Google Chrome and “Enhanced Ad Privacy”.
That won’t destroy their community.
edit: Because people who use chrome, doesn’t care about privacy, freedom or anything like that.
Not because it’s good, but because it’s Google marketing it as a privacy “enhancement”
It is not, it is simply another way to frame privacy violation from Google as some sort of good thing, and I believe as more techy people it is somewhat our duty to inform others about this.
Like when Google and Facebook remind you to take a “privacy checkup” which is bullshit and does nothing for your actual privacy from them.
Their “privacy checkup” is pretty much equal to “can you give us your phone number so we can more closely link it to your identity please? 👉👈”
It got me off Chrome, at long last.
I should start marketing cyanide as a painkiller too, goddamn.
Wizards of the Coast
Oh I’m so done with their shit.
What is it this time?
Despite previous promises that they would not, they did something similar to Unity and tried to retroactively change their Open Gaming License to force creators of Dungeons & Dragons derived products to give up ownership of their products unless they pay exorbitant sums.
They also sent the Pinkertons to intimate a guy who got shiped some unreleased Magic the Gathering cards by accident.
Well nothing in particular, I’ve been done with the rate of MTG product releases for a while now, hate the universe beyond as for me it damages the feel of the game significantly, and the overall price increase is just rude at this point.
Decentralize. Democratize. Demonetize. Time for a new internet, a new gaming industry, and a way of sharing thoughts and ideas where clout is the least important factor.
Meaningful interactions, connections and privacy shall be prioritized.
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Some clients let you block all botted content
That control needs to be more granular than on/off.
Because the rest of humanity is still plugged in to the matrix and bots are the only way we can hear them and discuss where they’re taking about
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Don’t forget strong policies to keep everything from enshittifying all over again! Check out Cory Doctorow’s thoughts from DefCon: https://youtu.be/rimtaSgGz_4?feature=shared
Time to return to the OG internet then?
Literally every company is doing this. There was a time when, for example, Apple could reverse engineer the Word document format and make their own word processor that uses them. This was very common and resulted in things like IBM PC clones that sped up innovation.
Now companies use litigation and corporate buyouts to reduce their competition, then set up ways to extract rents on customers rather than providing a service. Business folks love this because it means a consistent stream of revenue that won’t go away. And now you’ve got carmakers looking to charge by the month for features.
For more details, read Chokepoint Capitalism.
And now you’ve got carmakers looking to charge by the month for features.
When I reach the point at which I am forced to buy a car like that, I’d just find out from where the feature gets controlled and hack in my own controller and a good 'ol switch.
Right now it’s your right to do what you want to your car as long as it still passes vehicle inspection, but it appears that car makers want new laws that prevent you from modifying your own car.
If we just sit on our hands now, well likely move into a future where we will be forced to either pay subscription or take public transit, which requires subscriptions.
The Library of Congress added “software that runs land vehicles” to their copyright exceptions somewhat recently. That’s why farmers are legally allowed to use cracked software from Ukrainian grain farmers to run/repair their tractors
Even allowed now I would never ever modify my car firmware due to huge liability in case of any incident. Literally any insurance company figuring out you tempered with car software would try to take all the money paid for damages back from you.
You can inject CAN bus commands if you can sniff what they’re sending. No firmware modification necessary. Not saying it’s a good idea to do so, but it is possible to do so.
At least public transit is an ongoing service. I’m far less opposed to subscriptions when I’m actually being provided with something for them.
Car manufacturers trying to charge subscriptions for features in the car you own feels like racketeering. They’re not providing an ongoing service, they’re asking me to keep paying them to not remove a feature.
This was very common and resulted in things like IBM PC clones that sped up innovation.
i don’t think it was due to reverse engineering but bcz of releasing specification by IBM them self due to which other manufacturer where able to make identical clone and can run extracted BIOS from IBM PC without any modification!
Microsoft. They’ve been itching to go to a fully cloud-dependent subscription-only model for Windows for a while now.
I could’ve sworn that they said win 10 was going to be the last windows and it would just receive updates.
the surprising thing there isn’t that they went back on their word, but that they said it in the first place.
Seriously, how could an OS company seriously believe they’d never need or want to release a new major version
It was to keep everyone in their eco system and just update it as they found more ways to extract revenue
Right but they could have done that without promising that 10 would be the last Windows version. Let’s be honest, everyone is already locked into their ecosystem outside of enthusiasts and people with Apple Hardware. If you want a non-mac laptop/desktop, unless you go well out of your way, you’re almost certain to end up with a Windows PC, they didn’t need the “last version” gimmick to keep people on Windows.
