As discussed here:

Honestly they do it so consistently that i’m starting to wonder if they have a choice.

A common way to do things for tech startups is that they get venture capital funds, use them to run the business at a loss hoping to acquire market dominance, and then use market dominance to turn a profit. I think a lot of tech startups that we know are currently in phase 2, meaning they’ve thrown money out the window for years and are now trying to recoup their investments.

Also, Reddit wants to go public and Twitter already is. This is relevant because investors are animals, all they see is short-term profit, and they use their voting power to make the company behave that way.

There’s a common thread between both my theories: it’s shareholder capitalism. I say this as a lifelong shareholder myself, shareholders ruin everything.

This is a thing that annoys me and it's not just Microsoft doing this: there's never a "No" button, it's always "Not now" or "Maybe later". As if i'm going to reconsider. As if it's an honest offer worth thinking about and not a pop-up.

You're coming at this from the design and community aspect. I don't think Lemmy makes significant improvements over Reddit on those fronts, it's designed the same, has the same benefits and drawbacks. As of right now the small size of the community makes it lacking in diversity and impractical for niche interests (aside from tech-related ones).

My case for Lemmy being better is a business case: Reddit was a for-profit company backed by venture capital, and is now publicly traded. They are extremely susceptible to enshittification, and are in fact already deep in that process.

Meanwhile, Lemmy is an open source software that enables users to host their own social media. It's not even a business at all, i'm not even sure if the developer (LemmyNet) is a business or a person or some other legal entity.

Fediverse social medias (Lemmy, Mastodon) are structurally resilient to the enshittification that we're seeing from corporate social medias, and i like that a lot.

Yeah i've learned not to trust this kind of simmetrical worldview, even when it makes me feel smart for being above it.

A goddamn dishwasher. I used to wash a lot of dishes by hand growing up so it took until my 30's before i realized that dishwashers are a wonderful invention.

The internet can amplify incredibly marginal phenomenons. Like, how many incels can there possibly be? Yet you hear about them all the time

I thought the comments section would be filled with vapes.

Guys, i think vapes are a good candidate for something that hindsight will show us was dangerous, and i think images of teens smoking Juul will age as poorly as kids drinking beer.

OK so Biden had a bad debate, was visibly incoherent for a while beforeheand, and they took him out of the race.

Now Trump has had a bad debate and has been visibly incoherent for years. Is the GOP going to take him out of the race for a stronger candidate?

I don't want to make a false equivalency, these are different parties and different candidates; Trump supporters are more loyal than usual, and he would take them with him as he's not likely to accept his exclusion, so the GOP taking Trump out of the race is riskier than Dems taking Biden out of the race.

But, seen from the left, conservatives are the ones with a reputation for ruthless pragmatism when it comes to electoral politics. They're the ones who sacrifice their values by voting for candidates that do advance their goals.

A lot of leftists, out of idealism, wouldn't vote for Clinton in 2016 or Biden in 2020; meanwhile evangelicals made the pragmatic decision to vote for Trump, the least christian man in the whole GOP, because he furthers their anti-abortion agenda. I argue that conservatives are absolutely correct in this, voting for a candidate that you don't like just to advance your goals is the correct approach to representative democracy. My evidence for this is that evangelical voters were rewarded for their vote when of Roe v Wade was overruled thanks to judges from the Trump administration.

So i think, if the GOP replaces Trump but keeps an equally extremist agenda, there's a world where electoral pragmatism causes those voters to transfer over, leading to better odds of a GOP victory. And a conservative presidency other than Trump would push their agenda more efficiently than the first Trump presidency did or than a second Trump presidency would.

Uh... So DON'T do that. That should not happen. It would be the right thing for the GOP to do, which means it's the wrong thing and i hope it doesn't happen.

Physical buttons. Sometimes an app or the OS itself will fuck up and not show you the home or back button for example.

I would miss headphone jacks but any phone worth buying still comes with those... for now

Does this matter if the traffic is encrypted, such as an https website instead of http? Like, really how often is internet traffic unencrypted?

Maybe i'm already half asleep, but i love this comment that starts out on topic then drifts into a unrelated rant written in the most entertaining way.

Surely "speed of sound" must be an exaggeration, i don't see the object reaching mach 1 and then stopping within such a short distance.

Plus they happened to be in a hospital, so chances of survival are maximized.

A lot has been said about Call of Duty MWII, but if your theory is correct then we'll have to say that, of all things, its plot was prescient. And i'm not ready for that

The best explanation i've seen is this:

Places that put children under the authority of adults (schools, camps, etc) are appealing for child predators; but where most will kick them out when/if found, the Catholic Church makes it easier for them to stay in.

