Excellent analysis. Especially this part:

It will be much more productive to try to solve this with the handful of Browser vendors than trying to regulate each and every consent banner.

Early cookie banners were a bad experience but they were manageable. But now thing have transitioned into content-blocking modals, dark patterns, forced individual consent/rejection for each and every one of the 943 partners they’re selling your data to, sites that refuse to serve content if you reject tracking and other ways to frustrate the end user.

I’m done with every piece of shit predatory actor inventing their own way of malicious compliance with the GDPR. You either implement the user-friendly consent API or you get no more tracking at all. Paywall your shit for all I care, at least then you’ll have a sustainable business model.

Yeah that’s the thing. Users stick to reddit because they have ties with the individual communities, not so much the platform itself.

People used to use Facebook for similar reasons. “Because all my friends are there”. Not because Facebook was so great.

It can be difficult to leave communities behind that you feel a part of, even if you just lurk most of the time. The fact that reddit was turned into a corporate dystopic shitshow does bother users, but it hasn’t outweighed their needs to still be part of their respective communities.

But seeing as official reddit sources claim that “they’re still in the early stages of user monetization”, it might not be long before we see what’s left of the platform turn into the biggest dumpster fire the internet has ever seen.

Yeah, most western European languages actually.

Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian… Though most of these languages alternate between “taking a decision” and using a form of “to decide”.

German seems to be the exception. They just had to be different. Guess that’s that German precision for ya, they have to “hit their decisions” otherwise they won’t count.

I have no idea why they’re even remotely interested in Windows as a product anymore. Surely they can’t expect that much revenue from integrated AI services when most of the general public’s needs can be covered by web services that will severely outmatch Microsoft’s development speed (y’know because of juggling legacy code and all).

Considering the fact that they gain most of their revenue by far from their Azure cloud services and enterprise customers, it just seems like a stupid business decision to invest this much into all kinds of random features for their desktop OS aimed at consumers.

In proper systems architectecture theory, we generally try to avoid mixing up functionality this much because a modular design allows your system to evolve without too much pain. Why build all this crap into Windows when you can just opt-in by installing an application for it?

I really don’t get it…

Apple’s whole modern “it’s reliable and just works” cult following exists because they found a fix for situations where the problem was between keyboard and chair.

Both Windows and Linux-based operating systems are plenty reliable if you actually know what you’re doing and you know how things work. Apple started a culture where you don’t need to know how things work because you have no influence over your own devices. Which lets people do the simple tasks without adressing the problem that your userbase will not amass any computing knowledge whatsoever.

And when Apple devices do fail (and trust me, they do), they fail catastrophically without a way to fix the problem yourself (which is by design).

The distinction is larger for computers than it is for mobile devices, but yeah in general Apple devices are for simpletons. But the biggest issue is that Apple’s design philosophy actively creates these simpletons.

It’s strange to me that the differences are so vast between different continents.

I know litteraly no one who actually uses iMessage. Never once (in recent years) seen some communicate through a channel that isn’t WhatsApp, Signal or something similar. The whole “ew, green bubbles” drama just isn’t a thing here. (Though the existence of iPhone users still harms society in different ways)

Though I do agree with many commenters that the EU caving to the lobbyists is a bad thing. Having the law only apply to “problems that are big enough to care about” is still a loss for the consumer in the end. I’m all for standardisation and free choice, which means any commercial messaging service should comply. Exceptions only for open source projects funded by non-profit organisations.

Right, like how they design connectors that when shorted will instantly fry your CPU.

Or the part where they design flex cables that are too short for you to bend your screen back all the way.

There is a long list of hardware fuck ups that are outright stupid choices that competent engineers would never make. The only reason these defects exist is because they cause people to buy new devices more frequently.

They know how to do fancy hardware, not how to do reliable and durable hardware.

It crazy how worked up non-customers get over this stuff. It’s not like rabid apple fans are grabbing their pitchforks.

See, here is where we disagree. The amount of revenue Apple generates, makes them an example for other companies, and you see them start making the same dumb choices.

I want this trend of tech enshittification to stop and the brain-dead Apple fans are to blame. Because they allow themselves to get milked for revenue, the whole consumer space has to deal with companies trying hard to nudge the boundaries with every new product. All aimed at extracting just a little more money than they did before.

So no, in addition to not buying their shit devices and services, it actually helps to make others stop buying their shit as well. I am done allowing people to take the easy way out and to stay ignorant about the consequences of their choices. If you praise Apple to me, you’re going to get an earful.

I don’t think anyone here is against this per se. It’s just that this store was probably intended for other purposes than providing an infinite supply of digital waifus that will actually respond.

I’m all for degeneracy, everyone has a right to get naughty, just like everyone has a right to friendship, love and happiness. Which is why it is a good thing these exist. I just don’t think they intended for them to be here, and in such large numbers.

Exactly what I was thinking. The whole AI hype has been cringe so far and this just confirms it. Seems that the ratio between legitimate use cases and fucking around is kinda skewed towards the meme side of things.

Or it might just signify our population has a HUGE lonelyness problem (for a myriad of reasons).

I take issue with some of the statements here. First of all:

I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.

Right to repair is definitely not just being pushed by repair shops. If you take a good look at the rate Framework is selling devices at (batches instantly sold out until Q1 2024), you’ll see that consumers want this more than any other group. We, as the consumers will ultimately benefit the most from having repair options available. Right to repair is not meant to halt innovation, it is not about forcing manufacturers to design products in ways detrimental to the functioning of said products. It is about making sure they don’t lock third parties out of the supply chain. If you replace a traditional capacitor with a SMD variant, someone is going to learn to micro solder. If you convert a chip from socketed to BGA mount, someone is going to learn how to use a heat plate and hot air gun to solder it back in to place.

The main problem is manufacturers demonstrably going out of their way to prevent the feasable.

The second part I take issue with is this:

It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters

From my 12 years of experience in design of consumer goods and engineering for manufacturing I can tell you this is not happening because no one is going to pay for it. The more tightly you bond these “constituent matters” together, the more time, energy, reasearch and money it will require to convert them back into useful resources.

There is only one proper way to solve this problem and it is to include reclamation of resources into the product lifecycle design. Which is currently not widely done because companies put profits before sustainability. And this model will be upheld until legislation puts a halt to it or until earth’s resources run out.

In terms of sustainability the desireable order of action is as follows:

• reduce: make it so you need less resources overall
• prolong: make it so you can make do as long as possible with your resources. this part includes repair when needed
• reuse: make it so that a product can be used for the same purpose again. this part includes repair when needed
• repurpose: make it so that a product can be used for a secondary purpose
• recycle: turn a product into resources to be used for making new products
• burn: turn the product into usable energy (by burning trash in power stations for example)
• dispose: usually landfill