Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[mdmost 43001]

He became a Facebook boomer in less than a year. I'm shocked he doesn't share chain emails about Michelle Obama. 

[SydneyCarton 48099]

13 minutes ago, mdmost said:

He became a Facebook boomer in less than a year. I'm shocked he doesn't share chain emails about Michelle Obama. 

You don't know that he doesn't. 

[Aqua Buddha 14596]

I like how he's lecturing about schools but he doesn't have anything to do with any of his 10 kids.

[C-Man 27223]

On 4/28/2023 at 9:57 AM, texasdago said:

Meanwhile on Reddit:

Comments are a gold mine.

Also, found a review of a Tesla S from an auto blog... I love how the tester car of this super duper Tesla was built by someone who apparently was having a sneezing attack... 

 

Wear on the "steering wheel" after 19,000 miles...

 

I'll admit I've only been in a Tesla once and I hated the interior.  Bland city.  Looks like the model S is no different.

That steering wheel would drive me bonkers.

 

On 4/28/2023 at 10:28 AM, Captain Ron said:

How do you have sex with your car when it doesn't have a tailpipe?

According to Elon, it has a "butthole."

 

On 4/29/2023 at 2:52 PM, BrickHorn said:

He is embarrassingly dumb. Years ago, his show had a discussion about cuckolds getting stuck with child support for other dudes’ kids. One of the panelists told a story (probably urban myth) about a white guy who got stuck paying for his white girlfriend’s baby that, they realized at birth, was half-black. Maher was stunned and asked “Didn’t they see the baby was black on the sonogram?” When his guests politely ignored that idiotic question and tried to steer the discussion to something less stupid, he interrupted and asked again, as if he was making an insightful point instead of an ass of himself.

My guess is that Maher was probably making a dick joke. When it failed to land the first time, he tried to wedge it in there again.

[Goredho 17405]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean, these narcissists aren’t even original. They just say the same predictable, utter bullshit, over and over. And have morons slobbering their knobs in worship. I’ll never understand it. But then, I’m not a pathetic loser with so little self-esteem that I build my entire identity around worshipping a caricature.

When do we start criticizing a socio-economic system in which narcissists and sociopaths are consistently rewarded with money, power and peak leadership positions?  The flaws of character, ethics and morality of people like Elon should be a detriment to success.  But damn if they are not a virtue in this world we find ourselves in.  What's more, he didn't create this game, he's just excelled at it.  At least during his rise to being the richest man on the planet.

I realize this is not new, and that people like John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford could be ruthless, egomaniacal and sociopathic.  But, during my lifetime, the pendulum seems to have swung too far from where we were in 1970 to where we are now -- a time where populist movements would propel business men to oligarchs.

[Armybrat 40842]

23 hours ago, elguapo said:

 

[Pam Cummings 9641]

Humans are the only creatures dumb enough to worship shit like elmo. Any other species just kills that dumb worthless fuck.

[BrickHorn 18231]

36 minutes ago, C-Man said:

My guess is that Maher was probably making a dick joke. When it failed to land the first time, he tried to wedge it in there again.

He was not. He literally thought you could see color on a sonogram image.

[Storm the Field 5294]

 

[Francisco 2.0 32389]

So, has Elon spoken out about this?  I mean, he loves Texas, right?  Would move all of his enterprises here if he could? 

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/04/27/electric-vehicle-owners-would-pay-200-annual-fees-under-texas-bill-sent-to-gov-abbott/

 

Quote

Electric vehicle owners might have to pay $200 annual fees under a bill the Texas House on Thursday sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.

The bill’s authors and the leader of an anti-toll road group said the higher vehicle-registration fees are needed to make EVs pay their fair share of highway costs.

A national consumer group and a leading Texas environmentalist called $200 a “punitive” amount that would slow adoption of the less-polluting vehicles.

 

Quote

The House passed the bill, 145-0.

Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Robert Nichols, its author, has pushed for higher registration fees for electric vehicles for at least three sessions.

Nichols, R-Jacksonville, has noted that motor fuels taxes, which EVs don’t pay, paid for a significant portion of the state road system.

Texas levies taxes of 20 cents per gallon on both gasoline and diesel. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, while the federal tax on diesel fuel is 24.4 cents.

 

Quote

In 2015, the state fuel taxes generated $3.4 billion, making them the fourth-largest source of state tax revenue at the time, according to the state comptroller’s website.