This is because of a religious belief that God judges men for their sins, eventually rehabilitates them, and the job of mere mortals is to forgive and forget.

I really like this explanation because it doesn't flatter my atheist sentiment and provides a very neat and rational cause-and-effect relation, it's a thing that's specific about the Church compared to other institutions.

Priests also take a vow of chastity, in people's minds they're supposed to be above sexual desire; and they have an extra aura of authority compared to the average teacher or summer camp instructor. Both of these things makes it harder for children and parents to question them.

And once they do question them, the Church gets a similar behavior to other institutions where they'll try to protect their reputation by burying the case. I'm not sure which positions are supposed to be held for life, i assume most of them, and so that makes firing someone (or whatever the right word is in this context) a bigger deal.

Thems my attempted explanations

Thanks for sharing your knowledge of ancient Hindu scripture, SexualPolytope.

As a lazy fuck who has let his dishes get gross and moldy more than once, i doubt these glasses are too gross to clean.

As a moderator, i find it satisfying to clean my little corner of the internet.

We all see spam an scams when we use social media, and there's not much that you can do about it, maybe report it to admins if you have a minute. For the most part, you're powerless.

But on my fenced area of the internet, i actually get to do something about it. If your bot reposts content on r/shittyfoodporn to farm karma, i will pluck it out like a snail from my salad and kill it. Removing bad content is as satisfying as popping a pimple, it gives me the same joy as a retired dad meticulously cleaning his garden.

The less enjoyable part is when i have to interfere with the users themselves. Mildly saucy fanart will get posted to r/zootopia and i have to decide if it's over or under the line, and it feels bad to remove a post that somebody legitimately just wanted to share.

And if everyone does that, eventually there will be a main community that emerges and the other ones die.

Misleading headline: if you read the article and watch the video, he actually blames school shootings on the lack of moral education, with merely a reference to evolution teaching as an example of amoral atheism in the classroom.

So it's not a cartoonish slogan, it's actually a fairly standard fascist talking point.

And people say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’ Because we’ve taught a whole generation, a couple generations now of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.

I had the exact same reaction and i don't trust that sentiment, i think i'm just hoping for a singular miracle pill that i can take and it will solve all my issues.

Still thought it was worth a try but even getting an appointment with a psychologist of any kind was tough, so here i am still unmedicated even though i relate to a lot of ADD symptoms

Shifting the power from a CEO to an instance admin is a massive improvement.

One has autocratic control over the entire site, potentially hundreds of millions of users, investors breathing down their neck, server infrastructure, and other systemic pressures; meanwhile, a fediverse instance admin has autocratic control over nothing but their own instance, a few thousand users at most, with the only money and hardware involved being their own.

The fediverse is incredibly more horizontal and decentralized than any corporate social media, the improvement is massive. And i'm a believer that vertical structures and concentrations of power are at the root of a lot of problems in society, so this is gravy to me.

But yes, it's worth remembering that it's not completely decentralized, and admins still have absolute power over their instance. My Mastodon instance admin doesn't want us to use the name GIMP to refer to the open source image manipulator; they say "gimp" is a slur aimed at disabled people, which i've never heard before in my life.

I felt a duty to not only place pixels but also coordinate efforts. Picking the design, updating the design, spreading information so the people placing pixels know what's going on, advertising, talking to other communities...

I don't remember them very well but i'm pretty sure i've had 4 hour nights for the entire duration. For place 2023 i spent most of my waking time in Discord calls.

And all this for a game that can be emotionally devastating. Getting overrun by a streamer feels shockingly similar to having big kids trample your sand castle, it's this little thing that you built together getting destroyed by stronger people and they're mocking you relentlessly.

It's true that such a bill was introduced, but wacky bills are introduced all the time. This is proposed legislation, they haven't even voted on it yet, and it's extremely unlikely to pass.

But i think it's also true that you can tell where legislator's minds are based on what wacky bills they introduce.

c/shittyfoodporn

Honestly, i predict people and businesses will keep using Win10 years after it's become unsafe. We've all seen the local warehouse still running Windows 7, i'm thinking that scenario but for millions of users.

That's a cybersecurity problem, but what i'm most concerned with is the e-waste problem, because there's still going to be a lot of users that do replace their PC. There aren't enough Linux users to buy all the computers that will be rendered obsolete, and there won't be by then either. I myself am a new Linux user but i'm already covered, i don't need more computers, not even for cheap.

