There’s some politics involved. Basically, everyone is rallying behind JPEGXL instead of WebP, but Google refuses to support JPEGXL in Chrome. The reasoning they gave is weak, so it’s assumed that they’re just trying to force the format they invented on everyone because they can.
In the US at least, I think most people get their phones through their carrier and are stuck on a contract paying it off for ~3 years. I think rich people and enthusiasts/fanboys are the only ones who upgrade every year or buy it unlocked at full price from the manufacturer.
Using a phone that long is risky due to the lack of security updates, especially if you’re using it for work. People not using phones longer is a problem, but the bigger issue is manufacturers killing support so quickly to force people into upgrading.
I recently upgraded after 5 years on an iPhone because it reached the end of its support cycle. I considered another iPhone because 5 years of support is great, but really didn’t feel like paying another $1000+ for what is essentially the same phone I was already using, just with a different body. So I went with a used Pixel 7 on ebay and installed GrapheneOS on it, and I’m very happy with it. I’m getting the same 5 years of support, a more secure OS, and I’m recycling at the same time!
These types of projects are driven by metrics, and teams have some kind of quota/goal that they need to reach by a certain date to keep the project on schedule. Bonuses or job security may be on the line here, and so you may see some desperate employees “going the extra mile” to reach their goals.
Relatedly, Alexa’s voice activation sensitivity is essentially a tunable number. It can be changed to be more sensitive, so that it will activate more easily (e.g. maybe you say “Alex” instead of “Alexa”). The people who control this are likely on the team with that deadline, so the incentives are there to lower this value in order to collect more data by recording personal conversations “accidentally”. Maybe a bad update goes out that causes Alexa to activate randomly, and they quickly fix it after a few days when they collected all the non-Alexa personal conversations they need for their AI.
That’s maybe a bit too deep into the paranoia/tinfoil hat spectrum for some, but history has shown that you can’t give big tech the benefit of the doubt. Especially when you see some of the documents from the Google trial, where executives discuss rolling back new features to improve arbitrary metrics in the short term so that they can get their bonuses for the quarter, even if it hurts consumers.
Bro just stop already. You like guns, it’s a neat little hobby, and you’re getting angry because people want to end it. I get that. My hobby is retro video games/consoles, and if it turned out that they were a threat to society and people wanted to take them away, I probably wouldn’t do the sane/rational/adult thing and accept it. I’d fight to defend my god given right to own a Wii, and I’d get into angry bad faith arguments on the internet in a desperate attempt to protect my cherished pastime.
…but I’d be wrong, I’d be an asshole, and I probably wouldn’t realize it. I like to think that I’d have the self-awareness to not fall into that trap, since I generally consider myself to be self-aware, but also I really love this hobby and it’s a big part of my life, so it could go either way.
This is not a good way to look at it. Competition is good regardless. It doesn’t matter how good Valve is today, if a viable competitor comes out, Valve will be forced to get better in order to compete.
All we need is some way to guarantee valve doesn’t become public.
This is wrong. Valve can enshittify without going public. If you think that public corporations are the only ones that are greedy/evil/anti-consumer, then you’ve never heard of the “private equity” industry. Look up the recent fight between the FTC and U.S. Anesthesia Partners in Texas for a clear example.
In capitalism, free market forces are what keep tug of war between produces and consumers fair, and competition is the fuel that keeps those free market forces moving. The fact that the Valve of today is both good and a monopoly is just a temporary rounding error/outlier. Over time, Valve will go to shit and consumers will suffer simply because Valve has almost no competition. This isn’t a question, it’s a fact of the mechanism of the economic system they exist in. It’s like gravity; just because you haven’t hit the floor yet doesn’t mean jumping off that building was a good idea.
Epic games, whether you hate them or not, is fighting the good fight. They are doing shitty things (exclusivity, etc), so maybe they aren’t the chosen one who will take challenge Valve, but they are on the right side of that fight. Hoping that Valve will stay great forever is foolish.