Terri Hall of San Antonio, founder and director of Texans Uniting for Freedom and Reform, which has fought toll roads, testified in favor of Nichols’ bill.

“We’re trying to come up with a way to help capture some of that road usage from EVs, especially since there’s been such a push for EVs and we’re seeing a lot more,” she said in an interview.

Dylan Jaff, sustainability policy analyst with Consumer Reports, opposed Nichols’ bill and a companion by House Transportation Committee chief Terry Canales, D-Edinburg.

 

Spoiler

Today, gas taxes account for just 29% of Texas highway funds, the group noted.

“The primary cause of the road funding shortfall in Texas has nothing to do with EVs, but rather with the fact that Texas has not increased their gas tax since 1991,” Jaff said in a memo.

Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said there should be some fee on EVs to help pay for road construction and maintenance. The proposed fee, though, is too high, he said.

A Consumer Reports study found that charging EV owners any new fee higher than $71 a year — the average amount paid of state gas taxes paid by owners of new gas-powered vehicles in the state — can’t be justified, Metzger said.

“If there’s a $200 fee, the driver of a Nissan LEAF, which is efficient, might be paying as much as a driver of a gas-powered Hummer, which is ridiculous,” he said.

“Really, the driver of a Nissan LEAF is providing great benefits to the state of Texas in terms of cleaner air, and has much less impact on the road than a Hummer. But they’d be paying the same fee,” Metzger said.

Hall countered that EVs typically are heavier than gas-powered vehicles.

“We all know that the most popular EV really is going to be more like a Tesla-class car than a Nissan LEAF. And those people that can afford a Tesla, they can afford 200 bucks a year of registration fee,” Hall said.

Metzger acknowledged that $200 a year “isn’t going to kill the EV industry. But it will dampen the opportunity and slow the transition.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

24 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

So, has Elon spoken out about this?  I mean, he loves Texas, right?  Would move all of his enterprises here if he could? 

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2023/04/27/electric-vehicle-owners-would-pay-200-annual-fees-under-texas-bill-sent-to-gov-abbott/

 

 

 

 

  Hide contents

Today, gas taxes account for just 29% of Texas highway funds, the group noted.

“The primary cause of the road funding shortfall in Texas has nothing to do with EVs, but rather with the fact that Texas has not increased their gas tax since 1991,” Jaff said in a memo.

Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said there should be some fee on EVs to help pay for road construction and maintenance. The proposed fee, though, is too high, he said.

A Consumer Reports study found that charging EV owners any new fee higher than $71 a year — the average amount paid of state gas taxes paid by owners of new gas-powered vehicles in the state — can’t be justified, Metzger said.

“If there’s a $200 fee, the driver of a Nissan LEAF, which is efficient, might be paying as much as a driver of a gas-powered Hummer, which is ridiculous,” he said.

“Really, the driver of a Nissan LEAF is providing great benefits to the state of Texas in terms of cleaner air, and has much less impact on the road than a Hummer. But they’d be paying the same fee,” Metzger said.

Hall countered that EVs typically are heavier than gas-powered vehicles.

“We all know that the most popular EV really is going to be more like a Tesla-class car than a Nissan LEAF. And those people that can afford a Tesla, they can afford 200 bucks a year of registration fee,” Hall said.

Metzger acknowledged that $200 a year “isn’t going to kill the EV industry. But it will dampen the opportunity and slow the transition.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

If it is about funding for our roads, it should be tied to miles driven. They record your mileage when you get your inspection, they could easily add a miles based fee to your registration. 

[High Plains Drifter 11049]

25 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

If it is about funding for our roads, it should be tied to miles driven. They record your mileage when you get your inspection, they could easily add a miles based fee to your registration. 

 

If its about funding our roads, it should be a function of miles driven and weight of the vehicle.

 

 

[Pig Bellmont 8717]

31 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

If it is about funding for our roads, it should be tied to miles driven. They record your mileage when you get your inspection, they could easily add a miles based fee to your registration. 

It’s not about the roads

[atomheartbevo 89660]

13 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

It’s not about the roads

Yep

2 hours ago, Goredho said:

I realize this is not new, and that people like John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford could be ruthless, egomaniacal and sociopathic.  But, during my lifetime, the pendulum seems to have swung too far from where we were in 1970 to where we are now -- a time where populist movements would propel business men to oligarchs.

