Good thing FB and Insta themselves are skippable.

Yeh it’s a sign-in for a free trial wall. Alternatively

Thats a good point as far as your visual identity being exposed to other fb users. However, with where facial recognition is at now, they’re sure to be able to match that and your identity on their business side with your (IRL) friends location data, cross site tracking and other data to effectively have a db of images of ‘you’. Whether or not they have a business use for it is another matter but not a stretch to see it as a part of the data harvesting and broking landscape, though I’m not sure of the value of images of you to them : perhaps demographic data for adsales. All speculation on my part, and I’m not sure where this would sit with regulation in various places. Just interesting to think about.

They have other ways. Cross site tracking etc. People without accounts on the platform itself still have profiles on the business side, which is a decent chunk of how they’re making money.

Bury the ashes of the pieces in the deepest hole. We need rid of this whole concept of information being monopolized and harvested for profit.

I think they mean the same thing happens alot in reverse: YT vids about news articles. Not wrong, but whataboutist.

Barbara Streisand

Yeh people learn and it becomes normal which is fine. Ebay is as bizarre to me. Not hate, more a morbid fascination that things so maze-like to navigate can also be successful. Could be semi cultural as well. I’ve noticed this being the way in other US platforms with a similar legacy. I’ve also being (attempting to) subvert tracking for quite a while so maybe that’s working and its less useful as a result lol. I’m lucky in a sense that their corporation isn’t so strong where I live so theres more choice (ironically I may actually have less choice). Its annoying when they have the monopoly on a given product, but it’s also possible just to go without the shiny thing.

Thanks for this. I’ve only used Amazon a few times and was always baffled at the train wreck of its chaotic layout / ux. I had to buy something there once and it was such a process it was like being asked to leave the store before paying. Thought at the time it must be down to legacy and new features being showhorned around ancient web1.0 history, its success being its burden with customers having to learn how to use the thing. Price fixing scam is what I will think of it now, while continuing to avoid it.

I did also and was astounded. More EV brands and retail stores for them than for mobile phones and gadgets in the malls. I counted 14 brands in one mall. Like EVs are a fashion accessory. And I saw car designs for sale and on the steet that looked like what we usually see only as early concept art. not high tier of market either. It is an ultra-competitive race to the bottom , There must be several new factories and brands opening every week, and maybe the same or more shutting down. some of the bells and whistles being thrown in are pretty funny. Little robotic characters ala alexa for your car that sits on the dash with led face responding and moving to commands. half side doors being an LED screen for some reason (mainly to atrract potential buyers in the malls I thought) . The european, tesla and other US evs alongside were very very plain. Whether all of this is a good thing is another matter.

…and it opens its mouth , the sound of a 56k modem connecting screams forth at ear piercing volume. With this It scans the brainwaves of the helpless victims in the room , desperately looking for yet more free information to consume, with which to maintain itself in its dying weeks of this cursed hype cycle from which it emerged. “Please subscribe”, it then pleads.

And targetted ads aren’t that much more effective than context based. So the internet has been compromised, misinformation has run rife, and platforms hijacked to threaten democratic nations so some corporations can have 6% more effective advertising. What a deal. I believe thats the approx effectiveness difference.

Yep, when ive resorted to yt directly on librewolf it usually freezes/buffers and tab needs refreshing every 5-10mins or so of vid. Sometimes it’s ok. Pretty inconsistent. I use ublock and sponsor block with librewolf . Usually i use invidious or yattee, Which have their own issues also playing whackamole with the giant

Indeed. Making that initial decision even more of a forced decision toward the expensive upsell. Its evil. And wasteful as you said.

Yeh I get that. Its treated as if its an upgrade - a sales upsell to a different unit I guess, rather than an upgrade to the literal unit the customer is receiving. Yep objectionable all round.

Yeh can upgrade them at purchase. From 256gb storage to 512gb will only cost you one kidney.

Thanks for letting me know about Zuck’s behaviour in Hawaii . I was unaware, and should be as a person of the pacific. What a disgusting imperialist culture destroyer and pig. As with many first nation cultures, to Polynesians land is sacred and we are a part of it , maybe guardians of it , more so than any possible ownership over it which is a ridiculous nonsensical concept. Was it not enough that he has compromised international democracy with his extremely dubious contributions to humanity. These sociopathic siliconvalley billionaires really are a scourge. This isn’t exclusive to tech though.

