kbin.social

Rottcodd , to /kbin in Unmoderated and now extremely delayed federation - is it time to move?
@Rottcodd@kbin.social avatar

Funny thing...

Underneath all of the sycophantic language, this thread somehow still has the same stench as the past mbin concern troll threads.

I'm just not buying it.

proprioception ,
@proprioception@kbin.social avatar

I agree. I’m no marathon kbin contributor, but I like it here a lot and I would be happier if this thread was about what we can do to support kbin as an instance.
If mbin where a placeholder for doing this (as in if certain permissions aren’t available yet) then I’d be buoyed up by OP’s thread.
Anyhoo, viva la kbin, viva la federation!

Kierunkowy74 , (edited )
@Kierunkowy74@kbin.social avatar
misericordiae ,

I couldn't figure out how to describe the vibe I was getting, but you put it into words very neatly.

Seraph OP ,

Again, the point here isn't what the alternative is.

It's the fact that Kbin isn't WORKING.

Poggervania ,
@Poggervania@kbin.social avatar

Kbin is working fine for me.

If you want to use mbin, just use it - who gives a shit what instance you are on? Innit that the whole point of federation?

verysoft , to /kbin in Unmoderated and now extremely delayed federation - is it time to move?

Kbin just has the best frontpage honestly, content wise and UI wise.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod ,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

When Kbin isn’t working I check out Lemmy but it just feels too cluttered. If I didn’t need to get paid I’d help Ernest out but, ya know, capitalism 🤷‍♂️

wjrii ,
@wjrii@kbin.social avatar

Many of the lemmy instances have two or more front-ends available. I find https://photon.lemmy.world/ with the dark them and "List" post style looks pretty nice. There's at least one that just simply replicates old reddit.

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

Can you say "fag" on lemmy.world yet or is a huge list of words that get replaced by " [REMOVED] " still hardcoded over there?

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

Do y'all not like pertinent-to-the-conversation questions about hardcoded word bans on some of these platforms or are the downvotes on the above post due to issues y'all take with fags reclaiming and self-referring using anti-them slurs?

tjhart85 , (edited )
@tjhart85@kbin.social avatar

For me, you saying "hey, can I use slurs over there yet? Specifically, ___" is a bit like the dudebros that yell out "Equal rights, equal fights!" as they pretend to punch a woman ... like ... why the fuck did your mind go there immediately ... it's a bit disconcerting.

Had you said something like "Do they still have the hardcoded blocked words, still? I used to laugh whenever someone from England tried to mention cigarettes and it gets [REMOVED]! Haven't seen that in a while though" I don't think you'd have gotten the downvotes.

Just my opinion, others may have had different reasons to dislike your comment.

ETA: Your other comment wasn't showing before. You identify as the word and want to be able to use it and not have it be labeled as hate speech when it's against yourself ... So ... I'll update my "had you said" to "Hey, are they still redacting fag over there? We're trying to take that word back into the community (similar to how queer has largely been taken back) and it's real fucking hard when it's [REMOVED]!" instead.

Chozo ,

Maybe you should think of non-awful words to use, instead.

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

Maybe you should think of non-awful words to use, instead.

Fag is a beautiful word which accurately describes me and 4/3 of my friends.

I'm all for kicking people who weaponize hate speech off of platforms but restricting the language marginalized groups can use to refer to themselves is contrary to the ends hardcoded banned word lists would seem to've been implemented to engender.

It isn't even one instance making that decision as I understand it—it's hardcoded into Lemmy (as opposed to kbin or whatever other options may exist).

Chozo ,

I understand the idea of reclaiming a slur. But general audiences might not recognize what you're saying for what it is. And nothing stops a bad actor from making the same claims and using the terms in bad faith, hence why it's generally easier from all sides to use different verbiage.

sunbytes , to RedditMigration in Reddit app score changed dramatically

This is why I don’t leave one star reviews as a part of a group.

Even if the spam detector doesn’t flag it, there’s often going to be some kind of back room deal going on with review hosters and rich “one star” victims.

Do two stars and list the “acceptable” reasons why. Don’t mention anything that can be removed as a part of a “brigade cleanup”.

Oh you had a completely legit review but ended with “f*** spez”? Guess what, the Reddit community manager can flag it and ask for it to be removed.

Zeppo , to Linux in I want to move to Linux but I need to be able to access my apps that are not supported
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

One solution that has long existed is to have a dual boot system… you can choose which OS you want to load each time you start the system.

Another option is to run a Window VM in Linux.

SamXavia OP ,
@SamXavia@kbin.social avatar

@Zeppo Yeah I might try the Dual Boot system to begin with to save me time working out VMs but I think the long goal would be running a windows VM on Linux tbh.

sbb ,

If you must dual boot, have totally separate hard drives, and the choosing between Linux and Windows should be done in the UEFI boot menu, not GRUB menu. Windows can render Linux unbootable otherwise, requiring a rather complicated rescue. Windows would ideally not have any chance to see the Linux hard drive while booted.
An external SATA SSD in a USB enclosure is cheap these days.

Teppic ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

I've got Windows and Mint dual booting from the same drive, using grub. All seems to work fine for me...

Still ,
@Still@programming.dev avatar

it works great until windows decides to reinstall the bootloader

Celivalg ,

Windows tends to overwrite the bootloader

SamXavia OP ,
@SamXavia@kbin.social avatar

@Celivalg This seems to have been a problem I had previously on my old PC as I wanted to dual boot Windows and Linux before. Thank you.

Zeppo ,
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, Windows likes to overwrite the MBR with no warning as if that’s perfectly fine. I’ve always wondered what combination of carelessness, incompetence, interface streamlining and competitive malice is responsible for that. It’s also ridiculous how in 2023 there’s still no native way to read Linux filesystems from Windows.

SamXavia OP ,
@SamXavia@kbin.social avatar

@Zeppo That does sound ridiculous especially as I wouldn't mind running linux through Windows, I know it wouldn't work as well but I know I would do a lot of my less complex tasks through there such as browsing the internet as I could game on Windows or Linux as I don't really mind if I'm VMing one

Zeppo ,
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Sure, another option is running Linux in a VM, though I thought the goal was to overall switch to Linux as much as possible.

VMs have facilities to transfer files between the host and guest OS, which helps.

SamXavia OP ,
@SamXavia@kbin.social avatar

@Zeppo The goal would be to use Linux as my base OS in the future. As I look through the many comments from everyone I am now re-evaluating some of the things I feel I 'Need' in my set up such as my Sync Cloud Storage, Instead I hope to move over to External Hard Drives.

Knowing Adobe is a huge part of my setup does hurt the idea of moving to Linux at the moment but I will have to find if there is a workaround other than VMs in the future. People mentioned GPU Passthrough on the VM which would help a lot, It's just not only learning how to run a VM but how to do the pass-through on it.

But yes I do wish to move to Linux in the future but maybe baby testing the Distos I think I might like on a VM might be the best way to step into this rather than going into the deep end straight away.

Zeppo ,
@Zeppo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Sure, installing Linux in a VM would be the fastest and easiest way to test it out and start becoming familiar! You could try a few distros/desktop environments and see what you like without having to deal with reformatting or real hardware.

technologicalcaveman ,

I do the external usb ssd for my windows drive and recommend it endlessly. I use the windows drive for music production and the maybe 2 games in my several hundred game library that don't work in linux. 100 bucks for a 1tb samsung external ssd, and wintousb to make it functional.

SamXavia OP ,
@SamXavia@kbin.social avatar

@technologicalcaveman Thank you never have heard of a WinToUSB but will really need to look into it as it sounds like a great way to be able to run Linux.

technologicalcaveman ,

It's a good tool, pretty easy to set up too. I personally recommend not connecting to internet when setting up windows 10 so that you're not forced into either signing in or signing up for a windows account. I did that and about a year later on the same install, it's all good still.

Pons_Aelius , to men in Men do not seem like they are proud to be men, and this is detrimental to their mental health. We need to celebrate men instead of demonizing them.

Counterpoint: Being proud of something you did not choose to participate in is a post-hoc rationalisation and just a bit self-delusional.

The statement: "I am proud to be a man", makes as much sense to me as "I am proud to be right-handed".

I am proud of several achievements in my life and ashamed of my behaviour in others. A statement I assume applies to most people. My gender has nothing to do with either.

I do not take credit for the achievements of others of my gender (or of the right-handed...) the same way that I am not responsible for their crimes.

Humans, by our social, tribal nature, love to divide the world into in-groups and out-groups usually to the detriment of all.

wagesj45 ,
@wagesj45@kbin.social avatar

Being gay or trans is also inherent, and because of societal push back, we've decided that being proud of those immutable attributes is appropriate. Masculinity gets a bad wrap in a lot of ways, and the healthy expressions of it should be something to be proud of, in my opinion.

Pons_Aelius ,

Good point but Lgbt+ people have been shamed and criminalised for simply existing for centuries. Their use of pride is in reaction to that imposed shame. The black pride movement in the 1970s is the same, a group rejecting an innate trait as a reason for shame.

While males have been the dominate gender for basically all of recorded history. While aspects of male behaviour have come under, in my opinion, much needed scrutiny in recent times, I think talking about the issues of males violence (against man and woman) and other problematic behaviours needing to change is a long way from telling a gay or trans person to stop existing.

wagesj45 ,
@wagesj45@kbin.social avatar

I'm not keeping score here. Even if I were, I wouldn't argue that men have it "as bad" as these hyper-marginalized groups. But I do think that there are positive and healthy aspects of masculinity that should be celebrated and that we should be proud of. Just like femininity.

thestrugglingstudent ,

Is it really true that men have been the dominant gender for most of history though? As I understand it, men and women have both been subject to rigid gender roles that they could not choose or get away from, so overall it was equally hard on everyone. It is just that with the advent of feminism, the struggles of women have received more of a focus.

Pons_Aelius ,

men and women have both been subject to rigid gender roles that they could not choose or get away from

Very true. But you must also consider that while the role in society for pretty much all people in pre-modern life was rigidly defined, in all cases that I have read about the role of women was much more constrained and restricted.

To give a specific example from a period I studied.

The life of a peasant man in Tudor England was rigidly defined and pretty much at the whim of his Lord. But inside his home he had the same authority over his wife and family. The average man had little rights, the average woman had none.

RandoCalrandian ,
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

That’s bullshit

In no way we’re women more socially constrained than men, at any point in history

Simply look at all the male deaths. You’re putting that against your perception that women weren’t allowed to leave the kitchen (which is wrong) and just completely dismissing all of the far, far worse and more burdensome things men were expected to do under threat of violence and death

SentientRock209 ,

Adding on to this, it's also weird to me to never hear class or race acknowledged in their one dimensional view of history as something that solely benefited men at all times. Like are they gonna seriously argue the black men who were literally hunted down and tortured for sport in American history were still somehow above the white women sitting comfortable at the sides?

RandoCalrandian ,
@RandoCalrandian@kbin.social avatar

Apex fallacy and basically patriarchy theory, which we know to be wrong

A very few men had power in the past, as did a few women. To blame men as a whole is the same shaming bullshit that you justify lgbt people having pride for, contradicting your whole point.

Beverlyhillsman ,

This....

sik0fewl , (edited ) to Politics in Speak up now: What should our community guidelines be?

One type of story (that I can't find any good examples of here, so that's good!) that I don't like is the hearsay or expert-says types of stories. e.g., former-ex-prosecutor-political-insider says Trump definitely did something bad and will be charged next week.

It's not real news masquerading as news for clicks and there's nothing new or real to discuss in the comments.

"so-and-so slams so-and-so"-type articles are usually like this, too. It's just political bickering and doesn't contain any new points of discussion. Any comments on these articles is often just more attacking, since that's where the discussion started from.

I realize these are probably quite difficult to identify and moderate objectively, but I think the community would be better off without them!

HandsHurtLoL OP ,

This one will be challenging, but we will consider it. Thanks for weighing in though. Even if this doesn't become a direct rule, it at least points to the kind of community we want to co-create.

Madison_rogue ,
@Madison_rogue@kbin.social avatar

Could it be geared to allow content around editorialized content from news sources (e.g. NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, etc.)? Maybe a comment that says sensationalized content/clickbait will not be allowed.

CurrMudgeon ,

Simply requiring that an actual article is linked (and not a screenshot of a retweet of a Twitter post of an opinion of a screenshot of an article headline) would be a great first step and easier to moderate.

Machinist3359 ,

Sadly the Op-Ed section of otherwise respectable news sources are the most contrived and toxic links that get circulated.

I'd strongly prefer submissions be focused on factual reporting as much as possible. I'd also want submitters to un-clickbait titles when necessary.

HandsHurtLoL OP ,

I can admit I'm getting outnumbered on this. I appreciate you adding your voice to this perspective so that I can re-evaluate my stance on it in an effort to provide this community what it wants.

parrot-party ,
@parrot-party@kbin.social avatar

I can definitely get behind that. Most of the political anger is setup with this pot stirring he said she said shit. Granted, there still is a place for some of the puffery "I'm going to pass a law to do X" even though it may or may not happen. A lot of them can be total bullshit, like hopelessly unpopular laws being put into consideration that have no hope of even getting to vote, let alone passing. But at least that is real politics rather than the simple shit slinging of editorial content today.

cassetti , to RedditMigration in I just found out that not all of my Reddit comments had been deleted despite my profile page showing otherwise.