Rockefeller and Ford wouldn't have been sitting around on social media pushing media conspiracies and promoting racist types, or allowing them to run free.

Oh wait, Ford would have done exactly that.

But still, I think Rockefeller had bigger things on his mind than whether or not catturd2 liked him.

[956 Worldwide 34711]

48 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep

Rockefeller and Ford wouldn't have been sitting around on social media pushing media conspiracies and promoting racist types, or allowing them to run free.

Oh wait, Ford would have done exactly that.

But still, I think Rockefeller had bigger things on his mind than whether or not catturd2 liked him.

Tell me, how different is this from “woke mind virus.” 
 

[HamsterHookah 112]

3 hours ago, Goredho said:

When do we start criticizing a socio-economic system in which narcissists and sociopaths are consistently rewarded with money, power and peak leadership positions?  The flaws of character, ethics and morality of people like Elon should be a detriment to success.  But damn if they are not a virtue in this world we find ourselves in.  What's more, he didn't create this game, he's just excelled at it.  At least during his rise to being the richest man on the planet.

I realize this is not new, and that people like John D Rockefeller and Henry Ford could be ruthless, egomaniacal and sociopathic.  But, during my lifetime, the pendulum seems to have swung too far from where we were in 1970 to where we are now -- a time where populist movements would propel business men to oligarchs.

This is the question, really. Elon is a result, he's not the root cause.

[safe sex 11724]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep

Rockefeller and Ford wouldn't have been sitting around on social media pushing media conspiracies and promoting racist types, or allowing them to run free.

Oh wait, Ford would have done exactly that.

But still, I think Rockefeller had bigger things on his mind than whether or not catturd2 liked him.

The International Jew

Edited May 1, 2023 by safe sex

[Chopper 17235]

2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

It’s not about the roads

What do you think it's about? The state gasoline tax is 20cents/gallon and hasn't changed in 33 years. The people in charge of the state hwy fund have warned for years that the state would soon at the point where they were no longer able to keep up with maintenance of existing roads. If your complaint is that they're charging EVs too much, or trying to, that's a valid point for discussion. But a Nissan Leaf can top out at 4,000 lbs, just shy of the weight of a Ford Explorer. Due to their weight EVs can potentially cause more damage when they get in wrecks, depending on what they collide with. Also it's likely the cumulative heavier weight from more EVs on state highways will result in additional pavement maintenance requirements.

 

5 hours ago, Aqua Buddha said:

I like how he's lecturing about schools but he doesn't have anything to do with any of his 10 kids.

His one genetic progeny old enough to have critical thinking skills has flatly and completely rejected him. Advantage elmo.

[Captainant 27664]

1 minute ago, Chopper said:

What do you think it's about? The state gasoline tax is 20cents/gallon and hasn't changed in 33 years. The people in charge of the state hwy fund have warned for years that the state would soon at the point where they were no longer able to keep up with maintenance of existing roads. If your complaint is that they're charging EVs too much, or trying to, that's a valid point for discussion. But a Nissan Leaf can top out at 4,000 lbs, just shy of the weight of a Ford Explorer. Due to their weight EVs can potentially cause more damage when they get in wrecks, depending on what they collide with. Also it's likely the cumulative heavier weight from more EVs on state highways will result in additional pavement maintenance requirements.

I'd bet if we properly factored in and taxed carbon emissions, it would all come out in the wash. But our gas tax probably should increase because the rest of the state doesn't deserve to have Houston roads

[Chopper 17235]

Muthafucka, put BLUE CHECK in your twitter bio and you too can have a blue check.

 

[Chopper 17235]

Which one of you did this?

Also congrats to twitter on moving to lock down that billion dollar IP leak so swiftly after just 2 days.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Chopper

[Captainant 27664]

4 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Which one of you did this?

Also congrats to twitter on moving to lock down that IP leak so swiftly after just 2 days.

 

I bet Elmo has changed his tune on s230 now lmfao 

[atomheartbevo 89660]

1 hour ago, Chopper said:

What do you think it's about?

Do you think certain groups with a lot of money and a lot of sway in Texas want Tesla's all over the place?  It's not hard to figure out who was behind that tax.

