Looks like we need to spend some time talking about the Parler lolsuit against Amazon and why it's deader than a Mitch McConnell comedy special. They've brought three claims - antitrust, breach of contract, and tortious interference. None will survive. Here's why
https://t.co/3ixZYQ8nRc
Five minutes of scrolling a search for #hangmikepence, a gallery: pic.twitter.com/40hsyJNK50
— Jawafawa (@jawafawa) January 11, 2021
But more fundamentally, Parler has a legal problem: There's no right to have a contracting party apply its rules equally. If you and I sign a contract with a supplier that says the supplier can stop providing us with beer if
Folks ...
But when your core argument is "this conduct makes me think it's an anti-competitive conspiracy," DON'T SPECIFICALLY ALLEGE AN ALTERNATIVE, NON-CONSPIRACY EXPLANATION FOR IT
"They did this as a conspiracy to help Biden" isn't an allegation of fact. It's a *conclusion* being alleged as *supported* by the factual allegations.
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) November 27, 2020
An example near and dear to my heart may make the distinction clearer. Anyone remember Asghar Bukhari?
Here's the wikipedia summary of what the Supreme Court held, which is good enough to work with.
If so, you're a step ahead of Parler's lawyers, who apparently completely missed it.
That's just not a thing.
Also, we're a competitor of Twitter. This is important, because we're about to segue into their evidence of an antitrust conspiracy
No, it is too much, let me sum up:
Amazon serves us and also Twitter. It was afraid we would grow at Twitter's expense, so it shut us down to prevent that.
That's their conspiracy theory. All of it. One problem
And that's why it kicked, you, ALSO AN AMAZON CLIENT, off their servers?
Wow.
Can they do that?
Amazon's AWS Terms of service, which expressly bind any customer to the Amazon Acceptable Use Policy
They agreed that if they violated that contract, Amazon could terminate them without notice.
They violated the contract.
Also, the fact that the contract says "your only possible damages are what you paid us" means they are very very easy to calculate
This seems to be "you made me breach my contract with Dave"
Also, and I guess this is a minor note, but when you're alleging tortious interference you need to show that there was an existing contract that was breached
It's (again) what you SPECIFICALLY agreed would happen if you did the things you actually did.
More from Akiva Cohen
\U0001f6a8BREAKING: Trump files new federal court lawsuit in Wisconsin challenging the results of the election.https://t.co/LfKb2PUIkq
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) December 3, 2020
Not, I hope, Seth Abramson long. But will see.
I apologize in advance to my wife, who would very much prefer I be billing time (today's a light day, though) and to my assistant, to whom I owe some administrative stuff this will likely keep me from 😃
First, some background. Trump's suit essentially tries to Federalize the Wisconsin Supreme Court complaint his campaign filed, which we discussed here.
OK, #squidigation fans. This is a new Wisconsin case not filed by the Krake[n/d] team of Powell and Wood and NOT focusing on wild conspiracy theories. It's a competent and professional filing that raises things that would be real issues ... if you don't understand why they aren't https://t.co/ETvUiWV5du
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 1, 2020
If you haven't already, go read that thread. I'm not going to be re-doing the same analysis, and I'm not going to be cross-linking to that discussion as we go. (Sorry, I like you guys, and I see this as public service, but there are limits)
Also, @5DollarFeminist has a good stand-alone thread analyzing the new Federal complaint - it's worth reading as well, though some of the analysis will overlap.
Every one of these Trump election suits is the same gobbledygook garbage barge:
— Liz Dye (@5DollarFeminist) December 3, 2020
FRAUD!
It coulda happened.
Well, no, we can't prove it.
But just to be safe, best let the gerrymandered legislature give us all the electoral votes!https://t.co/Z926668H05 pic.twitter.com/xGZsJKIO7Y
Folks, this is the single dumbest election lawsuit of the entire cycle, and I've read kraken filings front to back. https://t.co/PLHTf7HhbM
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 22, 2020
Here's the decision. Some highlights follow
Pretty sure I said this, using slightly different words!
Hey, @questauthority, it sounds like Judge Boasberg was about as pleased about the long "none of this matters but we want to say it anyway" section as we expected him to be
You CANNOT run into court claiming there's an emergency and you need an expedited schedule so you can be heard before 1/6 and then just not bother serving anyone for 12 days
More from Business
Tech created this ecosystem but there’s a historical cultural bias in tech towards media as unprofitable. That changed a long time ago.
Many more angels that invest in people will invest in media founders. Many traditional media people will *become* media founders.
But not necessarily big companies. Just solo individuals or small groups doing content, like Notch doing Minecraft. Because media scales like code.
Increasingly feeling like “keeping the team size as small as possible, even to one person” is the unarticulated key to making media profitable.
Substack and all the creator tools are just the start of this ecosystem.
Useful concept: the media stack for content creators
— balajis.com (@balajis) January 20, 2020
- Spotify, iTunes for podcasts
- Descript for podcast editing
- Figma, Canva for graphics
- YouTube for video
- Twitter, FB for distribution
- Substack for newsletters
- Makerpad for nocode
- Ghost, Medium for blog
What else?
The process of converting social influencers into media founders (a trend that has been going on for 10+ years at this point) will be increasingly streamlined.
V1 is link-in-bio, Substack, and sponcon.
V2 likely involves more angels & tokenization a la @tryrollhq. What else?
Why lack of awareness? Influencer monetization numbers are not as public as tech numbers.
There isn’t a TechCrunch & CrunchBase for media founders, chronicling the valuations of influencers.
But that’d be quite valuable. If you are interested in doing this, please DM with demo.
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Please add your own.
2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you
1/\u201cWhat would need to be true for you to\u2026.X\u201d
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) December 4, 2018
Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?
A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody: https://t.co/Yo6jHbSit9
3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.
“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”
“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”
4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:
“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”
“What’s end-game here?”
“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”
5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:
“What would the best version of yourself do”?