the monster giants forgot while they went after the huge whales. It's a never ending cycle it seems...

Many more than 20 people and it will require more $$$ for the time-slices by the AI they've tasked to monitor and monetize your interactions and conversations. /s. kinda..

They still refuse to make an electric motorcycle. Sigh...

Only if you have an active internet connection. The moment you lose wireless it becomes a giant, useless immobile paperweight...

This wouldn't even be a consideration or issue if the credit card companies allowed you to tell that auto-charges to your bill should be canceled, as you have notified the business of your intent to cancel and they should deny and future charges.

For some cards I have found this to be EXTREMELY difficult.

Studies on caffeine consumption, along with how many eggs a week are safe to eat? It's just the food version of cold-fusion.

It's funny. In Sci-Fi shows I always wondered how people that can "phase" themselves through a wall don't just fall right through the floor, and if the bottoms of their feet (even one molecule thick?) maintain integrity, how the hell they still manage to "stroll" through a wall? I don't see them doing a "shuffle" to slice through the wall and if they did, wouldn't it cut some nice foot-width slivers through the wall, electrical pipes and anything else in it?

lol

Nor do they eat, sleep, require smoke breaks, form unions, bitch about unfair practices, hold meetings for diversity training and how to not sexually harass other robots. Nor will they need training departments and HR departments managing the compliance or other "feel good" measures to retain good employees.

No time-and-a-half, no hazard pay, no shift-differential, no holidays, no benefits or 401k/403b plans and anything else us meatbags need to feel a part of a "team".

This is an excellent observation!

I've often wondered what impact on us as human beings that AI and automation is having. And sadly in a lot of respects I'm not seeing (or is it that I am just too damned cynical?) where we as a species are being "elevated" in any way, shape or form by this. What I see that instead of using the extra time we have to rethink our innate value to society as a whole, and elevate our learning and abilities - it's squandered instead on spending more time watching reality TV and becoming more of a hyper-consumer - and not creating anything of more value.

Because the mundane is being pulled away, many people are choosing not to use that extra time to get better, but rather relax even further and slide deeper and deeper into a world of "something else will do it for me" and just becoming fatter and lazier.

Or again, maybe it's just me being cynical?

Excellent point! The only thing is "Blockchain" (just the term?) sells stock.

If I had a dollar for every company I worked for and put out a press release talking about how they embraced the tech-sector's "Flavor of the Month"? I wouldn't have to work.

Practical? God no. Marketable? Hell yes.

It's probably not going to be to the un-wieldly level of drilling down to the exact tomato, but whatever product has a complex list of ingredients it would be enough to know what supplier and batch of something was used to the point of where it makes sense.

e.g. a truckload of tomatoes from Bob's Farms might be bad and grabbing a whole set of whatever products was in contact with that truck - right down to who was driving is capturable data, No need to truly drill further.

And why blockchain? Oh c'mon - that's the easiest answer. It's the latest craze - and not too many things in the food sector can boost stock price and get people talking about you than when you start dropping "Blockchain" everywhere. . Efficient? Oh Hell no. Noteworthy to make your company name more relevant to today's news? Absolutely.

Heck, it had me at "find child pornography stashed in hidden hard drives"! Wow! they have biologic quantum decrypting noses?

Anyone that puts stuff (illegal OR personal) on a USB stick in anything other than an encrypted volume is an idiot. Someone grabs my USB keys and they get nothing but random data bits.

I'm still pissed at Ross Perot. I was with Perotsystems before they went public. It was awesome - and yet even after he knew the people in the company wanted every single share they would have offered and then some? He still sold the lion's share to institutional investors and all employees were only allowed to buy 100 shares at the IPO price - and the company went down the toilet - especially when Junior took over. He was a real estate man and couldn't give two shits about consulting services.

It was in that moment that I learned to not pay any attention to the suits in the C-level. They're all about growing their portfolio and couldn't give a shit less about the "troops". Ross's statements all turned out to be rhetorical bullshit, and it was after that when I became wildly successful as a freelance consultant and never looked back.

It was the kick in the ass I needed to prove that nobody looks out for you but you. No matter how "touchy feely" the company is? If it's tied in any way shape or form to Wall Street, it's all bullshit "What About Next Quarter" mantra. And quality across the board suffers.

Honestly I would really like someone to mention a tech company (or any company for that matter) that once they hit Wall Street, they didn't suddenly develop a myopic "What Can We Do This Quarter To Make The Executive Stock Options Fatter?"

Every time I worked for a privately held consulting or software company - it totally rocked. As soon as they went public? It was all downhill from there.

I'm a firm believer that it's the vision of the controlling entity that can make or break it - in the case of Jobs? He was a fastidious tyrant - but people followed him and respected him and made shit that "just works". With him being gone? Where's the rallying entity? It sure isn't Tim Cook or Wall Street.

Hopefully they will inform the USPS, as having "Check ID" or something similar on the back of the card is NOT accepted by the idiots at the Post Office.

It doesn't really happen until the US Postal Service supports it, as they seem to be the litmus test as the lowest common denominator with respect to technology. /sarcasm