[Chopper 17235]

6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Do you think certain groups with a lot of money and a lot of sway in Texas want Tesla's all over the place?  It's not hard to figure out who was behind that tax.

It seems like there's a lot of competing monied interests. Do you think Tesla drivers shouldn't pay the tax that pays for the highways they're driving on? Cause that's what I think it boils down to.

[Captainant 27664]

26 minutes ago, Chopper said:

It seems like there's a lot of competing monied interests. Do you think Tesla drivers shouldn't pay the tax that pays for the highways they're driving on? Cause that's what I think it boils down to.

As stated previously, the thing that people are upset about is that EV's are being assessed with a higher overall taxation rate than dino-burners. It's a direct tax disincentive to buy an EV, comparable to what you'd use to discourage other undesirable or socially damaging behaviors like smoking (damaging as in increased healthcare burden, second hand smoke, etc)

Edited May 2, 2023 by Captainant

[atomheartbevo 89660]

37 minutes ago, Chopper said:

It seems like there's a lot of competing monied interests. Do you think Tesla drivers shouldn't pay the tax that pays for the highways they're driving on? Cause that's what I think it boils down to.

As mentioned above, if it's about road usage,  all drivers should pay based on the miles they drive/weight of the car, but that's not how it works in Texas and that's not what this is about (if it was about road usage, we'd probably take better care of our roads than surrounding states and our tollroads would be as nice as some of the turnpikes in Oklahoma).

This tax is making a run at discouraging EVs - if they pull it off, then they'll raise it again in two years, probably quite a bit more.  That's why we are all surprised that Musk is not tweeting up a storm about it.  If you want to get into who is pushing it, and maybe why Musk seems to be keeping quiet, that's probably more of a topic for CR, but it's definitely not about being fair to everybody.

[Chopper 17235]

16 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As stated previously, the thing that people are upset about is that EV's are being assessed with a higher overall taxation rate than dino-burners. It's a direct tax disincentive to buy an EV, comparable to what you'd use to discourage other undesirable or socially damaging behaviors like smoking (damaging as in increased healthcare burden, second hand smoke, etc)

The assessment seems in line with what you'd expect given the weight of the vehicle so I don't see a problem given that weight and consumption of asphalt are related. But I'd also double or triple the gas tax in a heartbeat were it up to me.

[Chopper 17235]

18 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

As mentioned above, if it's about road usage,  all drivers should pay based on the miles they drive/weight of the car, but that's not how it works in Texas and that's not what this is about (if it was about road usage, we'd probably take better care of our roads than surrounding states and our tollroads would be as nice as some of the turnpikes in Oklahoma).

I doubt it's about discouraging EVs but maybe you're right. I don't think $200 could do that. That's less than vehicle registration fees in some states. Older EVs have had a free ride. New ones get a healthy tax credit if they're eligible.

The state gas tax regime was set up in 1923. There's no political will to raise it let alone revise the entire regime. It's a pure money grab and my original response was to a comment saying, "it's not about the money."

Edited May 2, 2023 by Chopper

[atomheartbevo 89660]

6 minutes ago, Chopper said:

I doubt it's about discouraging EVs but maybe you're right. I don't think $200 could do that.

I think the $200 is just a start and it'll be raised in the '25 session, but I am probably wrong.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

10 hours ago, Chopper said:

 

 

That's what she said.

[High Plains Drifter 11049]

 

 

Good gawd, I hope this is shopped

 

 

[texasdago 7573]

31 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

 

Good gawd, I hope this is shopped

 

 

Is this a publicity shot for the movie Smile? 

[Pods 7552]

5 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Is this a publicity shot for the movie Smile? 

Nothing says strong meme game and a guy who should lecture the Onion on what's funny like having to get your mom, brother and sister to ludicrously fake that they are laughing at one of your cringefest "jokes". 

[Chopper 17235]

Working on my second Mosk book. Working title: Is it The Onion, or is it Elmo? The Unintentional Legacy of Elmo Mosk.

[atomheartbevo 89660]

1 hour ago, texasdago said:

Is this a publicity shot for the movie Smile? 

Nah, it's a promo for the new season from the Japanese manga "Attack on Titan"

[956 Worldwide 34711]

[Brian Fantana 6685]

[SydneyCarton 48099]

Pretty sure they’re laughing because they’re in front of the emerald mine. 

