The cost of music has also plummeted. We can now enjoy much more music and artists are no longer dependent on being mega stars to make a living. With services like Pateron, YouTube, and Spotify, we are seeing a lot of musicians who are middle class.

If we see a similar thing to things like food that you mentioned, we could see food prices plummet. PF made proteins could be cheaper than the bottle they go in.

There is a new startup called FreeWater that has canned water and the company sustains itself on the ads printed on the bottles. As PF disrupts food, we could see some sort of FreeFood business. Even if something as simple as Milk. Like FreeMilk or FreeProtein where you can go to a vending machine with your phone, and get a free can of nutrients where the real business is that there are ads on the can. But we can make this whole idea of hunger as something that no longer exists for humans. PF systems make the ingredients, which are then made into useful food by automated systems, which are then distributed by primarily Autonomous vehicles, stocked in warehouses by robots. Perhaps the final vending machine distribution will involve some human labor.

Automation should be seen as a force multiplier. It allows a group of 100 humans to do what at one point required a group of 1000 or 5000 humans to do. This insane productivity can then turn around and drastically reduce the cost of living. To where a current lifestyle that might require a $70,000 income can be afforded with a $15,000 income. Someone working 20 hours a week doing something 'easy' could live a pretty good life. No more grind or die. No more working poor. No more 50 hour week just to get by. Someone working a part time job can live fairly comfortably because the systems which provide all their energy, housing, food, clothing, and other goods are all automated.

I have envisioned something like this. AI Architects design mixed use urban block developments. Those AI architects then design all of the pieces for the development. There will still need to be humans working on the job site but the components to build the building will be assembled in an automated factory. All of the design work, engineering work, everything is mostly done by AI. The design might be driven by a team of humans who act as the more creative side. All of the building engineering is then verified and permitted with other autonomous systems. The components all then come to the job site with minimal to zero manipulation. Every steel beam is exactly the right size. Every tube and hose for plumbing is the right size. Humans and Robots then assemble the building.

This building isn't free. But instead of $500 per square foot construction costs, its $50-$100 per square foot construction costs. The 1 bedroom apartments might cost $45,000 to build. The developer could sell them at a 20% markup and the mortgage would be $420 per month. Rent on such a place in my city is currently 4-5 times that much. The developer makes the big money not by selling expensive housing, but by owning the retail/office space on the first and second floors. The housing just recoups their costs. But they maintain ownership of the first two floors and then rent it out to commercial tenants. A retail location with 500+ households sharing the same building and 10,000 households within a 10 minute walk is pretty sought after. Restaurants will pay a premium to be in a place where there are 25,000 customers in the neighborhood.

When I'm able to live a life on a big yacht, I'll buy this service and start a trip on sea.

It’s still a new tech, the issue is that we were still behind on technology when those headsets were released. Displays have been getting better, the optical stack has been improving, developers are learning about user experience (like dizziness).

It’s still new, and we still require better hardware. Unfortunately, this won’t go away so soon. The requirements for VR games are higher than what most people can afford.

I think the next generation of consoles will be when this will explode into popularity.

Not the metaverse itself, I don’t think, but certainly entertainment. I think we will see something similar to the success of the Quest 2 soon enough. Another leap.

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Napster was one of the first real disruptions the internet had on society. It definitely put pressure on the music industry and created this whole world where music was suddenly digital, on computers, and on the internet. It showed us a new world is possible and the old world was obsolete.

You are right. Its not ChatGPT, its the successor of ChatGPT. Its also the new business models and startups that will start ground up using ChatGPT vs old businesses that make the transition.

Spotify didn't start as a CD company, they were ground up internet.

How does cellular compete with starlink when starlink sats are superior?

Until you want to access a news source or website that Elon disagrees with.

Yes, I think you’re right. That’s why we’re fucked.

Technically price controls already exist, it’s called supply and demand. The price of homes drops when there is a larger supply of new one’s entering the market.

