I think it’s a powerful statement that - despite all the structural checks & balances and systems of appeal - we consider political charges and kangaroo courts a realistic possibility. It’s not just Alito’s flags - this is a long simmering loss of faith.
When I went to college in 1987, I got sent with a $2000 computer. That’s around $5600 in 2024 dollars. An Atari 2600 was $200 in 1980, which is around $1000 in 2024 dollars. Computer gaming in the 70s and 80s was for kids with rich parents. You could get a little sample, at $0.25 for a few minutes in an arcade, but most of those games would play well on a phone platform today, and you’d be paying something like $15/hour in 2024 dollars.
Today, a desktop computer or laptop is nearly ubiquitous. It may not play the latest AAA at 4k, but neither do most gamers. Even if you exclude mobile gaming, PC and console games are wildly more accessible today than when the 55+ crowd were coming of age.
And when the hosting company gets bought, a whole new bunch of people will suddenly be in control of all your content, public and private, deleted or not, complete with copyright (even if limited), and all the freedom to immediately change TOS.
TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS (www.bbc.com)
Gamers aged 55+ account for almost a third of gamers now, and that share is on the rise. (www.midiaresearch.com)
The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing (www.cnn.com)