It would be better if this were more clearly visible, especially to non-US IPs. I don't want to create an account to discover that the service only works in one specific country and with a specific list of banks.
They may not even have to target their message. If a platform's users already have a bias (and this seems to be the case[0]), then they can display the "go vote" message globally and have the desired affect. All while waving the public good PR flag.
This assumes the platform's wishes aligns with their users, but this may be self-fulfilling.
That's like saying the primary job of a surgeon is to prop up the medical narcotics industry by stabbing people with knives without actually killing them. Maybe in a way it's kind of true, but if enough people accept it, they stop caring about whether surgery does more harm than good.
I've found the binlist.net to be fairly reliable for retrieving BINs, plus their data is on GitHub if you want to grab it all. A quick Google show a bunch of similar services, although I'm not sure of their accuracy.
This is exactly the same thing that let someone delete Mat Honan's (Wired author) accounts back in 2012:
Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information.
Movie Recommendation as a Service (MRaas)? Or curation - if it isn't out there yet it will come.
Something with humans, since it would be easy to imagine algorithms getting stuck in a very narrow genre (like when you give a Pandora channel too many songs and it ends up with the same 20 tracks or covers thereof). Plus giving you that commitment to see the movie through.
Or just head to reddit[1] or equivalent communities.
>>> Movie Recommendation as a Service (MRaas)? Or curation - if it isn't out there yet it will come.
I think it's not the same, if you are talking about an online service. It's all about the physical interactions, anticipation. Getting out of home, browsing the DVDs, bringing it back home, etc. It's the same with, e.g. books. Browsing the local bookstore compared to going through the lists in Amazon (I live in a country where it's a bit tricky to get English books and miss going to bookstores in England a lot, I can totally relate to people the author is talking about). Like the author said, it's half of the pleasure.
Humans are social animals. Not everything can be done online in an equally enjoyable manner.
Content industries have killed themselves by selling content as objects-you-own (or rent briefly.) Even Netflix etc work on this model. And torrents are just objects-you-steal.
If the content industries had done more to sell content as an element in a social network - share with friends/family, meet strangers, enjoy relationships of all kinds - they wouldn't be so threatened by P2P. The breakout franchises - Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars - all have this personal and social element. Direct-to-DVD crap movies totally lack it.
Ironically - or maybe not - P2P provides more of that social element. People make requests, comment on uploads, build reputations, and sometimes organise private sharing clubs.
I'm sure torrenting wouldn't have become as popular without that social sharing element.
That's an interesting point. But virtually social (I just made it up, not sure if it's correct but you get the idea), I believe, is very different form physically social.
I think in case of video stores, it's quite similar to coffee shops.
I have some good quality coffee beans, a decent machine, so I can totally make coffee that's good enough to compete with most of the coffee shops for a fraction of price and time that has to be spent. That's similar to Netflix. Quick, convenient, often good enough.
But still, I like to go to a coffee shop from time to time (which is similar to going to a video store). It takes much more time, it's not as convenient (can't just go straight from bed in my underwear), but there's something rewarding about the whole thing. Dressing up, getting out of home, all these things makes this as a sort of ritual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect