The term “freemium” comes from a combination of the words “free” and “premium.” It refers to a business model that includes providing consumers with both complimentary and extra-cost services. A company offers easy and introductory services for free to users to try out; it also charges a fee for more specialized services or extra functionality. Jarid Lukin of Alacra, a provider of corporate knowledge and workflow software, is credited with coining the word freemium in 2006. The method, on the other hand, dates back to the 1980s. A freemium model is one in which a company provides a service to a customer at no expense in order to lay the groundwork for future purchases. Companies create relationships with consumers by providing free essential services, then charging them for advanced services, add-ons, increased storage or use restrictions, or an ad-free user experience. For Internet-based businesses with low customer acquisition costs but high lifetime value, the freemium model works well. The freemium business model allows users to try out basic features of apps, games, or services for free before paying for upgrades to the essential bundle. It’s a common strategy used by new businesses to entice consumers to use their software or service.

Who provides a freemium service?

Many companies use this business model nowadays; however, we will look at a few and explain why they have worked so well for these particular companies.

Dropbox – Dropbox has nailed the balance and is a shining illustration of what a freemium service should be. The free version is very popular and meets the needs of the vast majority of users. Anyone who wants more can choose from a number of clearly specified incremental upgrades.

Spotify – The platform that resurrected a music industry plagued by declining physical sales and stagnant downloads and is widely credited with cracking the freemium model. Despite recent criticism that their free edition is too limited (too many commercials, insufficient song selection), they could have 100 million paying subscribers by the beginning of 2020. These are some remarkable figures.

WordPress – Free blogging program that allows you to quickly and easily build your own website. This platform made everything that used to be prohibitively expensive available to the general public. According to Toni Schneider, CEO of WordPress, “we just charge for the items that are extremely difficult to do.” Customers are expected to think, “This is difficult, this is costly, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

Candy Crush – Without a doubt, this is one of the most popular freemium games. In gaming, an excellent freemium model entails paying for premium features. Candy Crush has perfected the contentious in-app purchasing definition. The integration of Facebook has been crucial in enabling a game to become a topic of discussion, comparison, and competition among friends.

Casino Games – Many online casinos now offer a freemium service, even from day one. You can sign up to an online casino and straight away can be rewarded with free spins on a free online slot game. This gives players a chance to try before they buy, so to speak, and test certain games before committing to spending any money. They also have a chance of winning money too, so it is a very enticing offer. Players are also often given free spins for signing into their accounts regularly or by depositing money. This keeps the players coming back and, therefore, high player retention.

One Drive – If DropBox isn’t your thing, OneDrive is a great alternative that gives users five gigs of storage space to save whatever they want. OneDrive is particularly useful if you use Microsoft’s 360 tools because it automatically syncs all of your documents to the cloud.

Skype – With Skype’s free plan, you can chat one-on-one with anyone in the world via instant messaging or video. This is an easy to use, dependable choice for maintaining a face-to-face relationship for a company that involves travel or foreign clients, but voice calls to landlines can cost money.

People always want something for nothing.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that people would do anything for a freebie. On the other hand, freebies aren’t just fun for the customer; they’re also marketing gold for the company. Any piece of swag you hand out increases the likelihood that the recipient will remember your brand and tell their buddies about it the next time they put on that shirt or take out that pen. The freemium business model’s magic is its potential to expand a company at breakneck speed through advocacy. Users get firsthand experience with the importance of the product and vigorously spread the word.

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Following the showing of their original teaser trailer, Activision seemingly had every language version of the media edited down substantially and re-released. In the process, their prior trailer was quietly removed. This came after the game’s teaser was banned in China due to featuring less than a second of footage of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

A large portion of real recorded events from history were removed from the trailer entirely, though it should be noted that only China objected to the trailer’s contents.

Unsurprisingly then, the new teaser lacks this footage, leaving many wondering if this was an excuse to assure access to the Chinese market. Considering the burgeoning size of the Chinese gaming demographic, it stands to reason such censorious accommodations are made for the sake of profit.

