remember, it's not just about making up the difference per user in advertising, it's about getting and keeping as many people into their ecosystem as possible.

then they make some cash from selling data, and having more data to scrape to train their models and such. proton isnt making any off your data

it'd be great to be able to easily compare cost and expense, but companies obscure so much in the backend. rental car companies buy discounted in bulk, then sell the cars tens of thousands of miles later at a profit, and that's before any income from rental

This is similar to to how the two major US political parties fail at effectively creating constant, essential evolution of laws in the name of representing ideals.

Candidates that can not, by the very foundational nature of their stated goals and beliefs, form coalitions with other candidates in order to ensure constant progress, create disfunctional governments that fail their citizens. Systems of choice should tend towards the choices that best represent the most widely agreed upon ideas. If those systems are in place, citizens who willingly choose extreme idelogical candidates that denounce compromise and coalitions are getting exactly what they voted for- a government that is doomed to fail.

We need moderate candidates focused on representing the majority of their constituents, and we need voting systems in place that favor moderate candidates. Any system that favors moderate candidates - say candidates that, while maybe not any majority's first choice, but the second choice of a majority of the same people - is favorable to first-past-the-post, which has allowed exteremism and obstructionism to thrive in our legislative bodies.

The question becomes, do the citizens have that system in place, a system where moderate voices can thrive? If they do, are there those in positions of extreme wealth and power who would benefit from convincing the rest of us that voting for extreme, obstructionist candidates is best? Are those people possibly exploiting the system to create disfuntional governments that protect their wealth and power?

That's whats happening in the US. Regulatory capture and mass media control, for example, are tools used to convince citizens the war is between us, distracting us from their benefitting from our disfunctional government. These few push the idea that obstructionism and extremism is our only choice, lest you be seen as the enemy. The true enemy is clearly those that care more about themselves and/or their espoused ideals than society at large, a society doomed without a constantly evolving goverment keeping corruption and consolodation of wealth and power in check.

can't labels and artists pay for some kind of premium placement in discover weekly, release radar, and playlist recs?

ok, after some research, found this:

In some cases, commercial considerations, such as the cost of content or whether we can monetize it, may influence our recommendations. For example, Discovery Mode gives artists and labels the opportunity to identify songs that are a priority for them, and our system will add that signal to the algorithms that determine the content of personalized listening sessions. When an artist or label turns on Discovery Mode for a song, Spotify charges a commission on streams of that song in areas of the platform where Discovery Mode is active (Discovery Mode is not active in our editorial playlists). This signal increases the likelihood of the selected songs being recommended, but does not guarantee it.

so, at the very least, the recs you get are definitely not organic, and favor major labels, rich folks, and if Spotify can make any money off streaming the track in the first place

not saying the algorithm doesn't get it right most of the time (they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if it was all sponsored), but if it's favoring big labels and drowning out everyone else in the name of revenue for Spotify, I prefer to choose other ways to find new stuff. if Spotify needs more money to pay the bills, imho they should plainly be asking the consumers up front

many times I've seen a new post and said "I'd buy a pile of that as stickers and put them up all over 'amazonville' (nobody calls it that- the chunk of Seattle where scamazon raized the old, gloriously grungy bars, affordable apartments and light industrial buildings, replacing it all with techbro filled, sterile glass towers and impossibly priced luxury condos)

if there weren't constant corposecurity wandering about, posters would be perfect. but there are plenty of light poles adorned with bright, colorful show posters in the surrounding neighborhoods, just begging to have some FOSS war posters tacked up on them

whoops. maybe I should read the entire thing next time

downvotes are not to express disagreement!

so many comments here about adding regulations and "this should be illegal" and, yes, those may be a valid way to curb this behavior

but customers willing to leave a company for bad behavior, customers wary of new products without asdurances they wont just become useless, non-reusable e-waste could also effectively curb this behavior

just because you want to outsource all of your product and company research to a law or regulation, and want to be able to blindly buy products and just hope the company doesn't make bad choices in every regard but quartly profits doesn't mean it is the only effective check & balance

The way I understood it is a commercial for McD in the US isnt required to have real food; a commercial for McD's "whatever" has to have the actual item being advertised, but can be so meticulously crafted, you'd never see one like that in the wild. A commercial for a grocery chain, for example- most/all of of the food you see is props made to look like the most appetizing food youve ever dreamed of.

Who knows if this is enforced. NPR and PBS stations are specifically prohibited from "sponsorship" messages mentioning a specific product or service, and they've been ignoring that for decades.

I find myself immediately opening the video transcript for many videos. creating a well made video that offers more than a few paragraphs of text is often a challenge

They care about being able to hire labor, which we provide, and they care about revenue and profit, which we also provide. Not defending any behavior, but the consequences in a healthy economy would largely come from customers, potential and current employees. Failing that, large issues would be overcome by regulations, or at least enforcing existing ones (codified rules against monopolies, for examples, are just words if not enforced).

