It’s dangerous to tell people “shit’s fucked and there’s nothing you can do about it” because they might believe you and do nothing.

Which is why I’m not doing that.

P.S. I’m not advocating for doom here, I just wish more people understood that Americans buying cheap Chinese electric cars won’t save the people living nearby the mine in Africa where the cobalt for those batteries was extracted.

I don’t think you disagree with the parts where I say people will suffer.

With respect, I think you’re projecting a discussion with a different person onto this article.

I don’t think so? My comment is generally aimed at “the situation is grim, but tech just got awesome, so let’s save the planet people!” optimism-filled pieces, much like this one. Forgive me if I come across as affronted when, as temperatures reach new and dangerous heights in certain regions, I am put out seeing someone say market forces are on the cusp of saving us.

For what it’s worth, I hope you’re right.

Thank you.

Whenever using this trick, I’d suggest using DDG instead of Bing if possible.

There’s a chance duckduckgo does something similar, but sadly I can’t check at the moment.

Leaving a comment so I remember to try it later—unless anyone reading is willing to do so.

With modern internet speeds, there’s no reason you can’t have full UHD-BR quality streamed over the internet.

Cost is a prohibitive reason for many (hardware, internet).

I do believe files are better than physical media, simply because with the proper setup they’re easily backed up and won’t degrade or break.

Purely anecdotally from what I’ve been reading online, it seems most younger folks hate Threads.

Not necessarily because of privacy issues or social impact, mind you. They also think it just sucks to use, don’t like the UI, don’t like the content—which turned out to include a lot of people trying to build a personal brand and sell you things. Just like Instagram, where most users came from.

Excluding content details, Mastodon fails similarly. Requires learning, unsatisfactory UI, more difficult to find and engage with content you like.

Thanks. I know you’re not OP, but I’ll take this opportunity to answer anyway.

privacy preserving attribution

…is not as bad as many people think.

The best argument that I believe still has merit is this:

All websites on the internet—including ad networks!—are guests on our computers, and the content they provide are merely suggestions for a user agent to interpret and show us how it chooses.

If you agree with this—and I kinda do—then yeah, PPA shouldn’t exist. You’re probably a staunch user of uBlock (or uMatrix) and don’t want your browser engaging in any privacy-preserving attribution shenanigans.

But here’s the kicker: if you use uBlock, PPA won’t do anything. It can’t, even when left enabled. For the API to be called, ads need to get to your browser first, and uBlock doesn’t allow them to get that far. The only people really affected by PPA are people not using adblocking, i.e. the people being tracked all over the web, who would likely benefit from PPA.

As I said in a previous comment: if PPA works and is widely adopted, I can see the argument for how it’d be better—unfortunately, most people still browse the internet without uBlock. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop installing it on every device I can; I’m simply accepting that’ll never be every device on earth.

And for all that Mozilla is implementing “bullshit,” they’re also the only ones keeping uBlock 100% functional by maintaining manifest V2. They spend time and resources protecting the very thing that trumps their supposed bullshit. That feels not like enshittification to me, but a group trying its best, even while stuck between a rock and a hard place.

What do you believe Mozilla was implementing?

I think I agree with the major point of the article, that many gaming journalists… don’t do a great job. At all. Many seem to outright hate the communities they serve, which can’t be healthy for either side.

But it certainly wasn’t this article that convinced me. It’s needlessly hostile, contains personal attacks and petty insults, and despite its many claims and assumptions about Deadlock, gaming companies, journalists and gamers, it has only 4 outgoing links—one of them, bizarrely, simply to x.com—and nothing else. Screenshots? More supporting evidence? Have a useless picture of Valve’s office, I guess.

One of the linked resources is a tweet:

bye Twitter Quoted tweet: “Where to find Verge staff on Mastodon https://theverge.com/23519135/mastodon…”

Why does the author think this is relevant?

Their Twitter account links to a Mastodon address, a throwback to when Elon Musk bought the website and the journos had a hissy fit because they could no longer backchannel to have accounts banned for telling them to “learn to code.”

Wow, that’s why you think people were complaining? Nothing else, no other possible undesirable consequence arising from Musk’s takeover of Twitter? Not even his influence in levels and management of hate speech and misinformation in the platform?

Indeed, the majority of his last month’s output on Twitter – now X.com – is whining about Musk and bizarrely saying “bye Twitter” despite The Verge still being very much active on the site. It’s all so tiresomely typical.

It’s actually quite common for organizations that give mastodon a chance to keep their Twitter account as well. It’s the sad reality that most people (many of their following) will stay on Twitter. See Mozilla for another example, they host their own instance, even, but that sadly doesn’t mean they can throw away Twitter.