As for your overall point, I never particularly admired any corporate characters in tech. All in all I believe the whole sector is overvalued and its importance in life is way over emphasised - the social platforms, and google particularly are overinflated advertising businesses and so of course their self importance has been trumpeted loudly…by themselves and everyone who hitched their giddy advertising budgets to the illusory service provided. Barely as effective as traditional advertising of a century ago. They’ve constructed a panopticon we have trouble looking away from - they even want us to wear goggles to shoe us banners wr cant look away from, to sell us their own useless trinkets.

I believe we should think of the so called tech industry as merely a single component in whatever sector of life it happens to provide a product or service to. Not as a single industry but as a small department of weirdos running say the plumbing (though actual plumbing is arguably more important) with a dingy office in the basement. The cEOs of these are merely the hated bloated bosses of the ones really doing the work. But we should also judge their utility objectively. Sure some aspects are useful in some specific ways. But how useful really? What has the net gain been to humanity of gadget x, or platform Y , or pseudo-sub-industry z? What real energy has it consumed in order to solve what problem(s)? What has the human cost been? They don’t think in these terms but we actual humans should.

By the way I work in a tech area, in a small way. I like to think I speak from an angle of some experience with the way I’ve seen some behave, and the irreverant way some customers treat their ‘vendors’. The aura of the tech world is a cult-like bubble which each of these corporations create for themselves , and fledgling startups clamour for, and when clustered as one concept adds up to a massive bubble of hot stinking gas begging to pop.

Unfortunately concepts of value in our economy rarely match their true usefulness. The market is always correct and self corrects, apparently. I look forward to it, but the actual steps forward can be hard to appreciate with all the noise in that hype filled graph.

Also, and this isn’t exclusive to tech, corporations behave like psychopaths due to their narrow goals , profit being the main one, so the characters who float to the top of this septic system of single minded psychopathy tend to be sociopathic due to what they have needed to do to get there. Perhaps for tech this is more a late stage thing, in contrast to our memories of the romantic early days having been more about scrappy boffins soldering things in their parents garage. Now its about whipping up misconceptions in order to raise copious amounts of (mispent) capital in order to make…a smartphone app based ‘platform’ that provides solutions to problems we don’t have. So long as the pitch had “A.I” in each sentence.

So yeh, that this environment has resulted in some psychos with a disproportionate amount of money (and therefore political clout) is not a surprise.

To varying degrees if we live in democracies, we are all responsible for creating these monsters. It’s our responsibility to do something about it. Such as raising awareness -as you have done, choosing alternatives, thinking about whether a tech option really is necessary in your life (e.g choosing Amazon over your local independent bookstore), in your workplace (if you have any power here: atleast expressing an alternative method, or solution to your colleagues or managers), and holding tech providers to some level of account at the least with your skepticism. And obviously boycotting what you can. Also remaining hyper aware of the scammy nature of much of the so called sector in its business practices.

I never trusted Tom from myspace as a default insta friend, but he now does seem quaint . But the tech industry is not really an industry and it definitely isn’t the world.

Yep. And the streaming tech bros collusion with the industry mobsters took it to another level. The people making the art are a mere annoyance to the jerks profiting from it. And yet the ai which they think saves them from this annoyance requires the art be created in the first place. I guess the history of recorded music holds a fair amount to plunder . But art - and even pop music - is an expression and reflection of individuals and wider zeitgeist: actual humanity. I don’t see what value is added when a person creates something semi unique, and a supercomputer burns massive amounts of energy to mimic it. At this stage all of supposed AI is a marketing gimmic to sell things. Corporations once again showing their hostility to humanity.

Yeh a symptom of consumerism being (or pretending to be) the antidote to everything. A solution can always be purchased.

Hadn’t thought of this. I wonder how they would tread what you’d think would be a thin line. Or are lonely people that credulous? On the other hand being provided your perfect match during the trial period and falling in love with this corporate entity which you are then made to pay for access to? Dystopian.