Category Archives: IT

Pure Flicker

Yes, many of us enjoy it all the time, the pure and the flicker. Some of us (like me) have it 3-4 months a year, two around Christmas and two around summer. And there are who do not like it at all, or they settle around Disney, Hulu or Stan. They are all in a seemingly stand-off. They all vie for the same population. As such, members will shift. I wrote about it before, it was always going to happen. This time there is more and there are a few sources. Lets take a look at two of them. In this we have 9 News who gives us ‘Netflix loses more than $US60 billion in minutes as investors flee’. Here we see “Shares of Netflix are imploding after the company reported its first quarterly loss of subscribers in more than a decade. The report far underperformed expectations, worrying investors who had been betting that a handful of big tech companies would continue to grow at a rapid clip. What’s happening: Netflix’s stock dropped 30 per cent when the market opened on Wednesday, instantly wiping more than $60.54 billion off the value of the company.” It is merely one part, channel 9 also gives us “Netflix said it shed 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year, when it had been expecting to add 2.5 million”. Here we have the first issue. You see ‘it had been expecting to add 2.5 million’ based on what expectations? You see there are two parts here. The first is that the covid era is sort of ending (sort of is the best I can give you). As such people are now expected to work, they cannot stay at home watching TV, so as millions go back to work, they will slide their subscriptions. As such the adding of 2.5M is one part, the loss of 200K makes sense and both numbers are up in the air. We can end up anywhere between plus 2.5M and minus 200K. Neither bother me, so the loss of $60B seems like an overreaction. But then we have the second article by the Guardian giving us ‘No wonder Netflix is bleeding subscribers – it’s become the new cable’ and they give us “Netflix posited everything from the war in Ukraine to people sharing passwords. But what if the reason is much simpler – that Netflix just isn’t really making much people want to see any more? It’s been a long time since Netflix was the total package: the home of cherished sitcoms like The Office, buzzy dramas like House of Cards, the exclusive venue for cinematic events like Bird Box and all for less than 10 bucks a month. Now, as the streaming service’s value nosedives, the big question is: are you still watching? And if so, what exactly?” It is a fair question and the stage I predicted well over a year ago is now coming to pass. One year prescription, spread over three providers. That is the reality of cramped budgets and these so called analysts with their expectations should have seen that coming a mile away, I saw it a year ago in my article ‘Choice, can you choose?’ (At https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/01/09/choice-can-you-choose/) and there was another article. So the minus 200K is not too surprising and I do not understand the ‘scared’ investors. This was ALWAYS going to happen. But I am also not surprised. You see the statement “investors who had been betting that a handful of big tech companies would continue to grow at a rapid clip” shows us the American who is short sighted. The one who does not comprehend that markets saturate and as such they have this dumb believe that numbers can only go up. And until 5G is a national solution for a lot of countries this will happens and worse will happen when internet congestion starts biting, because that too will be a factor. As such I personally see the overreaction on Netflix as a storm in a teacup and only the scared investors can make it worse for themselves. 

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Tweeter and Sylvester Musk

Yes, it seems like an animated fest. But there is a lot more under the hoods called media. Even there battle lines are being drawn. The problem is that this war is a little more annoying than other wars. T?he media is making sure that every statement is checked. And still there are multiple sides in this war. 

Forbes
Forbes is one side and gives us “Now, four years later, Musk’s desire to purchase Twitter may to be tied, at least in part, to his still-burning desire to correct what he perceives as media bias generally, and toward him and his companies, which is amplified on social media. Twitter’s board of directors has unanimously rejected his offer and vowed to fight the takeover bid. Whether or not he ultimately succeeds in purchasing Twitter, his views about free speech and social media are ill-conceived in at least three ways.” This is a fair point of view. The added “he does not acknowledge that rules pertaining to free speech in the United States are intended to constrain the actions of governments not companies or private actors. The First Amendment to the Constitution provides that Congress shall pass no law abridging free speech, significantly limiting government action. Over the last 230 years, U.S. lawmakers and courts have carved out a few carefully crafted exceptions to this absolute prohibition on government action.” Is equally fair, yet the missing part is that “U.S. lawmakers and courts have carved out a few carefully crafted exceptions to this absolute prohibition on government action” is that this is a statement that the media exploited to a large degree for the push of self. The media has its own media filter systems. They are called stakeholders and they have been around for over a decade, most likely longer. In a TV series called Torchwood, we are given “Harry Bosco was a man who would alter information fed to the public during the Vietnam War. In the words of Esther Drummond, “He did it by mistranslation. He couldn’t censor or change, but he could manipulate the English translation. Change one word, change the entire meaning.”” It is not far from the truth we see today. People are given filtered information, one sided stories and intentional mistranslations and it is EVERYWHERE. The Ukraine coverage by internet trolls on Facebook and Twitter. Filtering by deleting accounts on Twitter and the intentional one sided coverage in Syria and Yemen shows that this is going on and in the media certain stakeholders are as I personally see it filling their pockets. 