This compilation of the events by YouTube Content Creator Memology 101 shows the less than one second of removed footage:

It is ironic that a major tagline of the newly announced AAA game is “Know your history or be doomed to repeat it”. There is a hint of irony to that, now.

Image: screenshot Memology YouTube

The post New Call of Duty Trailer Released, Now With 100% Less Tiananmen Square appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“Even though there is one year to go in my tenure and there are challenges to be met, I have decided to stand down as prime minister,” said Abe at a press conference on Friday. He followed up with an apology as to his inability to see the term through to the end, feeling as though he has let down the people of Japan.

“For almost eight years I controlled my chronic disease, however, this year in June I had a regular check-up and there was a sign of the disease,” he added. “I made a judgment that I should not continue my job as prime minister” said Abe. “I need to fight the disease and need to be treated.”

Now-former Prime Minister Abe has been the longest serving “PM” of Japan, not to mention it should be considered he is the longest democratically elected leader of the nation. He has been most famous in contemporary Western media for his willingness to involve himself with President Trump on the world stage, most notably at the infamous G-7 Summit where this amazing photo was taken:

The disease which is presently afflicting Mr. Abe is a serious long-term inflammatory bowel disesase, which millions suffer from. Ulcerative colitis is a condition in which disturbances in the gastrointestinal system will randomly occur, with flare-ups resulting in discomfort and pain.

Interestingly, cannabis, which is currently illegal in Japan, is seen as a treatment method for handling the discomfort of ulcerative colitis as well as several other bowel-oriented diseases. Although evidence on the matter is very much inconclusive, it has even been said to help treatment outright. A continentally-originating substance, Abe’s wife Akie has pressured for return of the plant to Japanese culture and normalcy. It can now be speculated that aforementioned reasons may be a part of her “rebellious” advocacy.

Leaving behind a legacy of leadership few will be able to overcome, Abe resigns gracefully even amidst a global health crisis as Japan maintains a relatively low infection rate. As well as being responsible for the continuation of Japan as a commerce powerhouse in the East in spite of the stagnation of the 90’s dotcom bubble, he departs from his position leaving the country in a good position.

Image: 首相官邸ホームページ

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Neural links are nothing new. They’ve been around since 2006, but Musk’s company is working to expand it to new and improved levels. One level is via advanced surgical implants, complex electrode-oriented interfaces which would be installed via a state-of-the-art robot.

Displaying it with a groups of test pigs, Musk showed the Neuralink’s ability to be implanted and removed safely, such as with the recovering (camera) hog Dorothy. In the case of Gertrude, we observe a set of beeping meant to represent neurons firing and signs of activity/stimulation of the brain and appropriate readouts from the implanted device.

Another major hurdle Elon Musk and his team need to overcome is the innate danger of putting foreign bodies inside the brain, as it is one of the most corrosive parts of the body and thus a difficult artificial implantation zone.

Of course, in spite of all this, Musk isn’t opposed to speaking out when necessary against artificial intelligence, much to the chagrin of the “AI Community”, whether it be conceptually or specific practitioners with ethical drawbacks. On particular contemporary example would be DeepMind, who Musk has described as a “top concern” for their gamification of A.I. learning to beat humans at everything.

Perhaps a more integrated system is a preferable alternative to destroying or controlling artificial intelligence, so perhaps giving Musk the green light may be the right choice.

You can watch the entire livestream here:

All images captured from the Neuralink presentation.

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There is simply no direct corollary relationship between any form of economic distribution system which is favorable to racist principles, and this is no more than a farce which divides common man against himself instead of uniting in opposition to excessive governance, or more simply put—tyranny.

