ugo
@ugo@feddit.it
- Comment on Potoo Potions! 1 week ago:
“They’re both for monsters”
- Comment on Privacy advocates demo Babel Street's "Locate X" software, which can track people at abortion clinics without a warrant and has been bought by multiple law enforcement agencies 3 weeks ago:
That’s not enough, a better idea is to, somehow, poison the location data. Otherwise by disabling location tracking you still leak the information that you are going to a clinic.
- Comment on PayPal implements default data sharing with third parties: users must manually opt out 5 weeks ago:
Was defaulted on for me (EU)
- Comment on YouTube Premium is getting a huge price hike in over a dozen countries, sparking user backlash. Some countries are experiencing hikes between 30% and 50% 1 month ago:
It’s one thing to pay, and another to be squeezed dry.
When ads were mostly static banners ok websites almost nobody was blocking them, because they were mostly unobtrusive.
However, they would often link to shady websites that would install random crap, so the usecase for blocking them was already there.
Then they became animated, and they multiplied. It was one at the bottom of content at first. Then a couple. Then two vertical banners on the sides too. Then more rectangular banners here and there for good measure.
Then they became unkillable javascript popups, then proper new browser windows. Then autoplaying videos with audio were added. And this is just the visible stuff. Add tracking pixels, tracking cookies, browser fingerprinting, and tons of other spying technology deployed under the guise of “but the content is free”.
After every step the use of ad and tracking blockers became more legitimate as serving ads moved further and further away from paying for free content and squarely in the space of selling user data collected without consent for huge profit margins.
If ads and subscriptions were enough to just make a normal amount of profit, very few would be blocking ads or pirating content.
But since everyone wants to make a 1000% markup on the content they generate, they will drive their very own paying customers away.
Youtube could have served me a couple ads per video and I would have kept using it forever. Instead they served me a minimum of 20 ads per video, so now they will serve me zero, forever.
Netflix could have gotten 12 euros every month out of me for their dwindling and dwindling content selection. Instead they wanted 14 after a while. And 17 after a while. And 19 after a little while more. All the while refusing to serve me the 4k content I paid for.
So instead they now get zero too.
I am very happy to pay for content, and a lot of people like me. But the comment you originally replied to was in reference to youtube increasing the price of their subscription by ludicrous amounts. You replied there content isn’t free, and I replied that youtube has no problem making money. The increases are not to keep youtube afloat, is to make youtube make 10 billions in profit rather than 8 next year.
It’s not about paying a fair amount of money for content, it’s about making you pay all that you can give and suck you dry.
So to your question “how do you pay for content/services in general?” I answer “with money”, but that is not what is happening here.
- Comment on YouTube Premium is getting a huge price hike in over a dozen countries, sparking user backlash. Some countries are experiencing hikes between 30% and 50% 1 month ago:
Youtube revenue in 2023 (before these price hikes) was 31.5 billion USD.
The revenue for the entirety of alphabet in 2023 was 307 billion USD.
Youtube alone generated 10% of the entire revenue of alphabet’s portfolio in 2023.
Yes, revenue is not profit, but I could not find profit figures for youtube.
Alphabet’s operating income for 2023 was 84.3 billion USD. Assuming a similar proportion of revenue to operating income (I know, hella extrapolating, but again no direct sources for youtube) that would pur youtube’s operating income in the ballpark of 8 billion USD.
It’s not that they aren’t making money because people are “stealing” as you say from poor little indie company youtube. It’s just that they want more more more MORE MORE MONEY.
Because of course they do. It’s never enough.
- Comment on The Trick to Going Faster in Software Development is to Take Smaller Steps 11 months ago:
Except it is? Instead of cramming 22 new features, 198 bug fixes, and 3 usage changes in the next version, taking 24 months of dev time, one could release the next version with 1 new feature and however many bug fixes fit in the time frame, and release it in 4 to 6 weeks
- Comment on Why Bother With uBlock Being Blocked In Chrome? Now Is The Best Time To Switch To Firefox 11 months ago:
Used discord on Firefox within the last week, no issues detected.
Disable all your plugins and check if this still happens, a few months ago I ran into an issue where every tab would load for a good few seconds before actually opening, even super lightweight stuff. Turned out to be caused by an addon that was umantained because the maintainer passed away.
Don’t remember which addon it was, but I can try and remember / search if you are interested.
- Comment on Why Bother With uBlock Being Blocked In Chrome? Now Is The Best Time To Switch To Firefox 11 months ago:
Where do you live where banking sites don’t follow industry standards, even for web development?
I’ve never had a problem with a website outright not working on Firefox, although in some cases features are restricted which usually just require a user agent change (like huddles on slack).
Do you have concrete examples of websites that outright don’t work on Firefox?
- Comment on Why Bother With uBlock Being Blocked In Chrome? Now Is The Best Time To Switch To Firefox 11 months ago:
Both work flawlessly for me. In fact, discord on Firefox works much better than the standalone app specifically for calls.
Sounds to me like something is broken or misconfigured on your system.
- Comment on Trick or Treat! 1 year ago:
I was dining out once and ordered a spicy pizza. Had this tiny red chili pepper in the center, maybe the size of the tip of my pinky. I thought nothing of it and popped it whole in my mouth.
I was sweating and crying for 10 minutes, 10/10 would do it again.
Op’s description is legit mouth watering, and now I want a slow-cooked spicy stew with roasted whole chilies.
- Comment on Mold: A Modern Linker 1 year ago:
At work we use lld as opposed ld. With ld, the project I work on links in 60-something seconds, with lld it links in less than 6.
Mold is faster than lld. It is absolutely worth it