I just really hope this doesn't end with millions of good computers landfilled or parted. The third world already buys a lot of our e-waste, so i hope they'll get a crapton of relatively good computers for cheap and run either Win10 or Linux

I suspect a lot of yall should say this:

There is nothing worse than seeing my own flaws reflected in someone. Like, if they're a lazy neckbeard who talks about niche media and old-sci-fi while contributing nothing to society.

Especially the flaws i had when i was younger. I die a bit every time i see an unaware selfish arrogant teenager.

Oh my god, this is how 17yo me discovered what Steam is. I was forced to install it and i was SO mad.

Still using Steam 13 years later.

On the one hand, this is true, you gotta vote for the lesser of two evils.

But also, there are only two candidates.

So now it's this shitty situation where US voters just have to vote Biden no matter what, he can do anything and there will never be consequences electorally. And i really feel like there should be consequences for supporting a genocide.

I was gonna say superhero movies but that's more a thing of the 2010s.

Regardless, i think the current phase of Hollywood won't go down in history, all these remakes being unceremoniously shoved into streaming services to be forgotten forever will leave a black hole where 2020's culture should be.

I waste time every day watching YouTube shorts.

The way it's designed, you can see a little bit of the next short, and the curiosity will get me, i'm always really tempted to scroll and find out what the next one is.

I wouldn't intentionally waste time like this, which is why i haven't installed TikTok; but i do watch YouTube every day, and so shorts come get me where i am. And honestly, it's a garbage experience. Part of me thinks i would probably have more fun on TikTok because their algorithm is better. Shorts keeps giving me these channels that edit bits of podcats, often MrBeast and Joe Rogan, and there's loads of channels doing this so i keep seeing it no matter how many i block. What content i do enjoy is drowned out by a lot of trash content like that, and would probably be better in long form anyway.

This is comical because Israel is the attacker, and has been for its entire existence. Their goal is to conquer and ethnically cleanse more territory in order to create an enthnostate.

Hamas only exists as a reaction to israeli colonialism. That's litterally the only reason for their existence.

So, to be precise:

• Israel is finishing a war they did not start

Maybe not in the narrow sense, but the colonial efforts of Israel are responsible for the broader conflict lasting since the 50's, which the current conflict is a chapter of.

• There is literally no way around it

It's not necessary for Israel to conquer Gaza. It would be enough to just not expand their territory and respect human rights and international law, which they never did at any point in 70 years, leading to the current situation where there are no good options anymore.

• The terror attack was the proof that restraint didn’t do anything

The terror attack is a consequence of lack of restraint. (i wouldn't normally word it like that, i'm just using the same words for rhetoric effect)

I wonder if they're old enough to have been there. For people within a pretty narrow age range, it could be interesting to react the way they saw adults react around them, except they're adults now.

I wouldn't have much to contribute, i just remember people talking about something i didn't undersatnd but retrospectively seems to have been 9/11

All of my media companies just say what i want on their own, the fact that i own them is on the back of their minds and makes them self-censor without me needing to say anything. I just hire a manager that i know agrees with my opinions, he then proceeds to hire journalists that agree with our opinions, and they proceed to do what looks like propaganda without anyone needing to be told to do it.

I don't tell my media companies what to report because there's no need to, and if i did then there would be a paper trail.

Can't believe the :.|:; is still being felt all these years alter

Found the answer:

But the stigma regarding Android phones is mostly an American phenomenon, at least to the degree to which it affects purchase habits. Worldwide, per the same Statcounter report, Androids represent the significant majority of all smartphones, holding a 71% share of sales compared with Apple’s 28%.

It's not even a matter of bullying: NFTs disappeared because they were fundamentally not viable, and there's a good chance that generative AI is also not viable.

Generating an output is extremely computationally expensive, which is a problem because you need several attempts to get an acceptable output (at least in terms of images). This service can't stay free or cheap forever, and once it starts being expensive, that's also a problem in itself since generative AI is most suited to generate large amounts of low-profit content.

For example, earlier this month, Deviantart highlighted a creator that they claimed to be one of their highest earners; they made $25k "in less than a year", which is not much for the highest earner, and they did it by posting over NINE THOUSAND images in that time. They were selling exlusives for less than $10.

The only way this makes sense is if it's really cheap to generate that many images. Even a moderate price, multiplied by 9000, multiplied by the number of attempts each time, would have destroyed their already middling profit.

I'm not the one with 'Reddit' in my username.

"Yeah sorry boss, i didn't actually read the email, instead i had an AI summarize it for me and it got a key detail wrong. Anyway what's a couple thousand dollars in lost sales right"

The difference should be the size, but not all of us would know