Unfortunately, racism does exist. Although we all work towards the path of tolerance and understanding, reality falls short of the ideal. You get individuals or groups who would think themselves of better standing not for their creed or values but for uncontrollable superficial qualities or by right of “birth”. The KKK, Andrew Jackson, Democrats in the mid-20th century, David Duke, Roy Bryant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, J.W. Milam, Richard Spencer, and many more come to mind here in America alone. However, while all of these individuals (some of who were even U.S. Presidents) were of a capitalist nation, they do not stand alone as pillars against human social progress.

There is no better place to start than with the prime examples present in the so-called communist utopias of the world. Che Guevara, the man known for adorning the shirts of many would-be American communist revolutionaries, was not just a racist but a homophobe as well. He wrote such in his life of Africans of the Americas that “The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.” This was the word of a cornerstone of the Cuban communist revolution—hardly a prime example of racially tolerant communism. But what of the larger continental Communist hearths of Russia and China?

Let’s not forget the USSR’s proclivity for ethnic strife, having committed large-scale genocide by mass starvation through the Holodomor, which saw over three million Ukrainians perish due to their Soviet leadership’s decisions. They were a place which, although was beyond the basic color barrier, still had far to go before truly ridding themselves of identitarian biases. Even in China today, there is ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur people on the basis of cultural differences, the purging of a Muslim population. This of course is nothing new to the Communist world, as during the Khmer Rouge’s massacre of its own people in the Cambodian Genocide, it favored racialized “justice” by targeting those of ethnically Chinese, Vietnamese, or Cham (Cambodian-Muslim) origin.

Nothing needs to be said of the dangers of absolute authority systems themselves in promoting racist ideas, what with the Belgian king’s treatment of the Congo, the era of European colonialism in Africa under its many kings and queens, or the raving mad racist lunacy that was Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Even the aforementioned FDR was inarguably racist against Japanese Americans and placed them in literal camps because he was given an inordinate amount of power as a wartime president under populist authority. But what ought to be said is that these are still examples which allow us to further discover that there is a variety of ways in which many, many different governance systems can allow prejudice to fester.

Meanwhile, it can be easily argued that the advent of capitalist principles, first in Europe then later in the United States, did work to establish the 18th and 19th century footholds of liberalism, whose doctrine was key in the dissolution of both the Atlantic slave trade as well as slavery outright in the West. Although it is reality that the United States was one of the last to ban the practice, it did so on the heels of a newfound movement for racial tolerance which eventually helped to promote an end to African colonialism as its liberal values faced opposition, and more importantly scrutiny, in the Cold War.

Some would argue that it “continues today” in the form of the corporate entities which abuse contracts with local governments in Africa to extract resources in some pseudo-colonial crony capitalism. This cronyism has hardly a capitalist bone in its body as no nation, capitalist or socialist (African or European) is safe from exploitation on the continent, and even as Communist China continues to exert influence in the region there is continued illegal excavation of resources by their expatriates as well.

The matter is not that there is an issue with capitalism, but that the current system of governance has lost its way. It has allowed the state to grow, so much that now it can act against the citizenry without  consequence. The fault is not with any idea of “late stage” let alone any stage of capitalism’s Pokemon evolution, but rather an issue of a government founded on an improper prejudice, which after the slow centralization of power over time has become ever more rigid to meaningful change.

Not since the time of President Nixon’s Watergate Scandal has there been real, substantial change to government in the United States, as it grew more secretive and yet also investigatory and intrusive of its citizens. This is not to say that there is some shadowy hand or conspiracy against the American people by some “deep state”, but that all governments over time grow burdensome and bureaucratic, and that the current one may need some sizable pruning.

This place and time in America seems better than ever, with Americans—left, right and center, black white and everything in-between—all at the business end of a police force with few direct responsibilities of care for the common man.

The post The Argument Against Inherent Racism in Capitalism appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Formerly a part of what was once Yugoslavia, the small landlocked Balkan state known for low resolution military memes, it’s rocky relationship with Kosovo, the Bosnian Genocide, and little else is in the West is facing a disaster. Between the decades of injustice by the borderline dictatorial regime in power and the recently readjusted measures taken to handle the covid-19 pandemic, the country is in disarray.

