The facebook feedback of Pokemon Go has been astonishingly the joy people have of seeing people leave their homes to play games. People meeting new people with similar interests and people having interest in Pokemon that would never have thought to have it.<p>This article's fear of 'no value' is short sighted for a game that just came out, it could easily be the catalyst that gets people to go out of their home and make economy again. I've already seen pokemon go lemonade stands.
Kind of good for late capitalism if a bit of waste on a game is a major fault by now, then. Pokémon Go may not be a lasting contribution to culture, but compared with the past it's not at all bad. One generation ago we had the cold war. Two, we had the nazis and Stalin, their unrealistic utopias, and the resulting war. Three generations ago we had a world where most people were poor (ie. median income was far below average).
Astonishing. From "Pokemon Go sure is popular" to "we need more affordable housing and more redistribution of wealth". Is there a better demonstration of the fact that some people just can't help but see everything in the world through their tiny little single-issue lens?
Making it easier for more people to move to San Francisco seems like not the best solution whatever problem he thinks he's identified.<p>Also, local businesses <i>are</i> making money from Pokemon Go, since a lot of the gyms and pokespots are local businesses.
<p><pre><code> But the Pokémon Go economy also has some real downsides. One
has to do with regional inequality. Nintendo and its partners
are rumored to be earning more than $1 million per day from
Pokémon Go. That money is flowing away from small and medium
cities and toward big technology companies concentrated in big cities.
</code></pre>
The author's argument's VERY short on providing facts.
They are just riding on the Pokemon Go train, this story could have been written about any internet-based technology over the past two decades. It hasn't killed capitalism yet.
Capitalism and technology are fundamentally opposed forces. Unless we change our ways, as technology matures, we will see economic disparity grow to previously unimagined proportions. Technology will continue to automate jobs and consolidate wealth, this is why we must embrace democratic socialism.
Their main objection is that Pokeman Go contributes to the concentration of wealth. Since all of the income is retained by the owning companies. In this way it does not distribute the wealth like movie theaters and autos do.
Hey this is the new world. We need to figure out how to deal with concentrated wealth since that is the future. It's like complaining how we are putting all of the spoked wheel makes out of business.
From some of these comments it makes me feel like a lot of people didn't actually read the article.<p>1. Yes the pokemon reference is stupid but its more about how technology companies located in major hubs are making money from everywhere and not giving back. Examples used: Hollywood was always major entertainment but created jobs through local theatres. Detroit was major area for cars but created jobs through dealerships.<p>2. His solutions are horrible and his clear linkbait to shoehorn pokemon into this article shows that this article was written to elicit these types of reactions.
Vox is rapidly moving into my "do not click" list. Their best content is quite good. But the signal to noise ratio is rapidly deteriorating. Shame.
But in "late capitalism" all that money going to those large corporations has to go somewhere else. And that record low interest on government debt definitely has something to do with this. So when all these corporations are flush with cash they are actually flush with stuff like 10 year treasury notes and US real estate purchased in US dollars. Which means the entire world economy is essentially feeding the US extremely cheap money. How someone can reason that is bad for a US resident is bizarre.
Funny how the article characterizes capitalism as "late" and overly concentrated while describing the soaring popularity of augmented reality ... a technology with massive potential to reinvent and invigorate the peer to peer economy. We're more likely to be in the early days of a form of capitalism that will make its past a mere prelude.
> Obviously, it would be ridiculous to claim that Pokémon Go is singlehandedly responsible for recent macroeconomic trends.<p>...but he's going to try his hardest!
You could substitute "Pokemon Go" with "Clash of Clans", "WarCraft", "Angry Birds" or any popular game where the money flows back to the company rather than the local economy.