400/150 Mbps - $55/month

I pay the equivalent of $10 USD per month (we don’t do list prices, it’s the actual price) for 1 Gbit fibre.

And I am willing to bet that the “five-year price lock” advertising is fraud. There has to be a clause in their TOS that as per the company “price lock” means the ability to change prices.

I mostly follow big accounts and don’t that much with folks (outside of a niche hobby account that I am trying to slowly grow).

Best option seems to be to subscribe/browse hashtags that pique your interest. Eventually you’ll find people who regularly post/boost interesting content and users.

I like to distinguish between ideological, Friedmanite capitalism, which I call big C Capitalism and broader concepts such as trade, competition, new commercial ideas, which I call small c capitalism.

Big C Capitalism is more of an oligarch-promoted, authoritarian ideology with clear fascistsa tendencies (see Friedman’s statement that “free markets” take precedent over democratic governance).

Small c capitalism is more a quality of human civilization and its implementation reflects social and cultural developments.

That is why American-run commercial social networks are inherently not viable if you care about user focus. Any rational adult (of any nationality, from US to Botswana) can make their own conclusions regarding US-run commercial social networks over the past ~20 years.

I deleted Twitter a while ago and switched to Mastodon, I did not move to Bluesky when it started getting big exactly because I knew their initial user-focus was a ruse (and their federation architecture seemed top heavy).

Trump is a bigger national security concern than fucking TP-Link and no one in power is seriously talking about removing him.

There is an abstract ironic beauty to this.

While I agree with your message at a high level (I quit FB several years ago), I don’t think it’s productive to be so abrasive.

It’s generally better to be respectful and convincing if you want to change minds.

I think you can effectively compete with China but you would need a giant coalition of democratic countries that would move fast and stay focused.

With oligarchs completely taking over the US, this is unlikely to happen. But that’s hardly the sole roadblock to such a coalition.

The enclosure and the ports of your laptop are the bigger factor.

You most definitely want to do extensive reviews before spending money as there tend to be lots of edge cases and issues with eGPUs.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this investigation on Honey (20 minutes, Part 1):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk

It’s fascinating stuff. Open fraud.

I can’t speak for formal legal matters (I am assuming such scams are nominally legal in the US), but it goes to show that senior PayPal executives are basically criminals. There is no way they didn’t know about this.

Cook is an oligarch and he has long lost the ability to tell right from wrong (personal matters notwithstanding, but that’s a very very low reference point).

Don’t think it bothers him in the least.

The whole thing reads like a propaganda piece that makes it difficult to take their arguement seriously.

They will use still use bot farms, but they become much more automated and effective . Doubt PR firms and influence peddlers are going anywhere.

I got on this on Windows 10 too.

At first I thought I got a virus or something, but then realized this was some ASUS bullshit.

In case of Meta, this not actually true.

They have a dual layer share structure where Zuck holds special class share that provide him full control even if he doesn’t have a majority of “ownership class” shares.

I mean, I am sure Zuck wants “line go up”, but we are at point where it’s more like his personal fiefdom and he can tell shareholders to bugger off and let him burn $46 Billion on his weird metaverse fetish.

I suspect they anticipate exponential increases in ML generated content creation quality and/or they expect that users will gobble up AI slop and it won’t effect medium/long term engagement growth.

I actually don’t mind the subscription model for content creators. I just wish Google (or any platform owner) would get a smaller cut due to a more competitive environment.

The thing is if, you couldn’t block ads on YT, I would probably get premium, there is no way I am watching their ads.

Note, I do subscribe to multiple “indie” content creators that I enjoy, but I am not watching ads on YT (or anywhere else).

The console business model of subsidized hardware and platform specific-exclusives is coming to an end.

Semiconductors costs have gone up and they will only continue to get even more expensive. At the same time, graphics are reaching a “good enough” phase, where marginal increases in fidelity require exponentially more processing power.

It also doesn’t make financial sense to not eventually release games on PC (if not have a same day multi-platform release).

I think by this point, the only option is breakup and mandatory federation with independent frontends, service providers all competing against each other. They have a monopoly.

Google would argue they don’t really have a monopoly since they compete against streaming, but that’s a malicious, pre-information age interpretation of monopoly power.

Now, now, young one. You simply lack the taste and sophistication to appreciate the depth inherent to badger badger badger.

The sharp, minimalist vector graphics of badger badger badger gave it character and pedigree. Not like the tiktok junk of today.

And you had know how to install and patch browser plugins and computers required knowledge. You had to know about the URL and share it on MSN messenger. Not like the brain dead smartphone apps used by modern teens.