Edited May 2, 2023 by SydneyCarton

[Celery Man 20946]

16 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep

Rockefeller and Ford wouldn't have been sitting around on social media pushing media conspiracies and promoting racist types, or allowing them to run free.

Oh wait, Ford would have done exactly that.

But still, I think Rockefeller had bigger things on his mind than whether or not catturd2 liked him.

 

15 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Tell me, how different is this from “woke mind virus.” 
 

Ok you had me going for a second but yeah Ford did exactly that. Ford is actually probably a good comparison with Musk, although I think he was more instrumental in actually creating something important and Musk may be even stupider.

[Celery Man 20946]

13 hours ago, Chopper said:

Which one of you did this?

Also congrats to twitter on moving to lock down that billion dollar IP leak so swiftly after just 2 days.

 

Probably Phil.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13585]

10 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

 

Good gawd, I hope this is shopped

 

 

 

[Goredho 17405]

Musk got drafted by the Seahawks?

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Goredho

[C-Man 27223]

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

Probably Phil.

I'm impressed that Phil spelled Dr Pepper correctly without the period.

[Dahobbs 17534]

12 hours ago, Chopper said:

The assessment seems in line with what you'd expect given the weight of the vehicle so I don't see a problem given that weight and consumption of asphalt are related. But I'd also double or triple the gas tax in a heartbeat were it up to me.

How do you figure? EVs weigh more, but not that much more. And damage is overwhelmingly caused by very heavy vehicles like 18-wheelers. The difference between say a 4.5k lbs Model Y and a 4.1k to 4.4k lbs Ford edge is essentially non-existent. Same for a 3.6k to 4.2k lbs Model 3 and a 3.3k to 3.6k lbs Toyota Camry. An audi A6 weights 4.2k lbs. 

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads

Quote

“The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. It’s not actually zero, but it’s so much smaller -- orders of magnitude smaller -- that we don’t even bother with them,” said Karim Chatti, a civil engineer from Michigan State University in East Lansing.

 

[Chopper 17235]

18 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

EVs weigh more, but not that much more. And damage is overwhelmingly caused by very heavy vehicles like 18-wheelers.

Notice the quote you've selected states, "much smaller," not nil, and they're also discussing a single vehicle not cumulative effect, which is what I mentioned. However since you bring it up, pavement consumption is not just a function of weight, it's a function of weight disbursement across axles, as well. I also wrote above that imo ICE drivers have been paying too little, as well.

In addition, it's clear that the statement quoted in the original article about how all EVs are basically Nissan Leafs in terms of comps for fuel consumption is highly and intentionally misleading. All I'm saying is, of course EVs should pay a tax for the roads. Of course the tax is about money. Is $200 fair? I don't know. Is the $70 claimed in the article based on a Nissan Leaf what all EVs should pay? No. Will $200 deter EV sales? Seems unlikely.

If the fee/tax were served up to abbott just for him to veto it, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Chopper

[Dahobbs 17534]

28 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Notice the quote you've selected states, "much smaller," not nil, and they're also discussing a single vehicle not cumulative effect, which is what I mentioned. However since you bring it up, pavement consumption is not just a function of weight, it's a function of weight disbursement across axles, as well. I also wrote above that imo ICE drivers have been paying too little, as well.

In addition, it's clear that the statement quoted in the original article about how all EVs are basically Nissan Leafs in terms of comps for fuel consumption is highly and intentionally misleading. All I'm saying is, of course EVs should pay a tax for the roads. Of course the tax is about money. Is $200 fair? I don't know. Is the $70 claimed in the article based on a Nissan Leaf what all EVs should pay? No. Will $200 deter EV sales? Seems unlikely.

If the fee/tax were served up to abbott just for him to veto it, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

You said you thought the assessment was in line given the weight of the vehicle. In line, to me, suggested an approval of the ratio of what a comparable ICE vehicle would pay in taxes vs the EV assessment. The assessment is demonstrably not equitable since it would charge a model Y owner significantly more than a ICE Ford Edge owner despite the fact that weight difference is minimal and the difference in road is non-existent. 

[Chopper 17235]

1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

You said you thought the assessment was in line given the weight of the vehicle. In line, to me, suggested an approval of the ratio of what a comparable ICE vehicle would pay in taxes vs the EV assessment. The assessment is demonstrably not equitable since it would charge a model Y owner significantly more than a ICE Ford Edge owner despite the fact that weight difference is minimal and the difference in road is non-existent. 