So the journalist in question shows support for mastodon, both by mentioning their account and bringing attention to the fact that The Verge is also joining, and this is your reaction? If you know why this happens, it’s misleading, and if you don’t, then it’s a failure in reporting. Both are bad and make me hesitant to believe anything else you say.

By the way, I’m curious about your choice of platform. I wonder what factors led to you picking nazi central as your center of operations. I’m not claiming you’re a Nazi, it’s just… you’re sitting at the table with them, you know?

The answer is games journalism, maybe journalism in general, has become a largely self-serving practice where nothing matters except appearing smarter than the audience you’re supposed to serve.

Well said, Richard. Definitely got that feeling just now.

And to people thinking The Verge sucks completely: don’t generalize publishers like this, please! You should be critical, aware of their leanings and biases, but remember that they’re still an organization hosting multiple writers with different skills too. The Verge has some solid reporting, like when they showed how SEO ruined the web. They also have some utterly shameful moments—let us never forget The Verge PC—just like most other media.

Wasn’t there a privacy scandal involving them a while back?

Edit: for reference, see this link by The Verge or this one by Mozilla and scroll down a little.

I think the big difference is that you seem to think that AI has peaked or is near its peak potential, while I think AI is still just getting started.

That’s a fair assessment. I’m still not sure if popular AI tech is on an exponential or a sigmoid curve, though I tend towards the latter. But the industry at large is starting to believe it’s just not worth it. Worse, the entities at the forefront of AI are unsustainable—they’re burning brightly right now, but the cash flow required to keep a reaction on this scale going is simply too large. If you’ve got time and are willing, please check the linked article by Ed (burst damage).

I mean, maybe I could have phrased it better, but what else are you gonna do?

My bad, I try to trim down the fat while editing, but I accidentally removed things I shouldn’t. As I said, it’s a nitpick, and I understand the importance of helping those who find themselves unhirable. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it came across a little mean, even if it wasn’t your intent. I try to gently “poke” folks when I see stuff like this because artists get enough undeserved crap already.

I’ve no idea where you’re getting these predictions from. I think some of them are fundamentally flawed, if not outright incorrect, and don’t reflect real life trends of generative AI development and applications.

Gonna finish this comment in a few, please wait. Edit: there we go.

One by one, somewhat sorted from “Ok, I see it,” to “What the hell?”

Well, sounds great. I almost wish more companies would advertise to that market, really.

It’s like… I know you’re lying, and I know you probably don’t actually care, but some of your competitors couldn’t even be bothered to do this much. Those companies thought shitting on things I care about to maximize profit was the better strategy. I’ll take that into consideration in my future decisions.

And if the situation changes, if they turn around and go full in on generative AI, we’ll just have to consider that too. That’s life.

Of course, I believe using alternatives that are more resistant to these kinds of market trends (community built software, perhaps?) would be ideal, but it’s not always an option.

Always sweet to see folks incentivize each other to engage with content!

For anyone still daunted by the article, I expect the DEFCON channel will upload this talk soon, which might be more up your alley.

I’ve seen this, and what bothers me most is when you get that nasty feeling they’re not looking for a therapist, but validation. Yeah, your ex-wife sucked, man. She was totally in the wrong about everything always, sorry you had to deal with her for so long. I’m sure you’re in the clear and there’s nothing you could be blamed for, it’s easy to tell from this one-sided retelling of your personal conflicts.

When anyone’s first topic of choice for casual conversation is how much their last partner was in the wrong, it’s… difficult not to be dubious.

Small addendum, I believe having an unfair monopoly is actually illegal in the US. Google search is currently on the hook for this.

I thought that might’ve been the source of your misunderstanding. Sorry, that’s just how I write sometimes, no deeper meaning intended. As far as I know there’s no public data on what percentage of Firefox and Chrome users like their browsers’ features.

(because of Brave’s whole thing)

Ha.

I’m sorry to hear that, been there (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Firefox in my case). Hopefully we can stick around for a while.

Leaving Vivaldi was a sad moment for me. That UI, that sidebar, the settings, those features…! Goodness. I’m an avid enjoyer of bells and whistles, and Vivaldi’s got all of them and then some. I miss that a bit.

The folks working on it seem great, check their blog for their decision track record 1 2 3. Did you know they also host a mastodon instance? Literally my only issue with it is the engine, and that just so unluckily happens to be a deal breaker.

A lot of people don’t even know it’s an option, or have grown to believe that’s just how the web is. When was the last time you saw adblockers in mainstream media or news?

This is why I think it’s so important to keep raising awareness. If you have people in your life who you believe would be better off using uBlock, consider bringing it up when you have the opportunity.