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[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 118 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Edit: I'm using him as an example of an other billionaire who is constantly defended even though he owns 6 mega yatchs and a few submarines costing him an estimated 75 to 100 million a year just in maintenance. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[-] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 85 points 1 week ago

Look I love Gabe as much as anyone but nobody earns a billion dollars

[-] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 38 points 1 week ago

Especially when steam could have a sliding scale for fees where developers with fewer sales could earn more profit from the sale which would greatly benefit the indie developers.

Instead it has the opposite structure where fees decrease as you sell many millions in revenue which has the opposite effect.

[-] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 37 points 1 week ago

And the perfect counterpart is another rotund fuzzy tech guy, Steve Wozniak. The Woz, who isn’t a billionaire in part because when Steve Jobs decided to fuck over a bunch of Apple employees before the IPO Woz gave them some of his shares. Woz, who spends his time in part video chatting with elementary school classes and talking to them about technology.

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

To be fair

He did get the steam deck made, so that was kinda cool.

But maybe owning 6 yachts is a little less cool.

Unless the sub and boats were like research vessels he funds, that would be cool

But they aren't.

Why can't billionaires dump their money into funding scientific research? It's not like there aren't scientists out there with plenty of research to be done.

Or even maybe wherever he lives, he could like, fund the entire county school districts for the rest of existence and no one would have to worry about taxes.

Or maybe regularly cancel the medical debt of Valve employees and their families.

Like how fucking hard is it to redistribute your own wealth?

Like fucking Christ, that's the part I don't understand. They complain about taxes and shit at the top, but they do absolutely fuck all to make things better for large swaths of people. Or if they do, it's after they die and $200m gets donated to a university and it prevents next year's tuition from increasing.

[-] EldritchFeminity 13 points 1 week ago

I think part of it is the form that that wealth exists in. Not defending billionaires in any way, but they don't have stacks of cash lying around. The way that they live is that their money is in various forms of equity that passively increase in value, like stocks and houses, which they take loans against in order to pay for things. Then, they take out more loans to pay off the previous and repeat until they die and the debt disappears due to legal loopholes.

Stuff like the yachts and all the other crazy expensive stuff is one thing, but to redistribute the wealth, it's not as simple as handing out cash to everybody (and I think turning all their mansions into subsidized housing instead of selling them would be more beneficial anyway).

I think incentivizing them to do more useful things with that cash and disincentivize them from simply hoarding it in various forms would be a decent short-term solution to the issue without having to put in much effort on the government's part, but I never expect to see that happen.

[-] prole 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If they can leverage banks, and do all sorts of shit with their money (and debt) to make more money, then they can find ways to use it to benefit others.

Incentivizing giving it away is what we do now by providing tax benefits. We have seen the limitations of that.

[-] EldritchFeminity 3 points 1 week ago

I mean incentivizing them to invest it into things like public works and other beneficial things, but I also expect that that would go about as well as the current tax incentives do. It would be the thing that requires the least effort possible from the government, though, which I think makes it the most likely to actually occur. Actually taxing them more is pretty much a pipe dream.

[-] boogiebored@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

This is misinformation. It takes 2 years proof of income to buy a house a bank bets you can afford. Billionaires have more flexibility, access and leverage than this with finances.

[-] prole 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah it's like a sickness. They're hoarders, but they hoard wealth. If I had over a billion dollars, I would literally not be able to give it away fast enough (I would leave myself with a cool $10 mil).

Which is one reason why I'll never be one.

[-] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 week ago

Are you presenting him as an example of a good billionaire? Cause still, nah.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It was not my intention, I edited my comment to make it clearer.

this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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