20 seconds cat videos or two minute talk video are vastly different to 10mins to 4 hours youtube videos. The time “lost” by wathcing the wrong thing is just very different. I think it isn’t uncommon for users to spend multiple hours per day watching those short clips only to realize most of it was mildly interesting at best and it’s less likely someone sits through a 4h video they dont care about than someone watching 4h worth of a variety of short clips they don’t really care for. Either way I think taking transparency/agency away from the user is terrible.

The goal is to make you click and anything that could stop you is considered a problem. I’d say it’s a short term strategy that will lead to long term failure but I’m not sure anymore. Tiktok and Instagram are feeding their users a bunch of trash too and it still works.

is that a meme or did you accidentally butcher the term “ponzi scheme” which is something entirely different? not saying insurances aren’t often a scam. just a different kind.

Musk pretending he cares about rail while in reality his worst recurring night mare is him being in public transport with poor people. Classic.

and so it begins

I for one appreciate that ubisoft chose the top down view of poop as their logo. it’s the perfect symbol for everything they represent and they’re incredibly brave for wearing it proudly on their chest.

i am still falling into the realisation misconception* that i can’t be a kid forever.

You definitely can. I have met plenty of people who preserved this part of themselves. It’s too often outside pressure that makes people abandon it. A few weeks ago my mother berated me for owning a game console as a grown man but it didn’t phase me because the little history I lived through has taught me some lessons. When my father was my age he was working overtime to provide as much as possible for his family. He’d come home tired and stressed and self medicated with booze to somehow keep going. I’d often get a speech about how much he sacrificied for me but here’s the thing, I never asked for it. Did I like living in the big house after we moved from our small rented apartment? Sure, about as much as living in a big apartment complex with a bunch of other kids to play with. What I didn’t like was having a dad who was constantly burned out and angry so I made sure not to live as he did. Recently I took my wife and our dog fossil hunting. We were digging through rocks and mud having a blast and around us were a bunch of kids. Meanwhile their parents were standing in the back complaining there aren’t enough benches to sit on while the kids have fun. I will never get this old. Not in a hundred years. As long as I can hold my hammer I will be right next to those kids digging for paleontological treasure instead of standing in the back with the bitter “grown ups”.

Exactly. Relatively wealthy private home owners tend to lean towards maintaining the status quo since it seems to be working in their favor. It’s the same as with the discussion about taxing unrealized capital gains above 100 million. People who aren’t even close to that number are afraid of this because they fear it’ll develop into further legislation and ultimately become a threat to their own wealth. It’s not just the 1% but also many of the top 20 or even 30% that feel a strong incentive to keep things from changing. They definitely carry a big part of the responsibility and the largest potential for change with their votes.

So I can’t speak Russian? That’s rough. I guess I’d try to stare everyone down until they get nervous and leave. Sometimes nod when people talk to me, sometimes just walk away from them. Oh no, he’s giving me the silent treatment they’ll think. Better not make him mad. Let them worry about the windows. Meanwhile I plan my escape through South America to LA where I live as a not-Putin impersonator. Hide in plain sight.

The tricky thing is that there’s less “real” stuff to be done. Take my silly passion for rocks/minerals as an example. Back in the day I would’ve happily made geological maps but my country has already been fully mapped in detail. Similarly the guy in OP’s post can look up the bugs of his area online because they’ve already been documented. Videogames can give us a sense of exploration and progress that is hard to find in real life these days.

I want a TV show about wood working addicts. Please Jeff, you must stop crafting intricate cabinets. No more driftwood tables either. I’m sick of cleaning up resin goddamnit.

Sorry dude but our boomers are working overtime to finish their enshitification projects.

By what? There’s no predator in that area that would hunt a lynx. It’d have to wander off very far to find one of the few wolf packs in the country.

When I was an intern in IT in the olden days a manager once decided to send an apology gift to every single employee for his botched project. It was a switch from analog phones to VoIP with Skype that really wasn’t so complicated but left a bunch of people without working phones for days. The gift? A snickers bar in a big paper bag with a sticker on it. I had to put three hundred stickers on those bags and then hand them to people who were very confused to find a tiny snickers in them. Now they told me to hand it out with a smile and tell them we’re really sorry but I’d hand them out with my best I’d-really-rather-be-somewhere-else-face and say “trust me, nobody finds this more stupid than me.”

It was when his (step)Mamaw got stuck in the washer that he truly learned he wasn’t gay.