…but I will add that I don’t think Epic alone should be trying to take down Valve. Valve is way too entrenched in this market to be taken down with any realistic competition (probably why Epic is resorting to exclusivity deals). The FTC needs to step in and regulate the market. Idk what that would look like, but it’s possible to do it in a way that makes everyone happy. For example (off the top of my head, so probably flawed but whatever) the FTC could enforce interoperability between digital marketplaces so that consumers don’t need to install 30 different launchers to access their purchased libraries. That relatively small change could lower the bar to entry for competitors by a lot, and not be a burden to consumers at the same time. EDIT: and it would not be anything drastic like forcing a break up of Valve.
Unregulated capitalism doesn’t work. I don’t think anyone has ever seriously claimed that it does. The FTC isn’t the only thing keeping the market fair, the free market does that on its own. When a company does a shitty thing, they lose customers and die. That’s true in pretty much every market in the real world, except for a few problematic ones where there are bad actors trying to cheat the system.
I meant that they’re fighting Valve, which is “the good fight”. They’re not the only ones doing it, and they’re definitely not the best ones doing it, but they’re doing it. If they do manage to take a big chunk out of Valve’s marketshare somehow, that will be good for everyone, even people who decide to stay on Steam.
So I operate on the assumption that anticapitalist people on Lemmy are tankies. It’s not true in all cases ofc, but without more info, I think that’s a safe default.
That dude calling my post “bullshit romanticism of capitalism” gives a bit more confidence that they’re a tankie with a strong case of grassphobia.
ProPublica released a new report on Friday detailing Justice Clarence Thomas’ close relationship with the Koch brothers with previously undisclosed and extraordinarily damning new details....
but how do you rule out the possibility that Thomas paid for the flight?
Good point, and I don’t have an answer. However, I think it’d be interesting to see how often he travels in a private jet. Maybe he’s a high roller who jets all the time? Or maybe he decided to treat himself this one time?
I’ve seen this term thrown around on Lemmy in different contexts, so I looked it up and the wikipedia page gives a very specific definition of that term relating to a type of economic situation. I don’t think that particular definition applies in this case, or does it?
This is the biggest problem with Valve at the moment. They’re awesome, but only because of the current leadership. Once these guys retire or die, it’s very likely Valve will enshittify like every other business.
Valve needs to be hit by regulators at some point. They just have too much market power.
UPDATE YOUR BROWSERS IMMEDIATELY. RCE VULNERABILITY DISCOVERED (nvd.nist.gov)
Any Chromium and Firefox browser prior to version 116 will be vulnerable to this, update your browsers.
Richard Stallman has cancer
From his website stallman.org:...
A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades (www.straitstimes.com)
SO. MUCH. THIS.
Amazon Is Using Your Conversations With Alexa to Train AI (gizmodo.com)
I’m never putting one of these in my home.
California governor signs law raising taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for school safety (apnews.com)
It's important that he lives by a code (startrek.website)
Adam Britton: British croc expert admits sexually abusing dogs (www.bbc.com)
Adam Britton has pleaded guilty to 60 charges involving bestiality and child abuse material in Australia.
Dusk: Unpopular opinion: I'd rather pay Valve 30% and put up with their de facto monopoly than help Epic work towards their own (very obviously desired) monopoly (twitter.com)
Federal judge again strikes down California law banning gun magazines of more than 10 rounds (apnews.com)
California cannot ban gun owners from having detachable magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, a federal judge ruled Friday....
Clarence Thomas’ Latest Pay-to-Play Scandal Finally Connects All the Dots (slate.com)
ProPublica released a new report on Friday detailing Justice Clarence Thomas’ close relationship with the Koch brothers with previously undisclosed and extraordinarily damning new details....
Microsoft - keep your filthy hands off Valve, leak shows MSFT would buy Valve (www.gamingonlinux.com)
Mastodon gets better search, onboarding, and cross-server interactions (www.theverge.com)