rm_dash_r_star

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Man that article points out some scary trends. It’s just crazy the way they’re using digital technology to economically enslave us with subscriptions for product function and maintenance. Then the way they use that technology to monitor us. I saw the end coming with the John Deere business some decades ago. My feeling was I sure hope that practice never comes to normal consumer products, but here it is. It’s feudal for sure and a blatant violation of consumer rights. You don’t own products anymore and you still get to pay for them like you do.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

I think we need to read between the lines here.

I honestly think he’s intentionally driving Twitter into the ground. Thing is he can’t just fire everyone and shut down the servers or he won’t get the tax write-off. He’s burying Twitter in a way that maintains tax status. So in a way that’s smart, but also stupid he spent what he did only out of spite.

What he’s doing to Twitter is like a jumbo jet pilot that commits suicide by crashing the plane (that’s actually happened). Why do you need to take all those innocent people with you. Just go jump off a building, same end without killing a bunch of innocents.

Really his destruction of the platform is about control, he has some kind of personal beef with Twitter so he used his power and money to kill the whole thing. He’s taking his bat and ball and going home.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Car alarms, biggest complaint about horns. I’d love to have a bell for my car, just like a bicycle bell but a bit louder.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I don’t know generally how people have reacted, maybe a lot just quit browsing that type of media altogether. They haven’t all flocked to the Fediverse that’s for sure. It’s grown a lot recently, but before the API mess Reddit had almost a half billion monthly active users. There’s like 150k right now between Lemmy and kbin so pretty insignificant in comparison.

I’m pretty sure the quality of posts on Reddit has fallen noticeably, they lost a a good number of mods and people have said it’s pretty obvious now.

What I find funny is the favorable references Spez has made to how Elon is running Twitter (X), but thing is it’s obvious now Twitter is intentionally being run into the ground. Since Spez is a Elon protégé I guess Reddit is being intentionally run into the ground.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Relying on “the people” to uphold consumer rights usually doesn’t make much ground. We’ve already lost so much we’ll never get back. People are just too busy dealing with their own lives to be concerned about it. This is how corporations get away with what they do. The public lets it happen. As sure as the sun rises every day, corporations like Google and Apple will continually extend their reach.

It think it was unusual the US government perused an anti-trust suit over the MS browser monopoly early 2000s. The climate is much more forgiving now. I’d be surprised if we ever see a lawsuit like that again, as deserving as it may be.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

What an everlasting tool history will remember you as, elon.

Biggest tool in the history of tools.

Only clearer by the day that this was all an exercise to intentionally kill Twitter to the benefit of billionaires, fascists and other extremists.

When I initially heard about Elon paying what he did for Twitter my first thought was he’s buying it to kill it, then I thought nobody in their right mind would spend that kind of money to carry out a personal vendetta. Now I think that’s absolutely what’s going on.

I believe he’s killing Twitter purely for personal reasons (he hates it because people gave him shit there). I don’t think there’s some kind of grand social agenda. It would require an assumption he cares about someone other than himself. Unlikely as the guy’s ego extends past Planet 9.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

I like them when they are actually amusing. Problem is that’s maybe one in ten so it’s not worth browsing them. If someone posts one and it’s actually good, no problem.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Um yeah, I’m not seeing that. You can see monthly active users on the-federation.info/platform/21 and it’s been fluctuating up and down, no big jump. So I call bullshit on that article based on the metric there. Though no doubt as Twitter (X) implodes Mastodon will see the fallout with higher activity.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

The little blue bird on every shop window, website, and business card becomes a stylized letter that, hopefully, doesn’t look so threatening on the next iteration?

Haha, I know the most appropriate iteration, a red background with the X in a white circle.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

The other stuff didn’t bother people enough to leave, but rebranding? That’s the step too far. Anyway Mastodon usage has fluctuated a good amount over the last few months so I don’t think that’s a good metric for people fleeing Twitter, or should I say X (what a terrible name).

Twitter’s value was in its branding as the case with any ubiquitous product. There was zero reason to change it other than to further damage the entity. Fine with me Elon, go ahead and kill it, one more failed corporate driven media site. We don’t need any of them.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

It is surreal that a single capitalist can be motivated to take down a monolith like Twitter. Yeah I’m convinced it’s intentional. Funny when I first heard he bought Twitter for the price he paid my initial thought was he’s buying it to kill it, but then I thought nobody would waste that kind of money on a personal vendetta. I guess Elon is just that crazy.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

In the last few years he’s done stuff in the public eye that made people question their feelings about him. When he was only known by the companies he ran he seemed like a decent guy. Then the public got to know him better through his ramblings in the media.