And when the additional “In the U.S., these free speech standards were never intended to apply to private companies. It would be especially counter-productive to apply them to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. It is in both the commercial interest of these firms and the best interest of our society for them to moderate content on their platforms actively and responsibly. If they do not do so, their platforms will quickly be overwhelmed by spam, pornography, hate speech and violent incitement, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, which would drive away both users and advertisers”, and when you see “If they do not do so, their platforms will quickly be overwhelmed by spam, hate speech and violent incitement, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, which would drive away users” you know that I am right. The media is exploiting every digital dollar via flames, hate speech, misinformation, and conspiracy theories. We see them on pretty much ALL social media, so I reckon that that ship has sailed already. 

In all this, I cannot say whether Elon Musk will be a force of good, or bad for Twitter, it is interesting to note that there is a downside to Twitter and if Elon Musk will launch his version of Twitter, some version of Social Media, I will take notice get hop on board to see how good, or how different it will be. And whilst you are all so emotional on Elon Musk, consider that this might be a good thing. When you see the amount of seesaw data (either really good, or massively bad) news on Meta is handed to people via hundreds of sources. We see a slow but certain form of polarisation coming. These people will watch from the sidelines and they will see that whatever Elon Musk has might be an alternative. And it would work for Elon Musk. When he adds Hybrid to his system he would be able to steer in multiple ways and it should give him a larger benefit, especially when his cars have it and others do not, the bough breaks and the car industry will lose a massive chunk to Tesla. All sides that might, that could happen. But it is equally possible that certain sides will fall for him but not completely so. Basically the 50/50 split could become 70/30 with 30 going the Musk way and that is good news for Google, Amazon and Meta. Yet they will have to accept that Musk Social Media could become a powerhouse all by itself and at that stage whatever the Forbes people will say was bad news will get a really quick rewrite. That is how I see it.

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Let’s have some fun

Yup, we all get trolled, I am no different. People making claims, creating havoc. If I want to prove I am the man I claim to be, I will give them the IP proving who I am. Yeah right! But then I had an idea. Why not put billions in revenue online making it public domain? Watch them all running with this IP and thinking they got rich by being smart. But any opposition can show this article making the case that I made it public domain and that is exactly what I will do, just for fun (I am in 5G and a few other areas anyway).

So it is time to play:

Who wants to be a billionaire?
To get to this point we need to understand some statistics. The first one is that well over 40% of the planet is a sports-fan of some sorts. Then I remember that I published parts of this idea 1-2 years ago. Now 40% gives us 3.2 billion people now lets say that the idea for them costs $3, that gives us almost $10,000,000,000. So lets get cracking. 

The bulk of all fans are spread over the NBA, NHL, NFL, IHL, AFL, UEFA, KNVB, EFL and a whole range more. But the first hint was given. You see when I was young I dreamt of being on a football card. OK, I never really liked the sport, but the feeling was still there. Even now, half a century later I wish I was on an NHL card as a goalie (Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals) We all have this. Millions wish they are the NFL quarterback card. And there we have the start.

In the first there were a few apps, they are not great, but nice. And over all these years none of the NHL, AFL and NBA teams set up a filter so that fans can have their own card for their team. A way to make your team your team. This is the simple side of it all. Dozens can do this and through this you have the options to entice billions of dollars. Would it not be nice that this card could be exported to a special file that can be printed at a place for lets say $3, on thick paper like a sports card, get your card printed and get it properly sized. A setting where tens of thousands of specific printers are placed in malls, in print shops and all these people want a sports card as a memento. If only someone had set a station where people could be appeased. Revenue through some effort and lets face it, EVERY SPORTS CLUB IN THE WORLD would like that program on their website to appease their fans. And the program can print to a USB stick and these sticks could be pushed into the reader of a printer. With some effort we set the stage for billions of revenue. Proving that the believers of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” are missing out and some others are raking in the cash because they thought outside the mould and now I have done the same and made it public domain. So the people who can set up such a printer will have a real stretch towards serious revenue and the rest are looking at the pile of cash going in some other direction. 

I hope you liked this episode of ‘Who wants to be a billionaire?’ And the next time someone tries to push my buttons, remember, I can always make it public domain. Enjoy the evening!