Sure, I don't gaf if it's $100 or $150 or $200. Have you been complaining because EV owners have had a free ride for the past 20 years? I also said the ICE owner should pay 2 or 3 times more than what they are, as a starting point, so wtf are you arguing with me about?

[Dahobbs 17534]

13 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Sure, I don't gaf if it's $100 or $150 or $200. Have you been complaining because EV owners have had a free ride for the past 20 years? I also said the ICE owner should pay 2 or 3 times more than what they are, as a starting point, so wtf are you arguing with me about?

I was just addressing the particular statement that the assessment is in line with the vehicle's weight. It seems like we agree that it isn't necessarily. 

As to whether EV owners have been getting a free ride, given that consumer vehicles for all practical purposes cause zero damage to the road way, I'd argue that a gas tax is a poor way to have the parties doing the damage pay for the repair and maintenance. If that is the goal, the tax should be directed entirely to heavy commercial vehicles. If the goal is just to have funding paid proportionally by the population that uses the roads (regardless of damage called), I'd get rid of the gasoline tax entirely and have all consumer vehicles pay a uniform yearly assessment. Taxing EVs at a much higher rate than comparable ICE vehicles is simply a punitive measure.   

Edited May 2, 2023 by Dahobbs

[Chopper 17235]

9 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I was just addressing the particular statement that the assessment is in line with the vehicle's weight. It seems like we agree that it isn't necessarily. 

As to whether EV owners have been getting a free ride, given that consumer vehicles for all practical purposes cause zero damage to the road way, I'd argue that a gas tax is a poor way to have the parties doing the damage pay for the repair and maintenance. If that is the goal, the tax should be directed entirely to heavy commercial vehicles. If the goal is just to have funding paid proportionally by the population that uses the roads (regardless of damage called), I'd get rid of the gasoline tax entirely and have all consumer vehicles pay a uniform yearly assessment. Taxing EVs at a much higher rate than comparable ICE vehicles is simply a punitive measure.   

The system Texas uses to fund and distribute state funds for highways is fundamentally unfair. Full agreement. One of the biggest jokes, but certainly not the costliest, is the "Farm Truck" vehicle registration. Indirectly related to this discussion though. I wonder how many cybertucks we'll see with the farm truck license plate lol...State funding of highways is unfairly titled toward small town, and that's due in no small part to the same Robert Nichols who sponsored the EV fee bill. He's a former Transportation Commissioner, placed there by shrub.

I don't know how much of the burden heavy commercial vehicles should fund in order to pay their 'fair share' of maintenance and construction costs. It seems probable they should pay more than they do. However, pavement maintenance needs, including the need to repave or rehabilitate, arise from the combination of a number of factors. Cumulative use by vehicles. Rain. Ice. Crappy soil. Expansion and contraction of the pavement along with extreme heat and cold. Expected life span of the pavement even under perfect conditions. In terms of usage, what is it -- 85% or more of traffic due to consumer vehicles on the highways?

Someone earlier mentioned political power and how that plays into it. Are EVs high enough on the screen of the O&G industry that they'd spend time lobbying on a $200 road tax? The auto dealers assn has quite a powerful lobby. I don't know how this played at the lege but again I won't be surprised to see it catch a veto.

 

[Francisco 2.0 32389]

Visionary, obviously.  And this paragraph pretty much sums it up:

Quote

The biggest problem is Elon. What mainstream publisher would trust Elon Musk with their money right now? The guy who refuses to pay the rent on his corporate HQ? The guy who has spent the past six months dumping on the media, banning reporters, declaring their work a “relentless hatestream” from “media puppet-masters” that you “cannot rely on…for truth“? This is the guy who says he has a “major win-win” for publishers? The same guy that complains “media is a click-machine, not a truth-machine” thinks the answer is tempting people to pay with a single headline?

https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/05/micropayments-elon-musk-thinks-hes-got-a-major-win-win-for-news-publishers-with-micropayments/

 

Quote

One of the remarkable things about watching Elon Musk “run” Twitter is the ability to observe his learning curve in real time.

