It’s really funny when rich people with a Regular Guy shtick reveal how out of touch they are. “Oh, Medicare for All? Would you give up your breakfast butler to pay for the tax hike? Not so appealing now, is it?”

Hell yes!

How are you getting anything done without “Co-Pilot”??

Exactly right. And the price hike comes after a year when more than 15,000 Microsoft employees were laid off, despite a FY25 profit of $27 billion.

Meanwhile, the core products in the Office suite work pretty much the same as they have for the last 10+ years, ie sort of OK. There’s no pressure to improve those products because (1) there’s very little competition and (2) they can charge rent for the existing products.

This is a pretty good illustration of why communist firebrand Adam Smith was so critical of economic rent-seeking: it reduces efficiency and innovation in the economy. MS’s justification for a 42% rent hike is “Co-Pilot,” which the vast majority of renters don’t use and didn’t ask for

The ol’ “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” turns out to be kind of correct, but also its fulfillment has meant the opposite is true: if everyone’s famous, then nobody is

I agree! The Ballard might know:

bimp.uconn.edu