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.

Discoverability is a huge barrier to entry in the Fediverse, and they’re not helping.

It’s hard for me to judge them too harshly, though. Fediverse devs do things I disagree with all the time, and users too. Maybe, in a different world, something else could’ve taken Mastodon’s place… but its forks stick close, Pleroma has the charm of a brick, Misskey is too 日本, and Misskey forks got Messy, and—

…Oh. That’s it, isn’t it? Mastodon is the best that ActivityPub has to offer most microblogging fans.

Thank you.

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

I believe that’s incorrect. The reporter who started this rumor either misunderstood the meaning of the chart or was lying through his teeth. I’ll find the original source and share it here later.

Linux Foundation Report.

This is the actual source. If you simply scroll through it, you’ll see they’re investing in many things that move the Linux ecosystem forward. Open standards, open hardware, security in the software stack, providing for latest market needs, keeping an eye on legislation that could affect Linux, staying in touch with important entities in the industry, and so on.

Scroll down near the bottom and you’ll find where the reporter got their information from. It’s an expenditure chart and, sure enough, it says “Linux Kernel Support 2%” Note, however, that it also says:

• Community Tooling 5%
• Training and Certifications 7%
• Project Infrastructure 9%
• Project Support 64% (!)

Note that it doesn’t say how any of them is further divided. Remember all the things I mentioned earlier? All of that is value for Linux as a whole.

Software projects aren’t just about programming the big thing. Working on a large project will show you this. Could the foundation spend more on Linux? Maybe. But saying they only spend 2% on it is disingenuous.

The reporter doesn’t mention this in his clickbait piece, either because he doesn’t get it in the first place, or more likely because he just wants to push his views.

On the other hand, an isolated community can also become a nasty brewing pot, reinforcing harmful behaviors and even intensifying them over time.

I don’t think calling them safe spaces for hateful assholes is accurate, but I understand frustrations with them.

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.

Yes, people chase content, which means chasing where many people are, but why did Bluesky become a mainstream alternative and Mastodon didn’t?

I’m saying marketing doesn’t cut it, and it’s not just about where most users are either, otherwise everyone but Threads would be irrelevant.

People bounce off both Threads and Mastodon, and there are platform-related reasons for that.

That may be true for some people, but isn’t a valid generalization. See the Brazil blocking Twitter situation.

Millions decided to give Bluesky a chance and a graph showed daily user activity quadrupling. Now, a not-insignificant portion are saying they refuse to return to Twitter because:

• It feels less toxic and healthier
• They have more control over their experience
• They’re finally having fun with social media again

Sound familiar?

And I’m pretty sure Misskey has more features. Hell, Mastodon as well probably. Bluesky doesn’t even support video yet.

The first sin of the Fediverse isn’t being small, that’s the second. First is being a pain in the ass.

This was one of the reasons I left, and I assumed most disliked the official app, but weren’t willing to part with the content.

Now, I think I was too close minded. Stuck in my bubble. If it’s not in a discussion about reddit sucking, chances are people don’t care that much.

App sucks? Didn’t think about that, it’s just an app. App really sucks? Whatever, they already use 5 other apps that are worse.

The medium shapes the experience, but isn’t an experience unto itself. Not that important to the average person.

Why are there three forks(?) of what I assume is Misskey? I think the original is still kicking, even.

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.

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?

if its truly end to end encrypted

Telegram chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted by default, and group messages cannot be encrypted. Just saying.

However, its design is a little too complex to be used at small sizes, as you would in text or in a button.

I wonder what the criteria are. Because ⁂ just looks like three blurry dots to me. It’s not making things worse, but I wouldn’t say it’s making them much better either.

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.

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.