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The simplicity of a label

That is at times a setting, not the setting, but an option. You see it is easy to paint all the piggie’s pink, but at that time we end up with all the painted piggies and piglet. Yet is piglet the one we were looking for? That is one of the settings and my issue with ‘No 10 network targeted with spyware, says group’. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61142687) is not entirely wrong. But when I see “The Citizen Lab says it informed officials that suspected Pegasus spyware was discovered in 2020 and 2021, with the Downing Street incident linked to operators in the UAE.” My suspicious mind has questions. Now, I accept that the Citizen Lab has expertise and knowledge, I am not attacking that. It is the statement “The Citizen Lab, which tracks electronic surveillance, said in 2020 and 2021 it notified the UK government that networks belonging to both 10 Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were suspected to have been infected using Pegasus spyware.” You see, ‘suspected’ is all good and well, but were the suspicions properly investigated and confirmed, or is that all it was, a suspicion? And it does not get better when we see “in the UK a number of official phones were tested including those of the prime minister, but it was not possible to establish which device was infected or what – if any data – was taken”, as such there is a suspicion and a lack of confirmation of which device was infected, whether data was captured and what the outcome was. And it does not end there. The statement “the suspected Foreign Office infections were believed to be linked to operators of Pegasus in the United Arab Emirates, India, Cyprus and Jordan.” You see, not only is the method a problem (through lack of evidence), but how in the hell can it be fingered to operators from United Arab Emirates, India, Cyprus or Jordan? Sometimes the simplicity of a label also has the lack of clarity. 

Why Jeeves, why?
It is actually simple. These are a few names: EverC, Sentar, Ignitho, PhishLabs, AppDetex, CyberInt, CareMessage, and Geneca. Eight names, all competitors to the NSO group. They all have ‘their’ solutions, they all have their ways and they might not be as good as the NSO group, but these players are raking in the millions. It is not impossible that they planted NSO materials, or  use a ‘friend’ to infect NSO guided options to lead the trail away. All speculation and none may be true or factual, I accept that. Yet the article gives us nothing but suspicions, no facts, no evidence and it is all given weight by “linked to an investigation by the New Yorker magazine which looked at the targeting of individuals campaigning for Catalan independence from Spain”, so what does the New Yorker magazine have and how do the two matters connect (if they connect at all). Consider the price of an NSO infection (it is enough to buy a 2022 Ford Mustang 5.0L Fastback, shadow black) and as people tend to rate cars higher than any Catalan interest, the list of interested people grows short really fast, the sliver thin comparison makes me suspicious even more. And to complete matters “The Citizen Lab said it believed the Downing Street suspected infection was linked to the United Arab Emirates.” So not only is there no evidence that an infection took place, they have a suspect too?

All half way statements, all half baked evidence and the lack of evidence that shows some clarity. All whilst I found 8 options at the drop of a hat. And I can tell you right now. I have no evidence of ANY kind. Yet the writings of some lack evidence too. So what makes the press so hungry for alleged illumination of the NSO group and the UAE all whilst there is no clear evidence? 

Questions should be asked, but I believe that additional questions should be asked of people who have been linking certain events with the near total lack of evidence. And it matters, because if we see the allegations that No.10 network is infected (which would be interesting to ANY party with non-UK or anti-UK needs). So there is a drastic need for the minions of Ken McCallum to wake up and find out what is going on. It might be essential to get the GCHQ goblins active as well, it is a digital issue so GCHQ gets to be connected to this. 

Yet none of the parties have clear evidence and no one can prove that it was not a competitor, there are larger plays in actions and they cannot be identified with piggy pink. Yet the station is optionally served by paint and finding WHERE it leads could be beneficial, but that is merely my thought on the matter. So far the media I have seen tells me little and the accusations and links are a little too shoddy to my liking.

It stands to reason to state that I do not completely trust the BBC article, thee is nothing wrong there, but too little of it is right and does not sit well with me, but that is just me, and I do not trust anyone, a habit of the beast and thorough knowledge on knowing that the beast is a self serving entity in all this, it always has been.

 

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Comedy Capers it is not

There was news in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2022/apr/14/iranian-born-woman-fake-officers-elnaz-hajtamiri-canadian-police) almost a week ago. I saw it yesterday and it has me baffled. There is no wrongdoing by the police, there is no wrongdoing by the media, yet something is off. Consider ‘Case of Iranian-born woman abducted by fake officers baffles Canadian police’. The message there is “On a cold winter night, three armed men disguised as police officers arrived at a suburban home in a small Canadian resort town and knocked on the door, claiming that they had an arrest warrant for a 37-year-old woman who was staying there.” The situation is weird and brazen, but not in a good way and as we are given “Nearly three months later, police admit they are no closer to locating Hajtamiri, in a case that has baffled investigators” we want to blame someone, but who? The police did no wrong and with ““I have never, never come across a case like this,” Ontario provincial police detective inspector Martin Graham told reporters this week, adding that investigators had not determined a motive or received any ransom demands. They also have not located the white Lexus SUV vehicle used in the abduction on 12 January, nor have they identified its owner.” We see a different field, and there is no blame, but it seems to me that Elnaz Hajtamiri had caught the eye of someone. Either from her past, or towards someone else’s future. We all would want to be the sleuth, the Sherlock that hands the police the answers they seek, but that is unlikely to come. The fact that the White Lexus is not found implies that it was not stolen, or the owner was optionally aware of what was going on. So how many white Lexus SUV’s are there in Ontario? There will be a few, but these ruddy things go for more than $50K, so if none are missing through theft it becomes a larger game, then there is the setting that any owner of a white Lexus SUV might have gone skiing in Whistler and when they returned the car was where they left it, as such no alarm was raised. 

