bloup

@bloup@lemmy.sdf.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom | Ends on January 5th⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago⁩:

  First of all, I did not say that proton is opposing capitalism. I said that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise. As in, you can be opposed to an economy comprised primarily of capitalist institutions without being opposed to the concept of free enterprise. Proton is simply an example of such a business, which can be used as evidence for the fact that it is entirely possible to start businesses in a free market economy which are actually interested in solving problems as opposed to using the existence of problems as a vehicle to enrich a class of shareholders.

  Second of all, “it’s filling a niche created by other companies’ poor privacy policies” is essentially nothing more than a restatement of the second sentence I wrote, which I will repeat here: “I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share.”. You’re right that them adopting a nonprofit structure doesn’t change that, but it does change their ability to sell out their customers at the discretion of a class of shareholders, unlike any business which is owned by private individuals.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Proton 2024 Lifetime account fundraiser for online freedom | Ends on January 5th⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember one time I criticized proton for positioning itself as community oriented while still being a for-profit corporation. I pointed out that as long as it’s a for-profit corporation, it would have not have any financial or legal incentive to continue pursuing its mission if it ever achieved a certain level of market share. But then several months later, they actually announced that they were going to put their money where their mouth is, in transition to a nonprofit structure.

  I think that proton is perhaps the greatest example at the moment that to oppose capitalism does not mean you have to be opposed to free enterprise, and people should always think about this sort of thing when they listen to any kind of business leader try to convince them that it’s actually really important that they be allowed to cash out whenever they want.

  I can’t imagine that they’re set up is perfect, but I definitely am going to have to give this offer serious consideration.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Assassination is a Leaky Abstraction⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The most amazing part is not even that long ago, everyone agreed this is how it worked, even the business owners. I remember recently watching the 1923 silent film “Safety Last!” starring Harold Lloyd. I was very struck by a particular scene in the film where the owner of the store Harold Lloyd works at says:

  “I’d give $1000 for a new idea that would attract an enormous crowd to our store. Something is wrong with our exploitation! We simply are not getting the publicity that our position in the commercial world calls for.”

  This character is not presented as some kind of villain or saying something wrong. He’s just talking about how everyone understands business to work, by exploitation, which has always simply meant taking advantage of some kind of opportunity, even when people like Marx talked about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Legal complications await if OpenAI tries to shake off control by the nonprofit that owns the rapidly growing tech company⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The public needs to understand that this is literally people trying to take away some thing that belongs to the public, without having to even pay you for it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This GameCube Mini Is Downright Adorable | Time Extension⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “Nintendo take note”

  this person has no clue what they are asking for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gemini AI tells the user to die — the answer appeared out of nowhere when the user asked Google's Gemini for help with his homework⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t use it for writing directly, but I do like to use it for worldbuilding. Because I can think of a general concept that could be explored in so many different ways, it’s nice to be able to just give it to an LLM and ask it to consider all of the possible ways it could imagine such an idea playing out. it also kind of doubles as a test because I usually have some sort of idea for what I’d like, and if it comes up with something similar on its own that kind of makes me feel like it would be something which would easily resonate with people. Additionally, a lot of the times it will come up with things that I hadn’t considered that are totally worth exploring.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An MSX Core Has Just Been Released For The Analogue Pocket | Time Extension⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally I don’t even think the price is unreasonable however I have no respect for businesses which engage in FOMO tactics, especially for premium products.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bluesky says it won’t train AI on your posts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Better BlueSky than Twitter, but I hope everyone understands by now that there’s literally no reason to take a business’s word for anything unless they somehow have legally obligated themselves to be committed to doing that thing forever. Otherwise you can only trust them to keep doing it for as long as it’s worth it from an economic perspective. I’m not saying that it can’t ever happen that a business acts out of pure goodwill, but I would never count on it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨NES Platformer Micro Mages heading to PlayStation | Retro Gaming News 24/7⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just to clarify to anybody who who might be confused. It’s going to be on PlayStation store not on the PlayStation console which came out almost 30 years ago

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI to remove non-profit control and give Sam Altman equity⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  When you organize a nonprofit, you dedicate it to the public benefit it’s not supposed to ever have owners, everything it does it supposed to be for me and you. as far as I’m concerned, this is a multi billion dollar larceny against the general public and we really need better laws that preserve our nonprofit institutions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Google antitrust ruling could be an existential threat to the future of Firefox | Financials show 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  why do you think the Mozilla corporation losing 86% of their revenue wouldn’t hurt the Firefox browser?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨$200-ish laptop with a 386 and 8MB of RAM is a modern take on Windows 3.1 era⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Retrocomputing hobbyists and collectors.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sustaining Proton’s mission over time | Proton⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In the early days […] we often received a question along the lines of “I love the product and what Proton stands for, but how do I know you will still be around to protect my data 10 years from now?” […] Ten years and 100 million accounts later, we would like to think we have proven the point with our track record, but actually the question is just as relevant today as it was 10 years ago[.] […] Proton was not created to get rich[, …] but rather to address the […] problem of surveillance capitalism. […] Proton has always been about the mission and putting people ahead of profits […] and there is no price at which we would compromise our integrity. Frankly speaking, […] if the goal was to sell for a bunch of money, we could have done that long ago. […] Most businesses are built to be sold — we built Proton to serve the mission.

  My problem is there’s literally ways you can organize a business that makes literally impossible to legally do these things. When businesses say these things, but don’t acknowledge the reality that they could always recharter the business in such a manner where you don’t just have to trust them to behave with no recourse if they don’t, I always have to add “but we still will continue to reserve the right to sell you out but pinky promise we won’t ever do it”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy through SDF is basically read-only now. Read interesting stuff, but open an account elsewhere if you want to reply.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It feels pretty terrible when it feels like you have to literally beg people to let you help them. So, if you’re ready to just move on, by all means. But, by any chance, did you post to Requests on BBOARD saying that you are interested in volunteering and that you sent an application by email but never got a response? It might be worth a try if you still have some action points to spare.

  I just want to say, in any case, thanks for trying. This random stranger really appreciates it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy through SDF is basically read-only now. Read interesting stuff, but open an account elsewhere if you want to reply.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s frustrating and it makes me sad and disappointed to see the SDF so unresponsive to pretty much all issues (even those raised on the system itself, about the system).

  That being said, I actually feel like it makes me do the opposite of waste time, because it’s virtually impossible for me to get sucked into an upsetting interaction here that has no broader consequence beyond making me feel bad.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy through SDF is basically read-only now. Read interesting stuff, but open an account elsewhere if you want to reply.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So I take it they never responded to your volunteer application?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jesse is smarter than what we give him credit for.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I like 10 months each with 6 weeks of 6 days each for a total of 360 days and a 5 day holiday at the end of every year (6 days during a leap year)

  But Jesse really has opened my eyes to the possibility of a lunisolar calendar.