The last time Google pulled out all the stops to fight ad blockers, I had to update uBlock Origin every now and then until the whole thing passed. That’s all.
So I’m not worried. But I am amused that they keep making ads more obnoxious, which pushes more people to use ad blockers. I didn’t even use sponsorblock until a particularly egregious bit of native advertising. They could probably gain ground by just making ads less irritating, but they absolutely will not.
Tankies: The word ‘tankie’ is meaningless because it gets overused by disingenuous people on the right.
Also tankies: Everyone who criticizes my position is right-wing.
It honestly reminds me of fascists saying that harsh criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It’s a dishonest rhetorical game.
And capitalist regimes. The Russian Federation was literally founded by a betrayal of a reformist movement in the USSR, and China consulted with Milton Goddamn Friedman on their economy, ending up with billionaires. I even saw .ml users crying about Russian *oligarchs" having their assets seized (“stolen,” as they said), and unironically citing Matt Taibbi. Not even “back in the day” Taibbi, but literally The Twitter Files. Using bought & paid for corporate propaganda to make their point.
They’re just campists. I don’t want to run afoul of a “No True Scotsman” situation, but fuck, for people who seem to think they’re the Only True Socialists, they’re willing to drop socialism in an instant if it means they can be edgy dickheads on the internet.
You can also check the modlogs. They can be really revealing.
I never said that, to be fair.
Of course there are conspiracies. People in power want to stay in power, and they’ll do shady things to get what they want.
That’s not the same as conspiracist ideation, which is a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Even as the article I quoted said, it can be harmful or pathological, but isn’t necessarily. It’s just when it happens to an extreme level. There’s a difference between rational fears and phobias; intrusive thoughts are normal, but can be frequent, uncontrollable, and distressing; conspiracies can be true, but then there’s buck wild nonsense like Q, “Cultural Marxism,” and this shit about the Superbowl. It’s not recognizing conspiracies when presented with evidence, it’s spinning conspiracy theories out of nothing, and viewing everything as part of a master plot, even if it doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Research suggests, on a psychological level, conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—can be harmful or pathological, and is highly correlated with psychological projection, as well as with paranoia, which is predicted by the degree of a person’s Machiavellianism.
Oh, this’ll be fun in the future when people try to whitewash it. We’ll have another chance to follow up by asking, “a state’s right to what, specifically?”
I quit Spotify when the “New Library Experience” completely fucked the music library side of the app. If you mostly use playlists, it was a lateral change. If you used it to collect some songs here, and album there, and keep them all sorted, it’s like it dumped your entire collection on the floor and expected a thank-you for the new organization system.
My guess, as others have mentioned, is that Spotify tries to squeeze more profits by pushing certain songs, whether because they get paid to promote them, or the royalties are lower. That’s easier to do with their playlists and recommendations, so they pushed people to that side of the app by making everything else dogshit. And now, apparently, the curated side took it too far and is awful, too.
I still use Apple Music, which is one of like two services that actually let you organize your music in a sensible way outside of playlists. That said, after I cut cords with video streaming services and set up my own library, I think I might do the same with music.
And their recommendation engine sucks.
Netflix used to be famously good at suggesting films. Articles were written about it, and there was even a cash reward for anyone who could contribute to its performance. Then it just turned to shit.
And the funny thing is that it would have helped counteract the shrinking library. Sure, there would be fewer films on the platform, so you’d be less likely to find a specific title, but at least you could select a film Netflix recommended based on your past ratings and be fairly confident you’d enjoy it. Now? Absolutely not.
Yeah. I guess it will vary from instance to instance, but from my personal experience, viewing “All” on Lmemy isn’t noticeably more political than /r/all. There’s maybe less diversity in the stories, and more memes, but still. It’s not bad.
Reddit has absolutely been way worse at times, by the way. When T_D was allowed to run roughshod over the front page, and spez bent over backwards to not ban them despite clearly being a nuisance and breaking the rules.
Camping. Whether it’s at a campsite, where a family might spend tens or hundreds of thousands on an RV and all the gadgets in it, or deep in the woods, where an ultralight backpacker might spend thousands of dollars upgrading perfectly good gear they already had because it could save a few ounces.
To be clear, camping is actually really accessible, and few people go THAT extreme with it. Just… no matter what budget you set for it, there are ways to spend it. :P
I was going to say it’s a lot less expensive if you don’t need espresso. An aeropress is around $40, I bought mine nearly two decades ago, and still use it daily!
…then I realized I spent $160 on the grinder right next to it. So I’m not totally immune. :P
It might even be simpler than that. Capitalism just doesn’t care past the next quarter. And when ownership is disconnected from labor or even from customer, than it’s just a really rudimentary collective intelligence. The shareholders just want the line to go up, and everyone in the corporate structure is accountable to the shareholders, so they all do their part, big or little, to make that happen. It completely dispenses with personal responsibility, whether for negative externalities, direct harm, or even the future as close as months from now.