People have been running social platforms and media companies for literal decades, after all, all while Musk was busy with cars and spaceships and whatnot. A fair number of lessons have been learned! But Musk — so resolutely convinced of his own genius — has dedicated himself to making old mistakes new again, compressing a lifetime of bad ideas into six short months. It’s his most reliable pattern: announce a crazy new policy, preferably on a weekend; face huge blowback from users; reverse the policy, claim you were misinterpreted all along or just pretend it never happened.

So when I saw this tweet on Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

 

 

Quote

Since embeds of his new longer-than-280-characters tweets don’t show the full text, here’s what it says:

Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click.
This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.

Should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public.

 

Quote

Fiiiiiiiiiinally, Elon turns his attention to micropayments. (Pretty sure this is in the Book of Revelation somewhere.)

The idea of news publishers charging readers by the article is not a new one. At least once an hour, someone tweets about “why hasn’t anyone figured out how to let me buy one article????” Literally dozens of micropayments-for-news startups have come and gone; dozens of publishers have run tests of various models; none have gained much traction.

 

Spoiler

Even today, well into the 2020s, you can find people saying the dream is an “iTunes for news” that — as the iTunes Store did 20 years ago — allows you to buy a single song (an article) rather than the full album (a subscription). (They say this despite the fact that approximately zero people still buy MP3s that way; instead, they pay a monthly subscription fee to Spotify or Apple.)

I’ve long been a micropayments skeptic. Not because I have any philosophical issue with the idea; I’m all for publishers making money and readers consuming news. My skepticism is driven by it being a strategy that sounds appealing but works poorly in practice. Others have written about the problems with micropayments at great length, but here are, to my mind, the most significant:

Friction at the story level.

What do people do when they hit a news site’s paywall? We have some data on that question, from a Gallup/Knight Foundation survey last fall. They asked American adults: “Suppose you were trying to access a news story online and had to pay to keep reading or watching it. Which ONE of the following would you be most likely to do?”

48% said they would “try to access the information elsewhere for free from a different news outlet.” 28% would “move on to something else or to a different news story.” 7% would “try to find information about the news story on social media.” 4% would “sign up for a free trial if available.” 3% would try to “get the story through friends or family who already have access.”

A measly 1% would “pay for access to the story or outlet.”

In the overwhelming majority of cases, a person faced with the need to pay a news site money will say “no, thank you.” You can view that as an artifact of subscription models, or you can view it as evidence of how transient most news stories are in people’s information lives. It’s hard to evaluate how much an individual article is “worth” before you’ve actually consumed it — and there is always free competition available, either on the same topic or in the broader universe of “things to click on in my feed.”

Friction at the payment level.

If an individual publisher sets up their own micropayments system, getting money will require readers setting up an account, attaching a credit card, and all the usual stuff that moving money online requires. Not many people will do that to read a single news story.

So maybe they sign on to one of the many micropayment startups that want to create an industry-wide network of news sites using a common payment platform — either as part of a pan-publisher subscription or on a pay-per-article basis. Unfortunately, none of them have the scale to be appealing or the appeal to build scale. (“Just sign up with your NewzBux account!” isn’t much of a pitch to your readers if they’ve never heard of NewzBux, or InfoCents, or FactCoins, or whatever.) And the companies that might be able to start with scale (Google, Facebook) are not ones that publishers trust with their money. And whoever owns the pipes, they’ll want their 30% cut.

Most paywalls aren’t that hard.

In a digital universe where every news story is behind a hard paywall — one impenetrable to the non-paying reader — then a micropayments model might make sense. But that’s not the digital universe we live in. The number of completely paywalled sites is low and typically either hyperlocal (a county-seat weekly with no competition) or high-end (think The Information or Politico Pro). Nearly all news sites will let a random web user read a story (or two, or five) for free. It’s only after a given number of clicks that the wall goes up.

If you want to think of that as “news sites already offer micropayments for those first five articles — they’ve just set the price at $0,” be my guest. And for those times when someone really wants to read just one article, that free allotment allows all the paywall workarounds that the savvy digital news consumer knows about. (We’re all adults here; we can talk about incognito windows.) If most paywalls aren’t that hard, there’s little pressure for a paid product to get around them on a single story.

No one agrees on what micropayments are.

Is a micropayment 10 cents for one article? That was the number Elon Musk was thinking about in this video from November, when he complained that he should be able to pay 10 cents to read an especially good Philadelphia Inquirer story despite not living in Philadelphia.