It did give me an idea for a new piece of IP, but more about that later. 

All these facts tend to give me the feeling that this was not some simple abduction, it was a targeted event. So why was Elnaz Hajtamiri important to some? I can make some empty gesture, I can make some claim, but that would be folly. The Canadian police is more than able, and when we see that they never face this before gives rise to this being more than a unique thing. It was as I personally see it either a very old crime or a very new one, but I keep on brooding on who could profit of her disappearance. It is easy to accuse Riyasat Singh and I do not know if he is a party of interest for the police, it could be, I do not know. I am wondering on “Two other tracking devices were found in her car when she brought the vehicle in for servicing in November.” You see, if it was as simple as a jealous ex, or boyfriend we see the reason for one of these trackers, it is the second (and third) tracker that is the issue and it makes me believe that she was an intentional target, but for what reason, I do not know. There was a third device, so it leaves me with questions. There is little about these devices, so it can go in every direction, but they are the clue I am brooding on. Not merely what they were, but where they came from, where ordered, when ordered and what was mapped. All questions that remain in the dark, but I keep on wondering, because 3 devices give a different light than one device, so was she being monitored by more than one, or by one professional? That is the question that rises in my mind and I could very well be extremely wrong on this. Then there is the part of “After overpowering the homeowner” gives us that they were ready for violence, so they had purpose, as such she was the target, not the opportunity. That is as far as I can get with the data available and I feel certain that the Canadian police got further than I did. 

I hope that the Canadian police will be able to resolve this, and preferably with Elnaz Hajtamiri still alive, but the time gap is making that less and less realistic. 

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800,000,000 failures and a home-run

This is what I faced today, but the two are not connected, well not directly, optionally even indirectly. They are connected by the smallest sliver of thought. To start, the first part comes from the BBC. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61080536) gives us ‘Sanctioned Russian oligarchs linked to £800m worth of UK property’, which sounds nice, but lets take a deeper look. We get “Some of the individuals deny ownership of the mansions, which may mean they are beyond the reach of the sanctions. To get to the bottom of who owns what, we carried out a detailed trawl of leaked offshore documents, the Land Registry and court papers – as well as previous reporting.” It comes down to the first part. There we see “Because of the system of secrecy here in the UK and in relation to the Overseas Dependencies it’s really easy for people to hide their assets and their funds in the UK and not even the police necessarily have sight of where those assets are,” these people are skating around the central issue ‘What they did was perfectly legal’ a setting of creating actual tax laws is at the heart of this and this is decades overdue. It should have started in the age of Gordon Brown (2007), there is a stage where we could agree that Tony Blair (1997-2007) should have started it, but the pressure was not on for the UK at that point, the meltdown in the US should have been a clear signal, but from 1997 onwards NOTHING was done to rewrite tax laws into the laws the UK needed to have in 2010, and now a decade later we see “To get to the bottom of who owns what” and there hiding behind the Panama Papers is jut a farce. This should have been adjusted in the EU, UK and US by 2010 but none of them did ANYTHING to clear the waters. They merely pretended to do so to appease political friends, they all did. And now when we see the laughingly weak “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains” this implies that laws were broken, so is he just incompetent, stupid or both? And this matters, because it is all linked. 

Roman Abramovich, has a vast property portfolio in the UK with more than 50 luxury residences, most on Fulham Road in west London. Through his UK company Fordstam Limited, he owns dozens of apartments in Chelsea Village, plus the hotel and residential complex around Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, according to the Land Registry. On Roman Abramovich we see “He has a vast property portfolio in the UK with more than 50 luxury residences, most on Fulham Road in west London. Through his UK company Fordstam Limited, he owns dozens of apartments in Chelsea Village, plus the hotel and residential complex around Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, according to the Land Registry. His most expensive London property is a 15-bedroom house on a street that is nicknamed Billionaires Row. With its vast stucco-faced Italianate mansions, it is home to royalty and ambassadors – as well as oligarchs.” The one element missing (two actually) were any laws broken? More important we see sanctioned by UK and EU, not the US. Then we get to the main event. It is Alisher Usmanov, sanctioned by all three and the desert of all this is more than a Medovik. We are given “a spokesman for Mr Usmanov said most of the billionaire’s UK property, plus a $600m (£456m) yacht, had already been “transferred into irrevocable trusts”, potentially putting them beyond the reach of sanctions.” A stage that is perfectly legal and the laws were never rewritten making this a sliding scale of discrimination, a scale of injustice and no laws were broken. The law makers were too stupid, too lazy to do anything about it. In the UK, the US and the EU. The lawmakers appeased THEIR friends as I personally see it and the oligarchs merely used the laws available to THEM TOO. A stage we need to accept and respect if we are a nation of laws. More important, which of these oligarchs ACTIVELY supported the war by Putin? I am asking, I actually do not know and the media merely surrounds itself with emotional BS, not a fact in sight and it is time to call these media players out on that too. The BBC article is actually quite good, but where do we see ‘Laws were broken’? We see “Ravenmorrow Limited was set up in December last year and no individual is identified on UK company records as the beneficial owner.” A clear failure of UK Laws, a setting where it was allowed to do this and no one is to blame but British Parliament and the House of Lords. The BBC does not really state that do they? As. I see it I see not the acts of Oligarchs, I see the failures of governments not overhauling tax laws when they could and as I see it all parties are guilty (except the greens), unlike the others the green parties all over the world seem to be oblivious on what a rudder is or does, so they are going Hades knows where at a speed no one can predict to arrive at some location no one knows.