Largely centered around Belgrade, the protests (having occurred for 5 consecutive nights at the time of recording this information), are mostly anti-government demonstrations critical of both President Vučić and his handling of restrictions in the current global health crisis. Serbia, which scores a 66 on the Freedom House scoring system, is largely ran by one party, especially now as recent elections seem to have been finagled into favoring the president’s party.

Although initially Serbia was party to the same kind of restrictions as the rest of the world circa March 2020, it quickly removed most of its controls on citizens by May. Many claims have been made by displeased Serbs that this action was a deliberate move to maintain electoral security for President Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party, which handily dominated in the polls. Opposition has been taking full advantage of public disdain and rallied against elections being so brazenly held in the midst of the pandemic.

As the seven million strong Serbia faces over 18000 Coronavirus cases and over 300 deaths within it’s small borders, tensions have arisen as large caseloads relative to their smaller healthcare infrastructure further destabilize public faith and support in the government. Many took to the streets, adorning masks and openly defying now recent regulations on gatherings to criticise Vučić’s handling of the matter and the greater incompetence of the Serbian state.

The nation has been under global scrutiny since the 1995 genocide in Srebenrica when over 8000 Muslims were massacred and a further over 20,000 forced to displace from the area by the secessionist Bosnian Serb Army, the military wing of secessionist. Many of the leaders of Serbia culpable in the event still remain active in the nation’s political sphere, with few owning up to (or even being convicted for) the actions of the late-20th century Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War as tr

With 71 protesters detained in yesterday’s demonstration alone, it seems the government is taking a hard line stance against its people, claiming to do so out of “concern for spread of COVID-19”. We are unlikely to see an end to the social conflict in the near future unless action by the Republic is taken to combat the medical emergency in line with public demands, and to a greater extent reorganize its electoral system to reflect the wishes of the public. Alternatively, it could escalate police brutality and generate conflict with the disgruntled populace. What happens next remains to be seen.

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Unfortunately, it has once again resurfaced as a supposedly viable tactic of internet harassment. An ethically abhorrent behavior, it uses fear tactics, often in an attempt to silence someone and especially in political contexts.

Recently, it was used by Disney child actor (now “full grown” adult) Skai Jackson to persecute teenagers (upcoming high school freshmen) for edgy Instagram content—as well as others behaving against her personal code of conduct on social media. Although not posting addresses, the Hollywood star wasn’t afraid to wield her followers like a cudgel when posting the names, handles, schools of attendance, and phone numbers of anyone who she deemed as behaving in a racist manner.

Now, we can argue the matter of whether or not the posts of these teenage boys were racist (they really weren’t), but there is no room for doing what she did, which was posting these boys’ phone numbers, names, and high school to her over half a million Twitter followers. If we are to discuss matters of societal double standards, it should be noted this behavior has been dealt with by the media with a divided reporting standard, with one side calling it doxxing and the other simply saying she was “putting racists on blast” so to speak—notably Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Tonight, and The Blast. I’m certain these places would be just as ecstatic if the roles were reversed.

The act of doxxing is a morally objectionable thing to undertake for a multitude of reasons. First, it is an attack on someone based on what is vigilante ‘justice’ by all accounts. Up until recently, this was a generally maligned behavior by the progressive left. It’s the mob coming together on social media to decide on a whim who ought to face punitive measures that are entirely socially enforced, lacking any judicial procedure or due process. This is not how a civil society operates.

Second, it also deprives us of the ability to openly view what is necessary to have in open dialogue. There is no worse place for an opinion to lie than in the shadows of a person’s mind, lest they deprive humanity of crucial dialectic discussion. As John Stuart Mill once put it, “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”

Although I do find racism deplorable (a shockingly controversial opinion I am sure), I will not say that it has no place in the open marketplace of ideas;—if for no other reason than to forever cement the importance and moral justness of tolerance and unity. There is no worse way to fight racism than to suppress the people who otherwise hold those opinions, as keeping them well illuminated is necessary. As the old saying goes, keep your friends close and enemies closer (and there’s no greater enemy to liberty and freedom than blind bigotry).

