moon_matter

moon_matter, 10 months ago

Devil's advocate. There's no such thing as an effective protest that doesn't inconvenience the public. I've heard people say the exact same thing about the blackouts. This protest would not have worked if people could use Reddit normally and totally ignore what was going on. Unlike most protests, none of this does any harm to people IRL so I think people should be OK with being heavy-handed. It's "oh no, I can't access reddit to help figure out how to fix my wifi" vs "protests are blocking me on my way to work, causing me to be late and possibly be fired". The situations just don't compare.

Beyond that, Reddit has replaced all forums and discussion boards and it's actually a huge problem in terms of being a single point of failure. It's a net positive that this issue was highlighted for the non-tech crowd.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

How can anyone watch this dumpster fire and conclude that Elon Musk knows what he's doing with this company?

A lot of people look at how a company is doing and credit their success to the handful of people in leadership positions or in the public eye. Unless people can see your name and face you basically don't exist as anything more than an interchangeable cog in a machine. It's hard for people to give you credit when they don't know that you exist or what you do.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

It gets even crazier when you realize they are sort of obligated to keep every video forever. So it will just keep growing indefinitely since they have no way to trim it down. We may eventually reach a point where the majority of the content that they host is older than most living people and the uploader has since passed on.

moon_matter, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I mean didn’t they just announce they’ll start deleting inactive accounts?

They stated they would delete the accounts but that the videos would remain. But obviously the policy could change. My point was more that a ton of people would be watching content that was uploaded by and for people who are no longer alive. Which makes me feel uncomfortable in a way I can't quite describe. Like a modern version of seeing a ghost.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

Social media has now existed for an entire generation and those users are very averse to creating accounts on new websites. They also aren't willing to put up with growing pains and lack of content. Alternatives are almost impossible to get off the ground now.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

Some people find it convoluted however.

I think some people that are into RPGs won't admit to themselves that they aren't there for the story. Are there some deeper elements that you might not catch? Of course. But the main plot is at the level of a young adult novel (or less) and isn't convoluted or hard to follow unless you're skipping dialogue.

moon_matter, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Cut scenes take like 10-20 minutes. Some can clock in at almost an hour and FF16 broke a record at 71 minutes. I think you're going to hate it if you're so limited in time. JRPGs usually demand a lot.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

When I first heard all of this I thought it was just a ridiculous rumour. Out of all the things Elon has done this probably surprises me the most. Google is probably one of a handful of entities that he can't push around.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

They want the money or its a sunk cost. Very few companies can afford to say no to billions of dollars and someone like Google just has to push a button in order to pull out of the deal, there's no aftermath to clean up. On the other hand, you have someone like their office landlord which will have to put in a lot of work to find new tenants and clean up the property. They won't be so willing to cut ties.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

Video hosting is a different beast entirely, it's incredibly expensive and hard to support. Not to mention they pay content creators so they aren't going to just get up and move to another platform. If YT decides to charge for API access we will just have to put up with it because there's nowhere else to go. It's a true monopoly in every sense of the word.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

People are only using the 3rd party app line because it's the most relatable argument. It's much more than that. A ton of moderation tools and useful bots are going dark tomorrow thanks to the API policy change. Even if we all go back to Reddit, there's no bringing back those tools. Reddit communities are going to slowly go to shit as spammers all realize that moderators aren't as effective as they used to be. This was going to happen regardless of how the protests turned out. There's no scenario where things get better for Reddit.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

The problem is memes are really low effort. So it will drown out all other types of content.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

I think companies have seen what happened with Twitter and it has convinced them that they can try more drastic revenue generation strategies with little repercussion. They have all become strong monopolies in their respective domains and users who have grown up with the current offerings are not willing to put up with lesser alternatives.

The internet is basically ~10 websites for most people, only occasionally veering off the path to find some one off information. The casual user sees no reason to put up with the growing pains of alternatives and will put up with a lot from Google and friends if it means not having to create a new account on another website with no content.

How can you possibly replace YouTube and Reddit? Their value is in their user base and it's impossible to replicate that type of "success" overnight.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

If you're willing to pay 42k then you're probably running a business and need to maintain a relationship with Twitter. Taking shots at their owner, regardless of how you feel about them, probably won't give you the outcome you want.

It's easy to do the right thing when you have nothing to lose. It's a different story when your job is on the line.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

They would have to be a business relying on Twitter for an important function. A lot of developers are in a difficult position, especially if they decided to use social media sign-ins. They need time to develop an alternative and to allow users to change their login method. But many users won't care and will ultimately just stop using the service. The developer may decide to keep paying as opposed to losing a part of their user base.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

Users: I don't want to sign up for a new account on yet another website! I absolutely refuse.
Developer: OK I've added social media sign in, but you should really sign up and link your social media account to a website account that I control as a backup.
Users: That's OK, this is good enough.
*Twitter Changes API Policy*
Developer: You should really change over to a website account now. I can't afford the API bill.
Users: No. I'm happy with Twitter sign in. This is your problem not mine. Please change the laws of the universe so they don't inconvenience me. This is all your fault by the way and you're a terrible person.
Developer: ....

moon_matter, 10 months ago

That should've been a git repo, just like the wiki. I imagine major projects are backing them up or mirroring them somewhere else. It's not the first time this has come up.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

I wouldn't classify these books as real competition. Nobody was really prepared for this, but it's a very solvable problem and there's no market for books full of word salad. I can't see Amazon or any store tolerating the existence of a product that doesn't sell.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

A store cannot survive on good will alone unfortunately. As much as I like my local bookstore, Amazon provides more content in more formats. It's just better from every angle.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

My guess is that Amazon gives new books some visibility if they manage to score a dozen sales within a few days of release. So the author probably bought a few copies as soon as his listing appeared on the store. It's a very old tactic that plagues the best seller's list and Amazon is plagued by the same issue.

moon_matter, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

The question everyone was really asking was if will they will be able to make these quality of life changes before the Reddit API changes come into effect. The answer seems to be "no" unfortunately. It's a huge missed opportunity that may never come again.

moon_matter, 11 months ago

They will be fine. But the extension itself is on its last legs. Reddit is slowly breaking old reddit by making features or markdown new reddit only. The team also seems to be down to 2 people and the project is in maintenance mode.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

That's likely a server load/cost issue. I'm sure Google can write a better client or run a server on bigger and better hardware.

moon_matter, 10 months ago

They were depending on you not knowing, and that is never good for you

It's most often done for the sole purpose of retaining the ability to more easily profit off of your work. When you open source your software you are basically taking the most straight forward profit model off the table. Some projects do of course manage to still make it work, but only when the user base is composed of tech-savvy enthusiasts. If you're open sourcing a desktop application targeted at the average user, like a game. It's never going to work unless you hold something back (e.g. art assets).

We need to stop with this false narrative that developers choose to keep their software closed sourced for malicious reasons. The truth is that profiting off of FOSS software is inherently difficult.