Home-run
Yes, like the side we saw before there is another side and it makes more of a case towards the end of Microsoft, all whilst Adobe is getting more and more in place of taking over 25% of their office business. It is depending on two elements, and when these elements are out I will happily hand them over what I have if Google or Amazon buy the other IP and give me permission to hand that over to Adobe, I will gladly do that, just to see Microsoft squirm a little more. 5 markets lost to stupidity, 5 markets lost to shortsightedness and Adobe will be one of the winners. The setting that comes has been out for a while and the lost sides (four at present) are things that Microsoft should have seen years ago, their inaction is now more than enough. If you are asleep at the wheel you lose the ship, it is that simple and unlike the Ever Given, others are not in the Suez Canal, we can go around this Microsoft vessel and let it sink. A home-run out in the open and Microsoft just will not wake up, well let them sleep, I reckon that Adobe is more than ready to take over a chunk of the Office users. Consider that after all this time and all these follies, people do not merely gain a program, they gain a suite of options to tantalise their creativity. 

There is no telling where the creative people are going to end, but it will be ahead of where Microsoft hoped they would be, a lag that only intensifies the losses they will face. The setting reminded me of an article I saw in LinkedIn. 

There we see a person objecting to the discrimination of scouting. There we see “The announcer labelled the boy scouts as ‘Future leaders of America’ and the girls scouts as a group that were ‘just having fun’” This is what we see as a setting for Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe instills and propagates creativity, whilst Microsoft merely sets a mediocre foundation of presenting. Yet if there is one thing I have seen from Adobe, it is a clear stage where presenters can create works of art, whilst Microsoft sets a stage of mediocre joyous presentations, but in this day and age presentations are serious business, it sets the tone for corporate stories, sales events, propagating new projects and products. Joy gets us nowhere and Microsoft joy is close to a decade old. Adobe is on the verge of setting the next generation of presenting tools. So where do YOU wanna be when your idea is ready to be shown to the world? At the edge of what is possible, or in a joyous looking meadow, one that we have seen a million times over? I will let you decide on where you want to be and be honest, do you really think that Microsoft has any serious relevance left?

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Economic arrogance of Achieving

This is a station I recently came to and it has nothing to do with the bravery of Ukraine, or the stupidity of Russia. Even though that setting might have touch-points the larger station is NOT war. The thoughts came from the Art of War by Sun Tsu. There we learn ““The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Yet this quote was subverted by economists and wannabe economic strategists into smething like: ““The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” “If you know the final cost and profit, you need not fear the result of 100 investments” If you know the profit but do not know the cost, for every profitable endeavour achieved one will fail.” This is a side I feel is going on in business, but now also in mobile gaming. A stage where games work but only if you watch advertisements. I tried a game and even as it has repetitive sides, it also has campaign sides and those sides are limiting, but if you watch 37 advertisements you are on your way to get to 50% in a three day event. Consider that 37 advertisements. To game, to play a free game, but it is hindered, not by repetition (well that too), but to get anywhere you need to watch that many advertisements. Now you can limit yourself by BUYING ad free settings, by buying elements in EVERY campaign. And I am not against these settings, just the statin that to get anywhere in that game will require you to invest in advertisements. Now this is not against any rules, not against any law and the makers are not doing anything wrong. Now consider the advertisement. The advertisement in SOME cases will allow for you to play a level, or part of a level, but in many cases should you touch the mouse or the pointer, the install screen is called for. A side I call deceptive conduct, but that could just be me. What is seen is iteration after iteration of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” and it is deceptive, there is always a cost, in this case at the expense of the game.