Without consumers willing (and able) to make sacrifices (like paying higher prices) to reward good corporate behavior, and to avoid companies with purely short-term profit motivated behavior, this is what we can and should expect. Nevermind companies are rewarded by shareholder and investor support based more on profits than.how those profits were made, especially when many of those shareholders feel forced to turn to the stock market to fund their retirement, as pensions are so increasingly a rare option.

Would voting for fresh representatives possibly increase instability in out daily lives? Is that instability a possibly necessary cost of maintaining effective regulation of the investor class that has captured our legislative system to their own benefit?

There are systemic problems at play here- not to downplay the choices this individual company made, but the focus could be on the larger forces at work. If your first reaction is that boycotts and choices by consumers and employees, no matter how organized and widespread, do not work, then I ask you, dear reader, to consider what might work to make the necessary systemic changes, and what, if anything, you can do to help make them happen.

The investor class has made it clear what their playbook is, as they have time and time again thru history: explotation, and as much of it as they can get away with. The question then becomes what us, the ever-increasingly exploited, are going to do about it.

no war but class war.

ed:I hope that didnt come off as disagreement- just trying to voice frustration with a side of "everyone who agrees with you please take a moment to think about the big picture, and what you can do about it" because I'm also tired of this slide into an increasingly boring dystopia

Nothing I ever do is a failure, it’s just some shit I did.

amazing. I'm stealing this

I like the way the author describes the intentions of the bill at face value (protecting children!) exactly as the authors do, without any journalistic analysis of that being true or not. Could have ended the article with actual information from somewhere like the EFF, but instead, mentioned a concern from a nonprofit that "receives money from tech companies."

What an absolute joke to call this journalism. No wonder they're losing their jobs to algorithmic language models with no concern for anything other than sensible use of English grammar.

Everybody loses but the investment firm.

by. design.

it's so hard to watch people in late-stage capitalism still have faith enough in the integrity of the whole thing to give a go at it, and inevitably get smacked down by the few with all the dollar, as if it werent all rigged against them from the beginning. I hope theyve learned and pivoted their efforts into helping press the big RESET button rather than kicking the can down the road, no matter how pure the intentions

there's a class war on, and we're losing. honestly, truly, maybe we don't need an ethical review website right now, unless youre reviewing torches and pitchforks? I say this out of frustration that so many of the people behind that site will just pointlessly try to play by the rules again. the war needs more good fighters, not people who continue to swallow the lie that the way forward is playing by the current, just so laughably rigged game

i dont care that this whole comment is a cliche

cliches are cliches for a reason

fuck Google, the employees and shareholders

eat the fucking rich

the economy is a circle. people choose where they buy from and what they buy, and producers and stores don't just make money from thin air.

people often choose convenience and lower price, indirectly choosing to be part of something "big" by supporting the big business. there is a disconnect in thinking choosing higher inconvenience and cost in the name of supporting smaller businesses "does anything" - except youre already doing something, youre supporting the big business and literally responsible for its success

same thing happens when a mutual fund rewards a company for profits while ignoring how it got them. nevermind we are simultaneously the customers and employees these companies poorly treat, extort and squeeze for every penny.

until people decide individually to make decisions and sacrifices for everyones future, rather than spouting the obvious propaganda that individual action doesn't matter, therefore why bother? it can't.

also, late stage capitalism doesnt do stability- you get yours while you can and get out because the next crash is coming soon

america is a country full of people who can't wait for the next new thing they'll be able to point to their neighbors also doing and shrug, while whatever it is further burns their world to the ground. lately that thing is ditching pensions and low yield investments to make retirement dependent on the profits of giant, horrible companies. I honestly think it'll be the one of a thousand papercuts as everyone shirks responsibility because, hey, this bread and these circuses aren't that bad...

edit tl;dr americans have a serious disconnect between their actions and the consequences of them at scale. until that changes, we all lose

not to say thats not happening as well, but iirc the CA legislature historically has a big cram to pass most of their bills at the end of the session in september. Ive noticed the flood, too, but this happens every year, all the signing and vetoing lumped together

for debian based systems, there is a PPA with nightly builds. I use a quick and dirty python script via systemd to schedule nightly builds from the PPA's source pkg on both debian and popOS with good results. worst case you can roll back to a prevous build of the pkg, tho Ive never had to

"hue" refers to a color value in how it differes from other colors (red vs blue), but is separate from "lightness" or "saturation." a "light blue" may have the same hue as a "dark blue."

have you ever seen the color pickers with a giant rainbow circle, and a separate white/black slider? the rainbow circle is for selecting the hue.

"it's a great day for flying!"

ATM0 so you don"t wake your parents while youre dialing in somewhere