Gold Phone and Mobile Service Blasted as Latest 'Trump Family Profiteering' (www.commondreams.org)
from Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 18:51
https://programming.dev/post/32394096

#technology

threaded - newest

PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social on 17 Jun 18:56 next collapse

Is this a red line

Doomsider@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 06:37 next collapse

Yes, but at this point it looks like the red sharpie is running dry.

rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 13:22 collapse

It’s the latest in a long red line of red lines.

RedEyeFlightControl@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 19:17 next collapse

What better way to get you to pay them to steal and abuse your data?

Peppycito@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 21:25 next collapse

It comes pre-installed with “Your Palantir Pal” AI assistant.

OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml on 18 Jun 04:53 collapse

The goal is to not let them take their fucking money and run. Because then it would be real… So you come up with a new idea, a better idea, a NEW STOCK.

IYKYK 😂

toiletobserver@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 21:01 next collapse

Profiteering is the wrong word.

Instead, crony capitalism, abuse of power, or something else is more appropriate

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 03:40 next collapse

how exactly are they abusing their power with this one?

toiletobserver@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 04:12 next collapse

Using their position of political power to advertise a business which directly benefits them. It is plainly not part of the duties of the office. Same reason good presidents put their financial affairs in a blind trust for the duration of of their term.

nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org on 18 Jun 08:22 next collapse

Besides the naked corruption?

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 00:18 collapse

is a president selling merchandise while in office corruption? because if you think that isn’t, then this isn’t

nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org on 19 Jun 03:35 collapse

Leveraging his office for profit? Yes. By definition it absolutely is

He’s already been violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution.

rmuk@feddit.uk on 18 Jun 09:48 next collapse

For giggles, I’d like you to explain how the President of the United States launching his old overpriced phone on his own overpriced network with every possible element named, adorned and even priced after himself could be considered anything other than abusing their power?

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 00:16 collapse

he’s just selling something that his followers will buy. no one else really cares to.

your logic could be even more effectively applied to him selling merchandise about him and that isn’t an overreach of power in any way

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 18 Jun 16:50 collapse

How is this a real question? We’re fucking cooked.

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 00:14 collapse

bc of a phone 🤦

I’m not even disagreeing with you, but listen to yourself.

Pirate@feddit.org on 18 Jun 11:08 collapse

Instead, crony capitalism, abuse of power, or something else is more appropriate

So, standard capitalism stuff?

toiletobserver@lemmy.world on 18 Jun 16:25 collapse

Kind of, except the person doing it is the sitting president. Call it an aggravating factor.

Flamekebab@piefed.social on 17 Jun 21:25 next collapse

Without proper consequences their behaviour will continue.

k0e3@lemmy.ca on 18 Jun 14:30 collapse

But, but, they’re been blasted. Didn’t you see in the article? Surely, they’ll stop this behaviour this time.

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 03:41 collapse

Blasted is nothing, wake me up when they get slammed.

hansolo@lemmy.today on 17 Jun 21:58 next collapse

Y’all, the last thing the suckers who will buy this want is some Nanny State telling them they can’t buy this.

It’s a stupid fake phone. Let them buy it. Who cares? If not this, the grifters already have 700 other things lined up behind it. Let them pay for our schadenfreude, as they have done so many times before.

surewhynotlem@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 22:03 collapse

The problem is not with the buyers.

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 18 Jun 03:40 next collapse

this is just them making money off people who will willingly give them money

its not some blatant overreach of power, at worst their using their fame as advertising for it

nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org on 18 Jun 08:31 next collapse

The FCC, which licenses radio spectrum and makes the rules for device certification is part of the Executive branch. So are the CFPB and the SEC, or what’s left of them. He’s literally, corruptly leveraging his office to benefit his cons and preventing regulations from applying to himself and his cronies.

Ulrich@feddit.org on 18 Jun 13:07 next collapse

They’re using the office of President to advertise products for personal gain. Not just any products but overpriced Chinese garbage. They’re also lying about them being made in the US, which is illegal.

untakenusername@sh.itjust.works on 19 Jun 00:27 collapse

I’ve got a really good feeling that if sanders were president, and he was selling merchandise, using his position as POTUS to advertise for it, and said it was made in the us while its raw materials were made elsewhere, you’d be fine with that

I’m no fan of trump, but this isn’t an overreach of power nearly as bad as you say it is. its not the job of there potus, but its also not harmful

Ulrich@feddit.org on 19 Jun 00:33 collapse

Your “feelings” are deeply flawed. You know nothing about me.