It is the idiocy of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, it is a fictive state of exploitation and nearly all the larger players are involved in that. Do you think that I would have so much IP? Some people at Google, Amazon and even Microsoft should be running circles around me, around people like Elon Musk. But they are all in that pretentious state where “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” is the solution to everything. It is not, it really is not. 

My stage of 5G comes from a state of rejecting the obvious and inverting the funnel and then looking the other way. The stage of gaming came from looking in a direction no one was willing to look towards and none of them adhere to the stage of “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost” And that is where I found optional billions, one of them has question marks, but if done right could amount to a lot more than even I had in mind and it does depend on a stage, but that stage is being catered to. So when it all comes out, I can look at players like Microsoft and laugh out loud. Consider that the wealthiest corporations are Apple (1), Microsoft (2, for now), Google/Alphabet (4) and Amazon (5) and I am the one with the IP? Consider that they should be ahead of the curve, but they are not, because I am speculating that their economic advisors told them “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, and because of that Tesla has a mobile phone coming, a market that Microsoft pretty much lost to Google and Apple and now there is a third player. There am I with my 5G and gaming IP and a few more IP options, one directly opposing Sony and Fujitsu and it is based on technology of the 90’s. So how much did these companies lose by relying on “The supreme art of profit is to gain profit without cost”, I merely go by the old statement “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs”, a truth that has been out in the open for centuries. What else did these players overlook?

I will let you figure that out, I at least saw one additional failure, but no spoilers, it is up to you to see what they cannot see.

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Abbreviations

We all see them, we all use them and we all think we use the same ones. Yet when we take a look at ‘Games as a Service (GaaS) Market to See Huge Growth by 2028 | Netflix, Microsoft, Sony’ (at https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/games-as-a-service-gaas-market-to-see-huge-growth-by-2028-netflix-microsoft-sony) we see a decent story and it all seems to fit, yet when we see the list “The study includes market share analysis and profiles of players such as Blizzard Entertainment, RIOT, Netflix, Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, Activision Blizzard, Sega, Electronic Arts & Ubisoft” with the optional ‘attached sample PDF’ did you think you were getting the goods, or did you think you were catered to with “If you are a Games as a Service (GaaS) manufacturer” and at every turn you are seeing the mention of ‘digital journal’. So what gives? Well in the first instance this Games as a Service ploy is that, a ploy (for now) and it sets the largest upheave long before 2028. The largest settings will come to blow in 2024/2025. And the entire station of market share sets a longer approach. You see, there is still no way to see where Netflix is going at present. Their ‘stated’ indications are nice, but when you also hear sounds like “Research firm Ampere isn’t convinced that subscription services like Game Pass are taking over gaming.” We need to realise we are hearing merely one voice, and I get it, but it is the setting of what some call ‘dog eat dog’ that matters. Microsoft, Ubisoft, Netflix and EA will head for a fight, a fight for population and subscribers. Some have advantages, some have potential overzealous fans and some have merely hope. The issue is that these players will fight EACH OTHER for market share. And yes some of the mentioned players are all Microsoft, but that does not make Microsoft the larger player, it makes for a splintered one and in the end they all fight for ones self. Sony and Tencent have their own worries. They are both a lot stronger, but there is a station that polarisation will happen by 2025 and these two will have the numbers and the share. The second issue is not merely the setting here.

Consider the following names Games as a Service, Games as a System, Software as a Service, Systems as a Service, and all this before we consider Function as a Service (FaaS), Container as a Service (CaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) and it is more than some ‘hyped’ and quick mention of names towards a category. The larger stage becomes when the players start mixing the terms to get the audience to ‘flip’ in space to be part of such a community. It sounds nice, but it is not, it merely makes the water muddy. Tencent and Sony are not part of this because they have a setup, they have the setup, the hardware and the population, more important they are not in each others way. You see Ubisoft is on its way out, that much has been visible for almost two years. When Ubisoft did not deliver on quality they were going for their GamePass approach and they are coming up short, now that they are all over Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and the consoles they are merely running a steeplechase of patch after patch and they are coming up short per game and per system and it is taking it toll. To get ahead of the game they need near flawless games. Three at the least and they need them before 2023 and that is not in the cards, so they are merely one bad release away from death. EA has its own following and it is a decent following, but their games have issues, larger issues, not deadly ones, but serious ones. The problems for EA is to manage service levels to a higher standard and they seem to come up short (for now), their largest issue is clear communication and to FOCUS on games, one at a time to make them all better, more stable and less ‘issue prone’ that part is hard but doable. If their board does not fold under pressure from the other dogs they could be in a good place by 2024. By that time EA and Microsoft will be contemplating what to do with Ubisoft, because it is too far behind. At that same time Tencent and Sony will have the advantage and neither will have a clue where Nintendo will be, because if Games as a Service becomes a thing, Nintendo will be the quiet one gathering population with a strong system. Microsoft might want to trivialise them away but the rest will not. They lack the larger station that Sony and Tencent has, but Nintendo is creeping up on them and this article has no mention of Nintendo, do they? Yet by 2025 Nintendo will be a powerhouse and Netflix is nowhere near ready to take on the large three players. Microsoft is about buying whatever is out there, but from the 90’s onwards that approach has been devastating on all who attempted it. Yes, it makes for headlines but it lacks results and that is what we have been seeing for a little too long with Microsoft. It cannot maintain its posture in the current setting and when it starts its GamePass as collateral for population, we are more than likely get to see the downturn of it all and it does reflect my position of ‘dog eat dog’.

