If someone says they're not interested in dating Republicans, it doesn't mean they are any better than the average person at picking one out from a crowd.

Valve is profitable because of the reputation they've built up over many years as being an incredibly consumer friendly storefront. Avoiding corporate bloat, and focusing their attention on the core aspects of their business consumers care about has allowed them to thrive where many others failed. Valve created and maintained a fantastic product. So yes.

The pyramids were built over two thousand years before the coliseum. Saying they are of the same time period is like claiming the Eiffel tower and the coliseum are of the same period too!

Thanks for the response! Would the idea then be that over time, the other two workers would eventually have to be given equal ownership over the operation?

As an asside, regarding the unanimous minus one vote policy as well, it seems like all you'd need to ensure that you never got removed was to ally yourself with one other person who would promise to never vote against you.

Thanks for the response! In my scenario I consider ownership to be the ability to make executive decisions surrounding the business. This could range from what products we choose to sell, what the sign on the front says, who we buy our ingredients from, how much we charge customers for, how much we spend on cleaning supplies, the color of the wallpaper, when we decide to look for new employees, ect...

If I'm the sole worker at my operation, I have full authority over all these things!

Thanks for the comment! I agree that owning ten tractors that I don't personally use VS leasing out my one personal vehicle in the off season feels different, but I'm not exactly clear on where the line is drawn and by what standards it is.

Isn't me being the sole person who can decide who can and can't lease my equipment and at what rate / how much compensation I expect to receive for the privilege of doing so kind of make me a boss already, even if I don't formally employ anyone in a business?

I think we both understand that some form of compensation is fair, as use of the equipment will gradually degrade it's quality, presents an inconvenience to me (no option to use it on the days it's gone), and an increased risk of the tractor becoming inoperable (catching fire, catastrophic failure, falling off a cliff, ect...) all of which as the sole owner of the equipment I am expected to absorb the cost of.

I'm also sure that whomever I'm leasing the equipment out to understands what fair compensation is and won't likely take me up on an offer if I ask for too much. (Half of whatever is harvested with my machine! Mwahaha!)

But I can also see a case where perhaps the equipment is so much more efficient that over time, choosing not to lease from me will result in me being four or five times more productive than you are, creating a big resource disparity between us and giving me extra bargaining power over you.

This would be an issue if the servers use any proprietary code, libraries, or services the developer is not at liberty to distribute.

A studio may also to reuse their networking code for a sequel, and it would suck being forced to release that just because an older title got discontinued - could lead to exploits, or just competitors profiting off of your hard work with no compensation in exchange.

Your definition doesn't seem to be correct. This article mentions government granted monopolies (i.e hydro) and states monopolies (i.e healthcare).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly

Contrary to what I said earlier, residents of certain provinces have been complaining that the quality of their healthcare has been substandard, and are upset that there are no alternatives available as the law forbids private doctors from even setting up shop there.

I suspect if we banned the ability to earn profits from farming, there wouldn't be many people who would want to farm. Personally, I'd rather choose an unprofitable job that was less exhausting, like being a starving artist.

If I took 100 of the world's best-selling novels, wrote each individual word onto a flashcard, shuffled the entire deck, then created an entirely new novel out of that, (with completely original characters, plot threads, themes, and messaged) could it be said that I produced stolen work?

What if I specifically attempted to emulate the style of the number one author on that list? What if instead of 100 novels, I used 1,000 or 10,000? What if instead of words on flashcards, I wrote down sentences? What if it were letters instead?

At some point, regardless of by what means the changes were derived, a transformed work must pass a threshold whereby content alone it is sufficiently different enough that it can no longer be considered derivative.

"Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs voted in favour of an NDP motion calling for an inquiry to include a look at attempted interference not only by China but also Russia, Iran and India. The Liberals voted against that motion."

Conservatives and NDP in agreement for once.

As I understand it, meta has announced they will be deplatforming Canadian news and links. In retaliation, the federal government will no longer pay for advertisements on their platform.