If there is a sustainable price for journalism, it isn’t 10 cents an article. A large scale data analysis from Medill found that digital news subscribers don’t even visit those news sites on most days. For small local news sites, the typical subscriber visits once every three days. At larger sites, it’s once every five days. Those visits can include consuming multiple articles, of course, but the point is 10 cents an article would be a radical price reduction for most subscribers — and thus a radical revenue reduction for most publishers. Price points will have to be higher — and thus less appealing to fly-by readers.

Publishers don’t want to cannibalize subscribers.

It’s not at all unusual for a business to insist on their product being purchased in a particular quantity. Try to go to the grocery store and buy one peanut M&M, or one tablespoon of ice cream, or a single Corn Flake. They’ll look at you funny, because the businesses that manufacture those consumer goods have been structured around selling bags, pints, and boxes of them, respectively. Go ask the people at Tesla if you can buy a Roadster that’s only for the weekends — at 2/7ths of the price. The economics of information goods (like news) aren’t identical to those of physical goods, but they both require sustainable business models, and for most quality news sites, that requires paid subscriptions.

And that’s the root problem, from publishers’ point of view: If you sell subscriptions for $15 a month, but you sell individual articles at 15 cents each, you’re telling any subscriber who reads less than 100 articles a month they’re an idiot and should give you less money. There aren’t enough payment-willing fly-by customers to make up the difference for even a few lost subscribers. You’re encouraging your best customers to think of you as an occasional treat rather than a service you pay for — and to pause before every headline they click to estimate its worth in cash. It shouldn’t be surprising than “we’ll charge you $10 a month until you tell us to stop” is more appealing than “we’ll charge you 10 cents now and maybe you’ll come back again someday.”

As Tony Haile once smartly put it, news subscriptions are like gym memberships. Imagine a gym that charges $50 a month for a membership — but also lets anyone pop in for a single workout for two bucks. Why would anyone pay for a membership again? “If you would take the micropayments version of a gym membership, it would be like, ‘I can turn up and I can pay a couple of quid, and I can go into the gym whenever I want to use it.’ No gym works like that.”

 

All that said — these problems are not insurmountable. Smart people might come up with solutions, even if they haven’t so far. Indeed, I’ve long believed that if anyone could create a micropayment system for news that worked, there were only two real possibilities: Apple and Twitter.

With iPhones, iPads, and Macs, Apple controls the devices that most paying digital news consumers use. They have hundreds of millions of users’ credit cards already on file and attached to your identity. And with Apple Pay, they have a nearly frictionless payment platform that has already been integrated into countless apps and websites. If they decided to offer a “Read With Apple Pay” button for news sites, the technical problems of micropayments would mostly go away. (Along with 30% of publishers’ revenue, no doubt.) And Apple News+ is the closest thing to an all=news subscription that currently exists.2

Twitter, meanwhile, is the center of the digital news universe. There is no place online with more news-curious users clicking links to new-to-them news sites. And it showed interest in the subject, buying Tony Haile’s Scroll and integrating its network of ad-free news sites into Twitter Blue and teasing some sort of paywall integration on the way.

But that was the old Twitter. One of Musk’s first decisions after taking charge was killing off the remnants of Scroll — the closest thing to a foundation for a pan-publisher revenue model anyone had.

Unless you are one of the few Twitter Blue subscribers, Twitter doesn’t have your credit card number. It has no ready payment platform for publishers to integrate into their sites. Twitter would likely only be interested in a payment system that goes through Twitter, not via links that go to a publisher site from Facebook, Google, or elsewhere.

But let’s be honest: The biggest problem is Elon. What mainstream publisher would trust Elon Musk with their money right now? The guy who refuses to pay the rent on his corporate HQ? The guy who has spent the past six months dumping on the media, banning reporters, declaring their work a “relentless hatestream” from “media puppet-masters” that you “cannot rely on…for truth“? This is the guy who says he has a “major win-win” for publishers? The same guy that complains “media is a click-machine, not a truth-machine” thinks the answer is tempting people to pay with a single headline?

(Not to mention that Musk has no deadline cred remaining, and saying that micropayments will “roll out” later this month could mean this summer, late 2024, or never.)

Maybe someone will figure out micropayments for news someday. I think it’s unlikely at scale — but I could be wrong! But I am quite confident the man who has spent the past half-year destroying the news media’s favorite online space won’t be the one to do it.