Ugh, sorry, the “do your research” phrase to deflect something makes me roll my eyes hard. It might kinda make sense for topics where there is actually research, like COVID prevention, or climate change; and even then, people seem to use it a lot to mean “read stuff I’ve read that I had preselected to agree with my views regardless of whether it’s backed by actual science”. But I find it even more out-of-place when the science we’re talking about is a Kickstarter campaign… It’s become such a catchphrase for thinly veiled attempts at gaslighting people.

But anyway, back to the substance of it. I definitely didn’t mean that anyone in this thread anywhere blames companies for that, I only meant it in a general sense. I agree no one here was particularly doing it. But I’m sure you’d agree that large companies being out-of-touch with their customers is hardly a marginal view.

If by “paywall options” you mean the cheap levels that don’t grant you the actual product, yeah, I posted another comment about those, I’m a bit puzzled why people would actually give their money for that. I just don’t see the point of those, so I can’t really judge the ethical aspects without understanding why on Earth people feel compelled to buy those. I would have expected those levels to have 0 people, but I guess they don’t.

However, for people interested in getting the product, and companies interested in wrapping up the product with those people’s input, I still really can’t see anything unethical going on here. It feel like a win for everyone.

Yeah, that I do not get. It’s basically donating money to a corporation just to receive marketing updates about a product? I don’t get it…

Yeah, same, I’m not particularly shocked here. We often blame large companies for being oblivious to what their audience really wants; this is a large company trying to test the waters to better understand and produce what their audience really wants. I’d say that’s not a bad thing for whoever’s interested in those kinds of products for that kind of price.

Also, I bought a few things out of Kickstarter over the years, and some came out looking pretty good, some… not so much. When the Kickstarter campaign fails hard enough, the supplier ends up disappearing into the ether, and the consumer is left holding the bag. It’s the name of the game, it is what it is. Another upside of this Kickstarter campaign is that since there’s a wealthy company behind it, the people giving that money know that they’ll at least get something.

Honestly I never bought that cryptocurrencies could remain unregulated long, there was just no reason for governments to want it to stay that way. It probably took more time for the regulator to catch up than I initially thought, but the writing was on the wall from day 1.

For NFTs; yeah, I see what you mean. And digital asset management don’t feel to me like it particularly needed that kind of disruption. Like, there isn’t significant business upside or value to my house title’s ownership being stored in the blockchain, rather than in my county’s private database like it is today. And since there wasn’t a reason for people to assign any perceived business value to the NFT vs the private DB record, therefore the NFT had no value, by definition. I could just never see it.

My thoughts exactly.

I was told that except for flying scams under regulatory radars, the thing it’s great at is low-trust business transactions. But like, there are so many application-level ways to reasonably guarantee trust of any kind of transaction for all kinds of business needs, into a private database. I guess it would be an amazing solution if those other simpler ways didn’t exist!

So true.

With LLMs, I can think of a few realistic and valuable applications even if they don’t successfully deliver on the hype and don’t actually shake the world upside down. With blockchain, I just could never see anything in it. Anyone trying to sell me on its promises would use the exact words people use to sell a scam.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking too. Zelenskyy had to know that a NATO invitation right now is not realistic. I think it’s posturing to invite constituents in other countries to also act offended that Ukraine isn’t helped more, which then would be in the form of more war support, since it can’t really be much else. Can’t blame him for always taking all opportunities to get more support.

Thanks for that, I definitely learned some. I’m not surprised that it takes some smart thinking to get this to even be remotely possible, and it’s interesting to read what smart thinking goes into it. I was at Lake Mead recently, and it was impressive to be explained how much it had receded over the past few years, and how much of a strain on it Vegas keeps putting despite the mitigation. I wonder how long before it just runs out, if it does; and what happens next.

Yeah, it’s amazing how much of a pass Vegas gets about the complete lack of sustainability. Like, for instance, I don’t know, having tons of thirsty tourists and gigantic pools in the middle of a freaking desert! Kinda nuts…

I hadn’t even noticed that. Yeah, weird idea…

https://www.thespherevegas.com/

My guess is the blue screen picture is fake, but it’s still pretty funny.

Yup, that’s what I’ve been saying since the beginning too. It’s kinda good news that they met a probably very fast death, instead of the slow suffocation people were talking about.

“Reopen this, or else!”

But they’re carefully avoiding to say or else what. My guess is every next step option would cost them resources at the scale of subreddits they’re reaching out to, so they’re hoping that the empty threat alone will cause some to relent without costing them anything. Right?