I like your take. An optimistic me would be fully onboard with it. But this isn’t a single change in a vacuum. I think the reason people aren hating is because they’re seeing it as yet another symptom of enshitification, and I don’t disagree.

There are rare examples of outstanding companies like Steam that talk the talk and walk the walk. But with Firefox, they’re headed the wrong direction. They cut 30% of their staff this time last year, cut their internet freedom advacacy group, and I think that was the point where they started a hard shift away from who they were. They’re harvesting and selling user data now (removed the old “Nope. Never have, never will” [sell user data] from their FAQ), they’ve got a CEO that’s taking an absolute fortune off the top of a struggling company, and they’re steadily removing long time features like pocket integration and compact mode.

The last straw will be if Google ever pulls their deal as Firefox’s default search engine… Mozilla will very likely pivot hard to nasty, modern money making practices to keep themselves alive if they lose 80% of their revenue all at once like that.

If I were him I wouldn’t be concerned about the murder, I would be concerned about the violations of the Geneva convention.

People WITH technical skills just wany a package that works. I don’t want to fix every single fucking piece of technology I own, constantly - even if I am capable.

My autocomplete is a bunch of management garbage from a job that I had for 14 years, but left 2 years ago. SwiftKey trying to put me in a corner.

Actually, a reputation as a bully and killer of small animals, as I recall.

Maybe it was my own misunderstanding.

Why have them?

If this doesn’t mean, “why should they even exist?” what was it that you meant here? Because that’s what you ask first, before you ask what they are.

Careful what you wish for. The Water Wars are ever approaching.

This is some quality reporting - that’s more details on the memes’ origination than I’ve ever read before. As far as I knew it was utterly random.

“Where did this even come from?” Vance continued. “I don’t understand it. When we were kids all of our viral trends at least had an origin story.”

First of all - hilarious that the article explains where it came from and then ends with this quote.

But no, we absolutely did not have an origin story for all of our childhood memes. Every kid knew about the Mew under the truck in Pokémon red/blue, or that Marilyn Manson removed a rib. People still marvel today at the proliferation of that (false) information - how did we all hear it, and where in the world did it come from?

Seems more like unecessary corpo powertripping, to me.

Under normal circumstances I’d assume so too. But age verification laws are popping up all over the world and are bound to be VERY different in Aus vs EU vs each of the 25 US states with these new laws. Remember that the companies didn’t want any of this - but now that they have to act, they also can be held accountable for failure to act (or insufficient solutions).

And on this one, unlike our horrendous failure to enforce antitrust laws in the US, I do expect to see enforcement somewhere in the chain, at least in the short to mid term. The first lawsuit will become the framework for dozens more to follow against a single company if they don’t comply sufficiently.

They shouldn’t exist because you don’t know what they are?

And with Trump, he’s stupid AND a narcissist, which is potent. He only knows what he knows, but thinks he’s a genius and has it all figured out - so he accidentally makes a full confession by giving all the details of what he thinks is the same crime everyone else MUST be committing. “They’d be stupid NOT to, right?”

When the robot uprising happens, using a soft a in clanka instead of a hard er on clanker isn’t going to save you. We’re all fucked.

This is a VERY interesting thought. I hadn’t considered all the data collection likely available to Google as a result of the casting protocol. This is definitely plausible.

IS IT extra code to maintain though? My understanding of casting is it effectively sends a URL to the receiving device. I would think there’s a negligible amount of development spent on maintaining it. And every media app under the sun supports it, now except for Netflix. 🤦

I don’t know about hosting - but the deal was being finalized a little over a month ago and it was reported that Oracle would manage the security and algorithm after the purchase of TikTok US. Or at least, they will be licensing the algorithm if they won’t own it. The new development I was unaware of is that it won’t just be Larry Ellison, but also Rupert Murdoch and Michael Dell. We truly live in hell.

It’s a curious thought. Is there any strategic advantage for bot farms to flip sides? If it was in the operator’s best interest to push Trump narratives before, why flip now? I get the sense that the few speaking out against him are legitimate. Or maybe I just hope so.

And they can also always pivot and pretend to be the hero later when it suits their needs, no downside solution.

If you think about it on a bigger scale, it still is her getting what she expected others to get. The Trumpian/fictional definition of tariffs claims that other countries will now “pay their fair share”. Which is utter bullshit because the companies have always passed on as much of the cost of a tariff as the market will bear, if they can afford to absorb any at all. In interviews they are STILL repeatedly pretending like other countries are paying the tariffs and the rise in costs has nothing to do with them.

Anyways, she expected other countries costs to go up, not hers. Classic leopard eating face, imo.

I would expect Twitter to be a huge conservative circle jerk, but it really is not. I think the fighting between the two sides is good for business. I also would expect TikTok to do so as well, and maybe it will once Ellison takes over, but so far that’s the best boots on the ground source for seeing real events happening in real time, even if it conflicts with whatever bullshit narrative is spun out of the event.

That’s one thing you DON’T have to worry about them learning here.