It has also supposedly been used to silence those who would be found as creepy in select YouTube communities, chiefly as a way to rout out toxic “stans” in CallMeCarson’s fanbase. Although stan culture is a problem deserving of its own essay (and is covered very well in this Weest video), the reality is that it is not anyone’s call let alone the correct one to dox these individuals. At present, evidence of such is very limited, and thus I cannot definitively say that it has occurred. I think this tweet summarized the issue quite poignantly.

This kind of glorified hacktivism only works to further divide people against one another and strikes needless fear into the hearts of what are merely online malcontents. It should be noted that CallMeCarson has made it clear that this behavior is unacceptable, and has generally been outspoken against targeting any individuals for any reason…ever!

And the fear is hardly unwarranted, as with doxxing can come the dangerous practice of swatting, which actually resulted in a man being killed in Kansas and the perpetrator behind bars for 20 years. The reality is that there is a real slippery slope to suffering which is lacking any fallacious regard, and it remains to be seen whether the slide is just beginning or grinding to a halt.

The post Do We Really Have to Say It? Doxxing is Not Okay appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Hosted by CNN Anchor (and nothing-burger expert) Van Jones, the event included guests such as Jemele Hill, Elaine Welteroth, and Killer Mike. Epic Games, whose private minority stakeholder is Chinese digital media giant Tencent, figured that addressing race politics in a free-to-play video game marketed towards children would be an appropriate idea that would end well.

It did not end well…

In their epic wisdom the company placed just a short distance from the “venue” screen a vending machine…which dispensed infinite tomatoes. Although not universal, in many cases players were spotted throwing the tomatoes not at each other in some playful manner, but at the giant display in what can only be described as expert zoomer-posting. 

Now again, we here at The Libertarian Republic decry racism in any form. We also decry virtue signaling, at least the insincere kind, assuming there can even be a thing as “sincere virtue signaling”. Where a multinational conglomerate with connective ties to the racist Chinese government is concerned, it’s going to take more than a partisan panel streamed in a video game to get the point across or enact meaningful societal change. 

Just as this YouTuber Defective Yello put it in their video description of a recording of the stream (which they openly titled as propaganda), “what he said is actually very true, however putting this in a kid’s game isn’t really right.” Agree with the content of the event…or don’t, but this is largely a matter not of the politics but of a principled stance against youth indoctrination:

Given the current issues involving Chinese cultural genocide of Uyghur’s and racist service policies subsequent the Coronavirus pandemic, the “bigotry footprint” left behind by the average American and Tencent-related corporations seems appropriately compared to David and Goliath.

And, just as I might be pointlessly flinging pebbles at a giant, so too does this kind of posturing feel empty in the fight to end racism in America. 

Whereas some companies have taken direct steps, and creators from SwaggerSouls to Welyn have all actively taken part in some kind of real work to change the world, the actions here seem at best a hollow gesture and at worst an attempt to politically indoctrinate youth gamers with nary a hint of diversity of thought…while also profiting either way.

Here’s a video covering the event via the YouTube news provider Memology 101:

The post Attempted Fortnite #BlackLivesMatter Event Backfires appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Crews, a Christian and an outspoken activist for women’s rights, stated on Twitter this morning “If you are a child of God, you are my brother and sister. I have family of every race, creed and ideology. We must ensure #blacklivesmatter doesn’t morph into #blacklivesbetter“.

Although stating this with the intent to bridge divides in affirmation of cooperative political actions so as to prevent discord and prejudice, the intended effect has if anything backfired as he has received a wave of criticism for missing the point and delegitimizing the current political movement. Many social media activists took to social media and attempted to excoriate Mr. Crews for his comment.