I think this latest business with Twitter was about using his money and power to intentionally kill it for personal reasons and take the tax write-off. That’s created a lot of angst for the users and inspired a lot of hate.

Personally I feel the guy is a total wingnut, always has been. I just didn’t have enough exposure to him to make that determination. They say there’s a fine line between genius and insanity, but now there’s little doubt which side of the line he falls on.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

For sure, either he’s destroying it on purpose of he’s that stupid, either one is just way out there.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

In imperial units I get this for a single stack of 44B in $100 bills;

.0043 inches * 44B / (12 inches in a foot * 5280 feet in a mile) = 2986 miles

That would be approximately the distance from Los Angeles to New York. That’s a long stack of bills.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Actually after thinking about it, the stuff he’s doing to the company is just batshit insane. It has to be intentional. He’s on a campaign to kill the company for the tax write-off and because he has some kind of personal beef with it. If he were to just fire everyone and shut down the servers he wouldn’t be able to take the write-off. The company has to die a slow death for it to look legit.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Too many to list, but I take Tomato scores with a grain of salt unless they’re unusually low. I don’t know if I just have a high tolerance for crappy movies or scores are too intolerant there. I’ve also seen a good number with high scores I thought should be low. Sometimes they rate movies highly just for being unusual or for having some kind of social message, but that hardly ever means better.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Yeah I have some serious ethical issues with Apple. I’ve never bought any of their products and never will. Aside from the anti-competitive walled garden of their tech and exorbitant cost of their products, their labor practices violate human rights in low cost labor markets. However Google and their partners such as Samsung are not free from guilt either. Unfortunately there’s little choice in phone products, Android or iOS, pick your poison.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Agree I have a Samsung phone and hate the damn intrusive Samsung bloatware. I’m just going to buy a Google phone next time to get Android unadulterated. Though people still have their complaints with those Pixel phones and they’re more expensive. Well at least maybe then I can tolerate my phone instead of downright loathe it.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Hey thanks for that. Did some reading and even Pixel uses a “skin” so it’s not a perfectly stock Android system. But the main thing is I want to avoid third party bloatware. Looks like Motorola does pretty well there, also inexpensive.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Thanks for the feedback. Those Pixel phones are on the expensive side. Unlike most I’m not willing to drop big money on a phone. I was looking at the Motorola line-up after someone mentioned they use a fairly bloatware free installation of Android. Their phones are inexpensive.

Haven’t looked into Graphene OS, seen it mentioned. When you say open source it usually means you have to dive into the nuts and bolts of things, not sure I want to do that. I should probably look into it more. Really don’t have any positive feeling toward either Android or iOS, giant douche or turd sandwich as the old South Park episode goes.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Same here, found out about Lemmy on Reddit, but some time ago in discussion about where to go if Reddit bans a sub. Didn’t actually start using Lemmy until shit hit the fan.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

This Manifest V3 business with Chrome is going to be the trigger for me to jump ship.

If we spin up the way back machine, Chrome became popular as a competitor to Internet Explorer. Even though IE had the vast majority of market share it was a truly awful product. It was slow, unreliable, and insecure. Chrome resolved those issues and it was the reason I went with it at the time. Basically I was just looking to dump IE.

At the time Firefox was clunky, unpopular, and did not have good compatibility across all sites. Now that Chrome is less desirable we’re left with Firefox as the best alternative. It’s come a long way since IE and Chrome went head to head. It’s a much better product now with a bigger user base.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

Big corporations have been battling for control of the internet through browser market share since day one. We can’t let any one corpo gain control because it will destroy it with proprietary standards, it’s already suffered untold damage. MS almost got control when IE reached a vast majority of market share. Google is in the same place now with Chrome.

As consumers we have some control over market share through product selection. Of course an anti-trust lawsuit will help the cause as it did when MS was in position to take control. Time for Firefox to take the stage now, it’s ready.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

That’s probably true, but when I bailed on IE I tried both and Chrome was the better. I must have missed that early Firefox beats Chrome era. Even so I do remember having compatibility problems with Firefox on some sites and I simply couldn’t stand the settings interface. In any case the current awfulness of Chrome removes any question. Chrome is only going downhill and it will probably pick up the pace.

rm_dash_r_star, 10 months ago

This is the reason why all corporate media has become the dumpster fire it is (not just social media). They use negative emotion like fear and anger to promote engagement. So all you get as a viewer is stuff that gets you fired up. The quality of journalism is so low now they’re fabricating stuff to engage the viewer. Then there’s no journalistic accountability when they do get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.