And these are the players vying for the attention of the gamers, all whilst they cannot decide who is the better provider or what gamers actually want and there too the big three (Sony, Tencent and Nintendo) will have the advantage. The problem I see is that a lot of this will be decided long before 2028 and in all this Amazon is not mentioned either. They too have a stake and could become on of the big four leaving Microsoft in fifth place at best and that is if everything goes their way, which so far has not be the case. And whilst most of them are hiding behind abbreviations the big four (Tencent, Sony, Nintendo and Amazon) will grow its population and cater to the one element that was central in all this, the gamer, not the process.

That is my issue with this article, that was my issue with some of the players. They stopped catering to the GAMER and started to cater to the image of SELF. I will let you make up your mind. There is time, this does not need to polarise in any one brain for at least a year. The largest game in all this are the players and the game they play, not the games they produce that too is an advantage the big three have over the other players at present. 

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Directions

We all do this, we take a direction, we choose a heading and most of us do it for emotional and sentimental reasons. I am no different. Yes, I still enjoy every moment in Horizons: Forbidden West. I hope I will enjoy Hogwarts Legacy well over half that much (more is always good). I try to have a realistic mind and the movie of Hogwarts Legacy blew me away, as it did most of us. Yet, some of us also hope for other IP to be made into games. Some go nuts for Marvel or DC games. Some of us love the Lego games. Yet I wonder what is possible if someone takes a gander and grabs a series like the Magicians, Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica into a game. Hogwarts and the writings of JK Rowling shows that there is massive appeal in the arcane. As such the writings of Lev Grossman could make for one hell of a game. Babylon 5 always had its own following and 5 seasons as well as a few movies opens the doors to a larger game. And there is a benefit to a space station. The same could be said for the Galactica, but I wonder what happens when we try to set a much larger station by opening the gameplay on a dozen worlds. A game that covers Icarus, Picon, Caprica, Gemenon, Tauron, Leonis, Virgon, Libran, Scorpia, Sagittaron, Aerilon, Aquaria and Canceron. A game that is too big for consoles, but not for streamers. All options that are forsaken, overlooked or just too big to contemplate. That last reason is a decent one. It is one hell of a challenge to get one world done right, to get 12 done good would be folly and I recognise that. A state of gaming we sometimes overlook. Just like the hungry man whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. In the latter case we waste some money on food we never had and that is OK, when you make a game and you make THAT much of an oversight bankruptcies start, so the game needs to be played careful and cautious. I get that, but if we always play it safe a game like The Darkness on Xbox360 would never have been a reality. A game that scored 82% (better than some Ubisoft games). There are other games with that setting and they were good games. Some would state not great games and I could go along with that. There are other games that scored not as much and were great games to play. So I am at time cautious on looking too hard at some rating. A game is what captures us, and for different people it is a different game. It was different with the approach for 50,000,000 consoles, which is weirdly enough based on small numbers, because it has never been done before. And if one program can lead there, what else are designers not looking at? I made the mistake of listening to the wrong people when I had my idea for Facebook 4 years before Facebook. Now, my version was not as slick, not as good looking and limiting, but I was ahead by 4 years. I will never do that again. I will go my own way and for now I have 5G IP in directions no one considered, optionally with extensions in several directions. A lot of them based on seeing the plans of Neom (Saudi Arabia). I came up with the IP for streaming consoles in a direction NO ONE considered. And it is ready for development. And the game is not even close to over. Only a few days ago it gave pressure to another IP, an IP no one seems to be considering and I reckon it could amount to billions, but it will not be overnight. A simple thought brought it to the top and in that same light I want to be positive on the IP of a TV series, a mini series and a movie, but they are not the real moneymakers, they are there for my ego (I think). And that is for some the rub. They are all about the profit, optionally the Adobe solutions that will bring Microsoft to their knees, but I believe that the small gains of TV ideas are no less than the other much larger amounts. The creator believes in his creations, not the value it represents. It is a path the creator walks and he (or she) hopes to see all the sideways that are connected to it, or the hope that new sideways are opened because of one IP. I believe that this happened in one case, but not in all cases. And there are other considerations. In my case Ego is one situation. I considered the evolution of the Amazon Luna, giving it all kinds of side uses, for the mere reason that Sony left them on the side and I want to be there to pick it up before Microsoft does. I want to make sure that they are seen as copycats, a former titan that is now merely a follower, not a leader, no matter what their marketing department advertises, but you saw that, did you not? ‘The most powerful console in the world’ is a considered statement of fact, but the fact that it was surpassed by the weakest console of them all is regularly overlooked. A stage that we ignore because some want us to overlook it and through that we overlook a lot more. But I do not mind, as I am alone on a path gives light to other options and it take one (not Microsoft) to take that jump and see their portfolio of revenue grow and when that does, the rest will sell itself. And when that happens my ego will be happy and shouting with glee showing all what Microsoft left in the dust and that was before the previous article where I saw more parts and places that Microsoft left lying on the floor, all ready for Adobe to pick up and make a move on what should now be considered a mediocre solution no one needs anymore and as people seek deep within ones self, they will understand that ‘They are the only advanced solution’ is no longer good enough and when that changes Microsoft loses the field on a 4th tier. They lost gaming to Nintendo and Sony, they never achieved anything in Tablets (Apple), they are a browsers joke (Google) and they will lose even more to Meta and they are about to be surpassed in streaming consoles by Amazon who also surpassed them on Cloud computing (Amazon AWS) and that is when their office solution passes over to Adobe, they will be the loser of the decade and I cannot wait to see those articles make headlines way too late. Microsoft took a direction to a cull de sac in a place no one wants to be all whilst others copied their failings. 

