Used to have android phones but iphone just works better for me and I do like the ecosystem. Yes its a walled garden but it works pretty damn well and reliably.

Gaslighting is another way people justify abuse

I can probably help with some of the explanation on this. Not necessarily the data stealing side of things but definitely how they killed off competition. Youtube operated at a loss for a looong time while providing a stable and well functioning platform where creators could make a decent amount of money this resulted in year over year userbase growth. This not only made it harder for other platforms to break into the market as no creator would want to spend time making content on a platform with less users but also the other platforms did not have the capital behind them to operate at such a loss so they die out or they get purchased by google/youtube for a bargain and get shut down. Now youtubes userbase is so captive that they are pretty much free to essentially abuse their users almost as much as they want because as a viewer theres not really any other platform out there that has the creators you watch and as a creator theres no platform thatll get you enough views to be sustainable. Its a cycle that has to be kicked off by something big like youtube going down because thats the only way users are going to migrate.

You kind of see something similar with big box stores, companies moving into areas or even just gas stations. Big gas station companies arent in the gas business, they are in the real estate and convenience store business. They often sell gas at a loss even though they have their own fuel logistics supply chain. Other stations who rely on income from fuel sales and less so convenience sales struggle because they cant secure the selection in the store and dont have their own fuel logistics. Many go belly up unless they have something unique that keeps people coming in like restaurants or a unique drink selection. Once most if not all the local stores go out of business then the big store prices rise and the consumer is abused.

Google has stated that theyve operated youtube at a loss for a very long time but (and this is my speculation) its been done intentionally to edge out the competition and retain sympathy from its userbase to justify the abuse. Youtube is making massive revenue but they are spending it. If google/alphabet didnt see it as a profit stream it would have been killed a long time ago. My theory is they are sorta playing the game from both sides and overspending on overhead and padding the execs wallets more and more just to tell investors and shareholders that while revenue has increased, so has overhead/labor/etc just to take home their own fat paycheck while also milking their userbase for as much as they can. At some point its gunna break but execs have already made out on their goods. Yes video hosting and platform development is expensive but I do believe youtube is not spending most of its money there and that it doesent need all the overhead spending think of how crappy their content review system is. Nothing gets seen by a human except in very specific circumstances

You’re minimizing the abuse. Used to be fine with ads when it was 1-2 max but then it got abusive and greedy. Someone who yells at you once or twice may just be angry, upset, or so on. Someone who yells at you constantly is abusive

Its because those touch screens have clunky UI and are slow if they made it simple and straightforward instead of a question for every page it would be as fast if not faster than a person ordering at a register. Most PoS systems are touch screen nowadays so literally all your doing instead of putting in the options in yourself is telling someone else what to put in. They also do it hundreds of times an hour so they are way faster that someone whos only used a kiosk a few times

Its getting real close and I like Affinity’s workflow much better. Theres a few small bugs here and there. If anything im a Freelance professional but its my hobby first. Ive used Photoshop/Lightroom, GIMP/RawTherapee in the past on the photography side and Inkscape on the Graphic design side but now I mainly use Designer 2 and Photo 2. Granted my workflow is probably a decent bit different than a studios and I dont know what specifcs a studio needs over something like my workflow. What sorta challenges did switching to Affinity present for your studio?

Isint Steam a form of DRM? You effectively cant play your games if you dont have an account I thought

Why not customer led like a co-op?

Bombardier?

I think AI can be good its just being fumbled so hard right now

??? Why? That thing is gunna get so greasy

So we’re starting to get to the point where its theoretically possible for computers to get real organic viruses? “Sorry boss I cant work today my computer caught Covid and coughed on me so now I have it too :(”

I think its more that you can supplement you normal power draw so your electricity bill isint so high

Publix subs also rock and are filling

That explosion doesent seem much bigger than a firework thats smaller than the battery’s size. With as much as a car weighs and the amount we already do to protect batteries in electric cars i imagine the explosion from these could be easier to manage safely than a lithium fire. I also wonder how harmful the fumes are compared to lithium

It has gotten better but man still so much undelivered. Im just sad and im tired of being sad. Im fully pledging to never buy a big publisher game unless it absolutely proves itself first and even then im still gunna be hesitant cause vote with your money and all that. Honestly outside of KSP2 Ive already been purchasing and playing mostly indie games for the last 2 years anyways

You are right sadly :( but dont discredit yourself so much! A ton of people do listen and a ton of people think yall are cool! I think you’re cool. Its just that those people and I dont tend to be the people that have the resource to make decisions

Thank you that was super informative. Is there anything that can be done to mitigate an impending eruption? Ive always heard that if one of the big super volcanoes goes it could be quite catastrophic for the entire world. Surely theres been some research into like pressure relief holes or something…antacid tabs?

Yea and some items could be grouped together like toothbrushes and pens/pencils. It would definitely at least take half the day but if assuming unlimited funds/manpower you could have multiple machines manned by teams

Id totally be down to split the 5 mil evenly between all of us. We could all use some extra money these days