Hell, a lot of non-techy people who are already used to using Windows would rather not use a computer than learn to use a new OS. It’s easy to forget how tech illiterate the average person is
I’m probably one of the less technically literate people here and in my case, you’re absolutely right. I assume Linux involves typing commands somewhere and I, frankly, have to look up how to do a vlookup in excel every time it happens.
I would probably prefer to use my phone (an old ass iPhone) instead of a computer with a totally new os. I’m not a huge fan of macs, but it’s still basically the same on the user end. I suspect linux is more different.
Inb4: I straight up don’t have time to switch my os for at least a year, I just wanted to support the above comment. I am well aware that my assumptions are probably wrong, just wanted to share what the reputation of Linux is among non tech people (if they’ve ever even heard of it).
I assume Linux involves typing commands somewhere
It doesn’t, it’s akin to command prompt/poweshell on Windows albeit less verbose or Terminal in Mac. It’s just something you can do but if you don’t use it on Windows then you aren’t going to need it on Linux
I would probably prefer to use my phone instead of a computer with a totally new os
Android/Chrome OS are Linux, I think this is the easiest way to show people how little “command typing” is needed
just wanted to share what the reputation of Linux is among non tech people
Tech people use that reputation as well, a bunch of people think it makes them smarter but Linux is better for non tech people than Windows because it has a natural defense against scammers/viruses.
I switched to it because Windows was too complicated and I couldn’t get anything to run well <- Linux has less overhead but that wasn’t my issue
I believe you, I just don’t have any issues with windows, so there’s no need to change.
it’s akin to command prompt/poweshell on Windows albeit less verbose or Terminal in Mac. It’s just something you can do but if you don’t use it on Windows then you are going to need it on Linux.
You just lost 99% of windows and Mac users right there.
You should read up the Halloween documents to get a better understanding of where some of those assumptions (which to be fair have since become something of a self fulfilling prophecy…) originate from.
I am well aware that my assumptions are probably wrong
No, no, this is entirely accurate. It’s just that the Linux-a-boos would love to tell you otherwise. But it’s all a bunch of circle jerking. The people who are willing to deal with that and have already dived need justification and will tell you it’s simple.
Sure, some distros are a bit more hands off and “works out of the box”. But you still have to find the box. And figure out how to open the box. And figure out how to get it out of the box. And then it just works. Until it doesn’t.
It’s not as hard as it used to be, but anyone telling you “any normie can just do it and never look back” is full of shit. It still has its hurdles and you’ll still be occasionally troubleshooting your own PC. Most people don’t want that. But the people who do are already running Linux.
My grandmother has been running under Linux for about 6 years now after constantly needing people to fix her Windows install. She can barely use Facebook.
Some people stay on previous versions though and that means less of a base to send advertisements to
It’s not a worry of people going to Linux, it’s a worry of people staying on 10 instead of going to 11
As a lifelong windows user, 10 is my last windows, I’ve heard nothing but garbage from those I know running win11.
I will be switching, it’s just a matter of distros, better support for gaming/vr/drivers etc.
I’ve been messing around with Ubuntu on an Orange Pi 5 and so far, apart from gnome (even with extensions) I’m really pleased and feel much more in control of my hardware.
The moment I heard of ads in the start menu on 11 I vowed it won’t happen, and yet the bing bar showed up on my desktop last week after am update. Needless to say I’ve already been into the registry to fix that issue, but yes, that basically sums up how I feel, and I know most I know feel the same re: MS Windows at this point.
I assumed what they ment where that with W10 they would transition from point releases to a rolling release model.
This is common in the Linux world, Arch being the most well known example.
Yeah then MacOS 11 came out after 20 years. The idea was to have the same version number for the dumb dumbs. It’s why the Xbox 2 was called Xbox 360 so it’d match PlayStation 3, but bigger.
Firefox did the same bullshit. Was on version 5 for ages, saw chrome do insane version numbers, „oh no they might think we are outdated“. Now firefox v110.
What a pile of shit
LOL why do you care what version number it is? They could switch to using letters, I wouldn’t give a shit.
The part that’s cool is rolling updates. It just doesn’t make sense to have a release schedule like they did. The reason why software had that in the first place was for marketing: you’re supposed to get excited for the new version 6.0 or whatever and run down to the computer store and buy it to replace your old, outdated version 5.0. That model doesn’t make sense for software that’s free, though. Incremental updates make more sense. Features get rolled out gradually instead of being all bundled together for a big, splashy upgrade.
I do not care about the version numbers, i care about „oh no, chrome is doing something, quick we need to adjust or we will be laughed upon“.
Copying chrome is the pile of shit.
