UnspecificGravity

I think part of it is that Reddit has gotten so bad that even casual users are noticing that it’s basically indistinguishable from any other corporate social media.

Gay dudes, by a mile. Probably both in terms of rate and absolute number. I bet it’s not even close.

They are suggesting that going to open source solutions won’t result in new industry in their countries (i.e. that Google won’t be opening offices and data centers and such there).

It’s a pretty bogus statement anyways, but it’s not COMPLETELY senseless.

Don’t forget that they fork over millions of dollars to Joe Rogan while they are doing it.

I’ve tried explaining this to me peers that just quietly bust their asses while noisy jerks (including me, but to a lesser extent than most) get perceived as high performers because they engage with their bosses and work on things that have high visibility.

I think it depends on your source.

If we are talking about a downloaded good high bit rate MP3 and a FLAC, then yeah, I can’t hear a difference.

For streaming, I CAN hear a difference between the default spotify stream and my locally stored lossless files. That difference might come down to how they are mastered or whatever spotify does to the files, but whatever it is the difference is pretty perceptible to me and I don’t have especially sensitive ears.

I buy headphone cables based on how nice the cable feels, if it transmits noise when it rubs against stuff, and how well the connectors fit into the devices I am using.

My favorite is when people get picky about cabling for digital transfer. The ones and zeroes either get there or they don’t, nothing in-between. They work or they don’t.

I think the best thing to do is to assess your ability to hear difference. I can absolutely hear the difference between my Bluetooth earbuds and a decent wired IEM, so I use wired headphones for listening to music. I CANNOT hear a significant qualitative difference between the $25 Chinese IEMs that I use and more expensive options that I have tried, so I use the cheap ones.

To be sure, there ARE perceptible differences between wired headphones, but those are more a matter of EQ and personal preference. I can achieve my maximum perceivable level of quality with pretty inexpensive hardware. It doesn’t mean that other people cannot, that isn’t my problem.

I think the biggest mistake that the current administration is making (at least in terms of domestic commerce) is the complete failure to understand that consumer protections are NOT altruistic services given away to people. They are devices intended to increase consumer confidence and therefore consumer spending. A properly regulated market means that customers are confident that they will be given fair terms and will get what they have paid for. If you erode those protections the result is that consumers spend less.

The governments role in a capitalist nation is to serve as a guarantor of the integrity of transactions within its jurisdiction. If it abdicates that responsibility people will curtail their spending commensurate with their perception of increased risk. In short, people stop buying shit when they view those purchases as risky.

Since Trump and his cohort have never actually engaged in LEGITIGIMATE business they view these regulations exclusively as impediments when the reality is that they greatly benefit corporations in a consumer driven economy.

It was a NEST camera from Google, which is only a meaningful distinction because it means they ALL do this shit.

They aren’t really making a ton of games that justify a costly upgrade anyways.

Probably because ram prices have gotten high enough that they cannot price the console at a reasonable price.

Yep. Your data is stolen and it’s never going to be used in a way that benefits you unless you’re really fucking important.

They are desperate to make it look like the google cameras aren’t recording and saving data 24/7 regardless of whether you have an account or not.

Sure, except that Discord was accessible when these were set up. There is nothing stopping Reddit from doing the exact same thing next year.

Stop a calling this “age.verification” and start calling it what it is, “identity harvesting”.

Yep. It’s why trumpers are such a lucrative scam target. It’s a self selected group of easily deceived victims.

Reddits stock performance since that decision isn’t likely anything that anyone would want to emulate.

Well yeah, that’s who is paying for Jeffries and Schumer to do absolutely fuck all this whole time.

Or at least a product worth paying for.

You light about a thousand fires with a bic lighter and then pull out the second one you got for 89 cents. How many times do you have to do that before you wish you brought an arc lighter instead?