Special interview with Vladimir Milov, former Russian deputy energy minister

Key points:

What Wildberries probably is a Russian version of an earlier Amazon, when Amazon was not worth much and was struggling to find its way to become a major business, but in a much smaller, sanctions-plagued market like Russia

Thinking that if you take down Wildberries all Russian retail trade will collapse is wrong. No, it will not. Retail is one of the fastest-recovering, most flexible, and most fluid industries. Russia can live without it. It did so only a few years ago.

The main conclusion from Ukrainian strikes, sanctions, and all these sources of pressure is that the pressure is working. The cracks are visible. Ukrainian strikes are adding fuel to the fire, significantly and visibly exacerbating the crisis

The article also goes into more details related to the June partnership between Wildberries and VTB (“Foreign Trade Bank"), one of the biggest Russian players and second-biggest bank after Sberbank, and how big of a whole it is for them

  • comador @lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    14 days ago

    A lot of people, especially aspiring writers trying to make a buck don’t know substack is a shit company, so I get it.

    Alternatives: Patreon, Curated, Medium, Beehiiv, Ghost and Kit top the list for writers.

    • Vicinus@piefed.zipEnglish
      4·
      14 days ago

      Added info on Ghost, it’s part of the fediverse. I’m not sure their level of integration, but I recall ghost accounts being able to post onto mastodon. Supposedly, they have a much better fee structure than patron or substack too.

      Definitely verify what I’ve said, I’m going based on recollection and its been a while since I checked it out.

      • comador @lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 days ago

        Hurray! Docker or flat? Regardless, you’re in control and don’t have to pay anyone for access, especially nazis, which is always a relief. Congratulations!

        • doo@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
          3·
          10 days ago

          Indeed. And thank you :)

          I’ll use it as a showcase for my cloud architecture ideas, so right now it’s a basic single-vm with a plan to gradually optimise it into the oblivion (way beyond docker if l get my way) and document/blog the process.