Rolling updates makes sense, i agree with that.
A giant tech company lied!? That’s not something that’s ever happened before.
99% of people who use Windows wouldn’t even mind, I think.
This is a turning point and I’m here for it
Twitter, Reddit, Facebook=> FediverseUnity=> GodotAAA Studios=> Indie devsI sure hope so. It’s about damn time.
godot
They’re at a turning point alright. To be fair sounds like things are better, new dev fund but still
Thats some pretty sily drama.
They’re at a turning point alright.
What was the final fallout / results of that controversy? That was a couple of months ago.
I support all of this. Especially the fediverse.
Enshittification
What’d Blizzard do?
Warcraft 3 reforged, Diablo Immortal, Diablo 4, ow2, anything else?
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They completely botched the WotLK server situation launch as well.
I waited for that shit for years, and me and many others couldn’t play no matter how much money we were willing to spend to do so. I don’t know if they ever fixed the servers, but back in December they were still a hot mess.
Also, to a lesser degree, SC2.
They certainly lost a loyal customer in me, at least.
Those were good business decisions though
Well this year was overwatch 2, which was pretty much the same game but wrapped in skeezy monetization, with the excuse that they needed to drop a sequel (and delete the original) for their new PVE content. Then a few months later, they announced they weren’t even going to do the PVE content, but they were keeping the new monetization.
Seriously fuck them to death for this. And their “new maps” is just like the same fucking maps but at nighttime or daytime instead! OoO what a sequel! The company deserves to crash and burn.
Also I PAID for one of the call of duty games and after a year they one day just said I can’t play it anymore because they ended support for older versions of windows, of course they also refused to refund me. I didn’t buy “one year” of gameplay I bought the fucking game. Never making that mistake again.
Just relentlessly fucking greedy and shitty. It’s a shame people enable this bullshit by spending $30 on character skins and paying out the ass for lootboxes. We need to answer them with the loss of our business. I did my part and uninstalled all their IP and refuse to give them another dollar of my money ever again until/unless I see a 180 in their policies and practices.
I didn’t buy “one year” of gameplay I bought the fucking game.
That right there is the root of the overall problems we’re seeing: licensing, and the increasing willingness of assholes with MBAs to use licensing as a weapon to increase profits.
When you pay your money, you’re not getting anything but the right to use the thing for as long as the company decides to let you keep using it. They take your money AND they retain the right to revoke or change the license whenever and however they want.
The only way to win this kind of game is to a) not play it, and/or b) take to the high seas.
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This year was also Diablo 4. And they have been driving that one further and further into the ground. The OW2 lore shit is another turd on the pile. Dragonflight is continuing a “more of the same but we told it’d be different” trend, but is honestly their smallest fuck up in a list of fuck ups.
Was HotS dying last year? OW1 was basically on life support for the past two years in order to support the OW2 fiasco so I feel like that should count as it’s own entity… Once we’re into last year, there’s Diablo Immoral
The list goes on.
They took the dev team away from hots (only blizzard game/moba worth playing) so they could work on their pve
Wasn’t that last year?
Maybe? It’s all blurring together for me. It was at least this year that they cancelled the PVE stuff.
That’d make sense, I just remember visiting my brother in-law around christmas last year and he was playing it and telling me about the controversy about it being the same game.
But yeah everything blurs together lately, don’t know if it’s because everything is so chaotic, or just because I’m getting old lol
Overwatch 2 PvE got cancelled, although it was basically the selling point of OW2.
Seriously? They’ve been one of the most shitty companies for years. They’ve been on the top of the most talked about and widely shown because of all their bad decisions. How does anyone who has even a remote idea and interest about this not know that?
Twitter Reddit Unity Blizzard Microsoft Epic Google All of the Movie industry. All of the animation industry. All of the Gaming publishers.
Basically, everything, everywhere.
You forgot car companies asking for subscriptions to use your heated seats.
Cars are going to get really terrible really soon if not already. They are becoming less of mechanical machines on wheels and more of computers on wheels. Car companies like Tesla are already harvesting every tiny bit of personal data from you as they possibly can. Other car manufacturers aren’t much better. It is truly a privacy nightmare. Any new car you get you will basically have to gut it and cut out the part that tracks everything you do.
Sounds like a new industry about to pop up: the secure your vehicle and privacy industry. Just like there’s after market parts and repair, we’ll be needing to go to an expert to rip out all the bs from cars.
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/05/infrastructure-bill-travel-data-cars-privacy/
And soon that will potentially be tax evasion
Cars are the worst. What a terrible blight on the US.
Charge more, pay and offer less.
All of the animation industry.