And I am so close to the victory I dreamt of, I can almost taste it, whether I get my IP sold or not, I will be around to see Microsoft fall to such a degree that the media can no longer ignore what has been in front of them for years. And when the people catch on the mess will be complete. 

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The ruse is on

I got the news, just like all of you. The news (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/09/rise-of-tiktok-why-facebook-is-worried-booming-social-app) gives us ‘The rise of TikTok: why Facebook is worried about the booming social app’. As I wrote in a previous article. Yes, Facebook might SEEM worried, but only until Meta fully launches. When that happens Meta is off to a multi billion per week start. Yes, TikTok does have the approaching edge and yes, they have a jump on places like YouTube that is the true nature of Innovation and TikTok was a true innovator. Google and Meta are seeing it is not some iterator and they are heading for deeper and larger revenues. I have an issue with “The Chinese-owned video-sharing platform is forecast to catch up with YouTube by 2024 when both are predicted to take $23.6bn (£18.2bn) in ad revenue, despite TikTok being launched globally 12 years after its Google-owned rival.” There is a stage where this is true. I do not believe the Guardian is lying to you, it is setting. Stage of presumption and they are drawing out cause and effect. It is the “when both are predicted to take” that is interesting. You see this was ALWAYS going to happen. Google could never hold all the cards and take all the revenue, it is the nature of the beast. Then we are given “The company is winning the battle for the “sweet spot” of social media users, those in the 18- to 25-year-old demographic where Facebook is seeing its biggest declines, with parent company Meta trying to stem the exodus by attracting them to stablemate Instagram” a nice ploy, but the numbers are there, they are out in a much larger stage, yes Facebook is worried because the time line is shifting, they do not have the comfortable lead that they once had, but that does not matter. When Meta launches the advantage FOR Meta will be close to indescribable and until Hybrid launches (see another of my articles) they have the field, the whole field and nothing but the field. Absent of TikTok, absent of Google and absent of Microsoft. 

Meta has two other advantages, but I keep them for now, lets see how informative journo’s really are. I set the stage in one of my articles and I will pull them in when the news comes with some ‘exclusive’ months after my  article. The ruse is larger, the ruse is setting a stage of claiming worry, whilst there are a few really clever people out there (the US boy-scout department of digital information, aka NSA), they can clearly see what is out there and I reckon they merely see a temporary advantage for Chinese owned TikTok, it is what comes after that will change the board by a lot and there Meta will have years of advantage. YouTube will remain, they will lose some grounds, but when you have an app that was bought for in 2006 for $1.65 billion, and it will still be making $23.6bn in 2024, not a bad setting for Google. So the Ruse might be that TikTok is also making $23.6bn in 2024, but you would be wrong. When Meta does deploy the stage changes. From a Football field to an olympic aqua stadium and only Meta can swim, the rest will need time to learn to swim, to learn the streams of the aqua stadium and where the audience is at. All things Meta will know beforehand, all advantages that will keep them swimming for years, with well over $23.6bn uncontended until deep into 2027. That is the actual stage and even as the headline seems nice, yet it will be an inaccurate one. When Meta launches it will be the new thing, the new innovation and it will take a larger group of people years just to get their heads around what Meta deployed. That is the true setting and even as we expect a full deployment in 2023, we do not truly know until Meta sends out the invitations. So the ruse is nice, but that is all it was, merely ‘nice’

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