The ‘08 crash hurt home builders bad, and they haven’t recovered. Now there are so few new homes out that the prices of existing homes are so high. Now that the interest rate has more than doubled, it’s definitely going to see a drop in prices, but I’m not sure for how long.

We need new homes, that’s it. More properties means price competition, and that’s better for the consumer

Edit: a word

>I think it's a solution in search of a problem, really.

That's really well put. An industrial metaverse/collection of virtual worlds could be huge for innovation, iteration, safety training, etc. It's not like those things aren't possible now but if there's an angle worth a damn, it won't be commercializing the experience. The economic benefit should come from whatever happens in the metaverse that gets exported to the real world. The reverse is going to fail. "Come to our metaverse and enjoy our entertainment and blah blah blah." Nobody is paying for that because it is just a novelty. But if you could create something in the metaverse, experiment with it, refine it, meet with others in a 3D space, and then the final product gets exported (whether its a sales thing, a product, a new service), then you can make money, because it does not require anyone to buy VR headsets and look at shitty avatars.

A 3D metaverse has been attempted since the mid-90's before such a word was in use. There were numerous companies all promising we would be flying around a 3D Internet going into virtual malls and virtual stores to buy things, because that's all you can do on the Internet obviously. One company had plans to charge retailers more money to get their virtual stores closer to the spawn points of users.

Here's a much later example. https://youtu.be/d7EjqWbwmsk Note that the video was uploaded 14 years ago. There's more videos on youtube but it's hard to find them as I keep getting videos from malls in the 90's.

Iit’s still a great example of how nuanced communication is

It can evolve

It’s pointless outside of rural areas. Almost all major carriers offer international plans for like $10 more a month. For everything else there’s wifi and Wi-Fi calling.

Facebook's metaverse sucks. Too many barriers, not enough advantages. If AR/VR is easy, lightweight, then it'll take off. Zuckerberg is trying to force things before they are ready.

What you are describing is generally what killed the first iteration of the Iridium satellite business. They provided service to places where there weren't any subscribers.

It's always disturbing when there are more pro-AI chatbot upvotes than real sane anti-ai downvotes on these obviously AI-chatbot generated shitposts.

Looks like it doesn't matter what I want, for progress is inevitable.

The big tech companies pushing AI not out of principles, but to increase shareholder value. As do countless smaller companies and open source projects. Progress is a side effect of greed after all.

The popular stable diffusion technology is now down to 100.000-300.000 Dollars in costs thanks to optimization. It used to costs tens of millions of Dollar. It is within the price range of a startup and spreads.

Once AI models are trained one time in earnest, they tend to get small enough to make the rounds within the ecosystem of startups and open source projects spreading technological progress.

And there is the military and government agencies. They tend to be more controlling, but technology developed once also finds the way out of their hands due to bribes. They are corrupt after all.

All in all, AI progress is accellerating fast. The entire AI ecosystem is moving right now with money being poured in.

As important, young talent is flocking to the field full speed, money is usefull but passion is even more important.

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Too much money.. what do I do syndrome.

And what would your solution be?

The following submission statement was provided by /u/ethereal3xp:

>SpaceX's Starlink division has invited some potential users to try a "Global Roaming" service for $200 a month, saying the new plan "allows your Starlink to connect from almost anywhere on land in the world."

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/117j7t7/starlinks_global_roaming_promises_worldwide/j9bxur8/

>Letting them fend for themselves is not admirable, or "empowering", it's cruel. They should be involuntarily committed to mental health and addiction intervention programs. Unfortunately, we in the US dismantled our public health infrastructure back in the 1980s (which roughly coincided with the start of the homeless crisis).

The self-pitying, po-faced uselessness of Enlightenment liberalism, summarized. 'We should be doing this, but we can't, so what can we do? Definitely Reagan's fault, though.'

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Something I did not pick up on from the summary is that the stem cell donor has some natural HIV resistance, which seems like a critical element of this.