Corporate enshitification and the Woke/anti-Woke debate are two very different things.
Casino industry. I.e. mgm, penn, Caesars, station casinos, etc.
“Why don’t you pay for every damn bullet you fire in the game you fucking peasants!!??” -Unity CEO
That’s EAs former CEO lmao
Unity’s current CEO is the ex-EA CEO isn’t he?
Yep and he’s a dingbat
I hear Discord is due for its enshitification.
I’m surprised they made it this long. Never bought into their cutesy signaling.
But also, that place felt oppressive with a smiling face.
Moderation there is worse than a joke. I gave them a motherlode of screenshots, discord links, timestamps to Nazi content being posted on a single server, and their employees would simply pretend I didn’t give it to them and keep asking for discord links, as though they were unable to follow up on it otherwise.
You are one of the oppressors
Oh no, how dare they dislike Nazis that go against Discord’s TOS
TOS is oppression too
I hear Discord is due for its enshitification
I’d really like to be able to use it without having to give up my cell phone number to do so, especially when I’m on my PC / web browser.
But how else would they tie your account to your real identity for marketing data collection purposes?
It really needs a competitor
Check out Revolt
Unfortunately and admittedly, we are the problem. These companies know that people pay for convenience and stick to what they know. If we were less likely to do so companies would have to raise their standards. Take Twitter for example, even with Musks over inflated numbers other sources indicate there’s still hundreds of millions of Twitter users. They see all of the things Musk has done and it hasn’t buried his business thus they are now taking pages out of his book.
I just think people shouldn’t be chided for doing what is convenient when so much of our economy is attention based. Kind of like hating the players instead of the game.
I have enough hate for both and more tyvm
Agreed on convenience being enough for most people. Unity isn’t going anywhere. They are priced above Unreal now but they have the market share to justify it. There are a million other game engines with newer approaches than “coke and pepsi” but they take more work and there’s less community to pull from. There are just so many assets and abilities pre built in those game engines that allow a young developer to be productive. If you don’t need all of that then you have a wide pick of frameworks to apply your code chops to. I’d love for Godot to become Dr Pepper but it’s got a long way to go for even that slot. If unity had done this in a year or two from now it might be a different story but it takes a long time to reach a status like Blender, and even Blender isn’t the go-to for industry professionals. I love LibreOffice but I’ve never worked at a company that is willing to tolerate those little rough edges.
Twitter is still the centralized place for a mainstream figure/organization to engage from. They have all researched mastodon and the like, opened accounts, and can’t get the same engagement. It takes people more work to find their accounts in other places and most lay-users just aren’t going to put in the effort. They’re only in it for the lulz. This may reach a critical mass someday like with myspace but any alternative still needs a central point to funnel them to. Reddit doesn’t benefit from centralization the same way and I think Lemmy/ap will scratch the itch for major topics, but it’s still harder to grow smaller communities that aren’t risa.
Blizzard has been being blizzard for years, that’s not just a 2023 thing!
I wish it was different. We all hate nodding to authority. But there’s a certain momentum that carries with popularity and they can surf that on their enshittification for years to come.
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Well, shares are company value, not product value. And companies are valued by their ability to create value. A terrible decision usually doesn’t mean much, and share price fluctuation is mainly speculative in nature. A large company may survive a bad CEO, and create value down the road. Even a crashing company has value, as it may be split and sold with a profit, turning shares into cash.
All in all, as much as I hate, EA for example, they have a strong position and can easily eat up failed releases for years to come. Many of their releases are payed off with only pre-orders.
Netflix.
The streaming industry has been slowly burning down for a while now. I see more and more people pirating than buying another subscription for another fucking streaming platform that has like one good show to watch.
Red Hat (Enrerprise Linux) & HashiCorp (Terraform) closed the source of their products in different ways, also fucking over their community of clients and contributors, though their reasoning seems slightly more sane than “no more free money, aaargh!”
Companies can no longer continue to grow through innovating their products or services. Companies are no longer competing in that domain because they have already conquered it completely.
Companies can no longer grow through marketing and branding. Branding is everything and everywhere now, even normal people have personal brands, they have already conquered that domain and most people have grown to disdain marketing and branding so its less effective than ever.
Companies can no longer grow through data collection and advertising. All data is collected, ads are everywhere and they are always listening to everything we say and do. They have already conquered that domain.
Now all that’s left is competition through exploitation. It’s the only way companies can continue to grow. That is the stage of capitalism we are entering.
Also, for a long time back until this year, money used to be close to free. Now interest is way up and suddenly companies are forced with the prospect of needing more revenue.
Continued unlimited growth turns out to be not sustainable…
