Ben Edelman

Economist, attorney, software developer. Research focus: Fixing the Internet.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@MichaelDavolt @nypost AA COC says each passenger must hire his own lawyer. (Class actions are prohibited.) That's costly, inefficient, and unrealistic. The alternative to a class action isn't many individual cases -- it's no case at all, no accountability.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@JPolydoris @nypost AA's COC purports to disallow class actions. So each affected passenger would have to hire his own lawyer. Unrealistic.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@RakeshSFNYC Look at a modern construction site, and it's easy to imagine work finishing twice as fast & costing half as much. Maybe 1/5 & 5x. Whatever else ppl say about Musk, he was awesome on cost per kilogram to get stuff into space. I would love to see similar improvement for tunneling.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@RakeshSFNYC In addition to more ads, Google made the background color on ads lighter and lighter, culminating in, by 2014, straight white. https://t.co/IKmTgTW6ei has the actual colors, the chronology of changes, and numerical assessment of how far from white.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@johnjhorton I once helped someone who was frustrated that a university required a "wet" signature (not digital sig) on a reimbursement. I showed him the E-sign Act, a 2000 law saying digital signatures have the same effect as paper sigs. University admins had to relent. Fun times.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@jason_kint I once went on Fox Business News to report negative long-term prospects for Meta. That wasn't the information the hosts wanted to hear, so they ended the segment early. I was wrong in the short run, but right in the long run.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@thecriticgeek @laurenbalik I am not planning litigation against AppLovin at this time. They did make changes immediately after my article. The changes don't extinguish liability for prior wrongdoing.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@thecriticgeek @laurenbalik Disagree. My report amply shows AppLovin installing without consent. That is, yes, nonconsensual. Worse than, say, "dark patterns" which is, to be sure, also bad.

I have no current position in AppLovin stock.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@thecriticgeek @laurenbalik How about for putting software on users' devices without users' permission? https://t.co/Y2XKZTEOdw

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@_ZachGriff Meanwhile https://t.co/rgELEK82HV says every Polaris ticket includes "Two free checked bags" and equally says every Polaris ticket includes access to Polaris lounges.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@_ZachGriff Amazing that a $1549 one-way fare earns no miles and allows no changes. I am glad to have a choice in airlines, and I choose, uh, anyone else.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@RakeshSFNYC @pitdesi How do you know that a different issuer's Visa card would not have worked? I would be convinced of network problem if 5 Visa cards from 5 different issuers all didn't work, and one MC did. Otherwise my hypothesis is the problem is at issuer level rather than card network level.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@RakeshSFNYC @pitdesi If your Fidelity Visa didn't work, do you perceive that a MC would have better odds than *a different Visa*? Think the problem is at the card network level, not the card issuer?

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@megangrA Wonder who they'll pick! I have some ideas about who would be well-suited to this role... @lutherlowe

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@Vedthalegend @DouglasLFarrar If customers don't like Spirit at current prices, I can't imagine customers like Spirit more with a 40% price increase.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@glove @scottmelker Lawyer, fraud investigator, and multi-decade G. Love fan. I want to help you. Can you DM me?

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@joshgans @skominers I don't see a need for NFT or all the overhead of decentralization. How about a digital signature? Just get @RefineDotInk to receive the paper, and do a salted-hash with its secret (private key).

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@JTGenter Change in aircraft is in a lot of carriers' COC/tariff as grounds for refund. Now, getting carriers to honor that... that can be quite a different matter.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

Jonathan Kanter's Twitter handle, JKBusterTruster, rings especially true today. A victory for consumers, fans of live music, and musicians alike.

[Jonathan Kanter @JKBustertruster]

It’s official: a jury found that Live Nation/Ticketmaster is a monopoly. I am so proud to have filed this case on 2024. This may be the most popular antitrust case ever. Kudos to the State AGs for finishing the job. The rule of law is alive and well.

[Ben Edelman @bgedelman]

@RakeshSFNYC @Ticketmaster When I recently used Ticketmaster tickets, I saved into my phone's Google Wallet at the time of purchase. With that, I don't think I was vulnerable to bad connection. It is annoying with multiple tickets, though -- many taps per ticket.