Bytemeister@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 06:39 collapse

Let’s put it this way.

Pretend I’m some semi-adversarial nation, like Saudi Arabia. I want trump to let off some sanctions, or tariffs, or in general give me preferential treatment compared to other nations. I want to give trump a big sum of money to do this, just writing him a check would be obvious corruption. So instead, I just book whole floors of his hotels during off-peak hours, and at a premium pricing. I don’t even bother having anyone stay in the rooms, so trump can even book those rooms again for additional money. I just “legitimately” sent trump a bunch of money, and now he is paying it forward by stopping investigations into my goons sawing journalists into tiny pieces.

If this sounds to far-fetched for you, keep in mind that it literally happened.

apnews.com/…/travel-business-saudi-arabia-malaysi…

This phone company trump has made really only exists as a bit of paper and some software. It has no infrastructure, no brick and mortar store fronts, nor any assets. It’s mostly an agreement with a large carriers to lease time on their networks, charged per usage amount. For this scenario, let’s pretend I’m Vladimir Putin trying to pay trump for leaving Ukraine high and dry. I simply put in orders for Trump’s phone service, and then never even use the phones. Hell, a physical phone is probably never sent. On paper, it looks like 100,000 people signed up for the service, but they never use any of the lines, so trump collects nearly 100% of the money, with just a little bit lost to keep a small server up to handle transactions and accounts.

If none of this makes sense to you as an obvious vector for trump to receive money from foreign agents, then I’d guess that you’re the kind of person who thinks that the mob ran legitimate protection services.

Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 08:49 next collapse

Let’s break down who’s actually going to buy this piece of shit.

Anyone with any experience with buying a modern Android phone?.. Nope. Metro, Tello, US Cellular, etc are all cheaper than Trump Mobile by almost half the price and the phone itself is a REVVL variant selling for $500, and Apple fans aren’t watching anyway.

So that just leaves extremely uninformed people who don’t know any better. You’ll be able to identify how little they know by the fact that they’ll pay double the going-rate of an MVNO for an overpriced, gold slab of feces.

A lot of Apple fans are tied into their ecosystem, either by profession or just history with the brand. Any Android phone means upending their lives if they depend on their phones for business or pleasure, and a lot of them are Apple fans because Tim Cook keeps Trump 39.5ft away, so they’re off the books.

TL/DR: Get ready to see a bunch of boomers walk out of church with gold phones.

Ulrich@feddit.org on 18 Jun 13:04 next collapse

the phone itself is a REVVL variant selling for $500

I don’t think the phone actually exists, it’s just a digital mockup.

Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub on 18 Jun 16:02 collapse

…that’s even worse somehow

Infinite@lemmy.zip on 19 Jun 05:44 collapse

39.5ft

Nice Grinch reference.

ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee on 18 Jun 10:54 next collapse

But Trump just said he hates talking on phones….wtf?

melsaskca@lemmy.ca on 18 Jun 11:42 next collapse

I think that Trump feels that this will finally impress Ivana enough.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 18 Jun 12:52 collapse

Ho is his coin doing? Didn’t hear much about that…

answersplease77@lemmy.world on 19 Jun 06:17 collapse

All his family coins are 95% down. The worse problem is that their coins were designed from the start with the sole purpose to draw donations indirectly to Trump ( and for favors in return? as the case was with Justin Sun, who is the #1 Trump coin holder, and he previously donated a million to trump to pardon him from his fraud case. )

Both of the Trump and Malenia coin whitepapers, fee percentages, premined allocations and locked durations…etc everything shows clear as day that it’s a grift to the Trump family and that all coin revenues go to them that it’s impossible for the coin to gain any value.

That’s not my opinion. Those are the facts that everyone has reported on already.

Akasazh@feddit.nl on 19 Jun 09:17 collapse

Ow it was clear to me it was a Grift, it’s his only modus operandi.

Thanks for the detailed write up, very insightful!