Although now on the business end of the SocJus Twitter mob, Crews has previous spoken out in favor of protests calling out police violence and discrimination against black Americans, with proceeds from his then-advertised “Phenomenally Black” t-shirts going to the Black Futures Lab (an African American advocacy group).

In juxtaposition to the progressive dog pile, some voices like conservative political commentator Jared Monroe, have been unafraid to address the backlash as an example to illustrate this seeming point of contention.

Crews recently also faced animosity when it was discovered he couldn’t make it to the BET Awards 2020 – because he wasn’t invited.

It remains to be seen if this will be the end of Terry Crews given contemporary cancel culture, but if there’s anyone who can weather this mudstorm and still come out squeaky clean, well…

Featured Photo Credit: Alex Motoc

The post Terry Crews Blasted for Tweets Saying #BlackLivesMatter Shouldn’t Become “#BlackLivesBetter” appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

I’m not one to knock an expert when they are right or someone who may be an entertainer but can provide some damn compelling evidence (looking at you Adam Conover). But the reality for those who reach media acclaim through traditional media or the age of internet opinion opining is that their input isn’t that great or even useful.

Of course, that won’t stop new media cropping up from reporting on the latest new takes in what can only be described as Scarce with less personality. The drama click will be generated from getting the hottest new gaming, political, or social commentary takes from the foremost in the community. Given that new media stars, especially those on Twitch where directly livestreaming their lives and opinions is practically in the job description, these inputs are easily accessible and oftentimes these things will be directly farmed from their livestream content.

To illuminate the issue, I will use someone whom I will admit has a respectable talent for swaying appeal, and who outmaneuvered what should have been a career-ending infidelity case. The great Dr. Disrespect, the two-time champion who has done so much, was the subject of articles… on his opinions about the Coronavirus? Whether I agree with the man’s opinion or not, the point remains that this is not an expert opinion, and it’s laughable given the current media issues with listening to medical experts.

Furthermore, there is a common trend of pieces on these ‘influencers’ opinions on other social matters (or just drama). Now, on the other hand there are articles that are germane to the activities of these digital bards. Articles discussing their stances and thoughts on game mechanics, input on the quality of games overall—even commenting in a constructively critical manner on the behavior of fellow community pillars. These are all examples in which this kind of media is perfectly legitimate. There are no experts like the players putting in the hours so people will flock to watch them.

But what of the legitimacy of a voice? I, for one, am just some 22 year old punk with an attitude and a bunch of opinions. That is true. But what is also true is that these brash political stances and media opinions do at least come from a verifiable background and continuing education, much as these entertainers are growing experts in their own fresh fields. With sourcing is the reality that not every analysis needs to be expert if it is at least educated. One example can be seen with the advanced levels of analysis of creators like Veritas, who extensively utilize the scientific method and further sound study methods to better their content.

This isn’t to diminish the achievements of these people in any way. In many regards, there is not questions that they outpace my own. All that is meant to be adressed is the greater concern in continued weighing of celebrity opinion as valuable. The following video is just one example of the kind of mass media campaigning the highest level stars of today use to try and adjust the world to their liking—implications be damned.

This kind of behavior, which seeks to undermine the so-called governance system they supposedly cherish, is unacceptable. At present, there is no comparable level of sneering insincerity. At the very least, many of these creators are regular Joe’s like the rest of us (except for maybe that one awkward Angry one). As time goes on, this will be less and less the case as more success stories develop and the upper crust mirrors that of a RiceGum video. Even now this developing issue can be seen in the actions of some of the aforementioned top tier, like that of Ethan Klein’s behavior.

The road ahead is one which must be tread carefully, and in which a more considerate approach to relevant reporting may need to be adopted. In doing so, by keeping appropriate matters to appropriate voices we can lessen the noise of the battle for clarity of fact. Not to say one can’t know the right answer from time to time, but a Fortnite streamer hasn’t won a Nobel Peace Prize – yet (though many have won a ton of awesome cash prizes).

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