I don't trust those snakes. I'm working on code to use reddit's website and edit comments one at a time (one per minute so they don't think it's bot activity) and I'm going to deploy the code a month or two from now after the API is gone - because I want them to think they've "won" before I over-write and then erase a decade's worth of content

elboyoloco ,
@elboyoloco@lemmy.world avatar

Is this something you would be able to share with others when it’s finished. Or put it on Github and people can make suggestions or changes?

cassetti ,

So I'm not a traditional programmer - I don't use a lot of the common software and such. I have a lot of prior experience using AutoItScript automated software so I'll probably use that to mimic keystrokes and clicks on my computer screen once I have programmed exact positions for things - it'll likely be a very specific set of code for my computer.

But I may create an account on github and share if there's enough interest lol

TimeSquirrel ,
@TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

So it scrapes the page manually? I was thinking of writing a small python program myself to do that.

cassetti ,

More simple than that - I'll likely use AutoItScript for windows - literally automate clicking links or simulating keystrokes (like the tab key) until it reaches the desired link then clicking the edit function, revising text, tab to the save button, saving change, and repeat over and over.

It's crude and inefficient, but I have over twenty years experience using the code for various small tasks so I'm sure I'll get the job done.

Just not sure when I want to start - I feel like they are still playing tricks un-deleting content and such for people using automated API code. So for now I've simply blocked reddit at the router level for another month or two before I go back and start writing my code to automate the deletion of 10+ years worth of content.

WaltJRimmer , to RedditMigration in It is not Lemmy or kbin, it is the fediverse.
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world avatar

I think it’s more like saying, “I saw this on my phone,” or, “I was on the computer and read,” which are both entirely reasonable.

It’s just stating what format you were using when you saw it. Like, “I was scrolling through Google News and read…” What you actually read was an article hosted on a different website, but you were using the platform of Google News to read it. It’s the same kind of thing as saying, “I read on Lemmy,” because you were browsing Lemmy when you read something.

It’s not wrong to say that these things are on this site. I often specify Lemmy.World because that’s the instance that I use and other Fediverse sites function slightly differently. That’s one of the both great and annoying things about the Fediverse is how every instance is slightly different. I’ll say, “I was on Lemmy.World and…” I don’t know, saw a post, made a post, had trouble because mod controls are minimal over here, whatever. Saying, “On the Fediverse,” is more generic. It’s usually considered best convention to go with more SPECIFIC terms than generic. I consider using my Mastadon account and using my Lemmy account to be different, but they’re both on the Fediverse. I would feel really weird talking about my Mastadon account in the same terms as my Lemmy.World one since I use the two platforms completely differently.

Silverseren ,

But you are posting on a Kbin thread right now, not a Lemmy thread. So you're not "on Lemmy World" when you're viewing this thread.

PupBiru ,
@PupBiru@kbin.social avatar

it’s more correct to say they’re on lemmy than kbin though… they are interacting through lemmy: kbin is literally irrelevant to them

… and that’s kinda the point of the fediverse isn’t it? you shouldn’t care where something is stored, and if you don’t care where it’s stored then you have only 1 way to refer to the space: the client by which you’re viewing it

people referring to it as “lemmy” or “kbin” or “mastodon” is the fediverse working as intended, and that’s good news!

(it’s also much better marketing for us! people search fediverse and they get a bunch of random descriptions about what it is… people search lemmy/kbin and at least they have a join button)

Silverseren ,

Mastodon is at least something of a more generalized term at least, because that's referring to hundreds of instances. And it has a specific (Twitter-esque) format that unites them. But Lemmy and Kbin has the same formatting structure (Reddit-esque). Makes me wonder if we need a specific, but generalized term that unites everything in this format.

oskoo ,
@oskoo@mindly.social avatar

Well, the Twitter-esque format also extends to Misskey and Pleroma, and there are tons of those accounts interacting seamlessly with Mastodon instances. So in a way those microblogging instances face the same issue you're describing between Lemmy and Kbin. In any case, I'm a fan of 'threadiverse' as a term for the Reddit-like instances.

WaltJRimmer ,
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world avatar

Threadiverse. I like that. It’s dumb in the best kind of way.

bvanevery ,

In Usenet days we called them newsreaders.

oskoo ,
@oskoo@mindly.social avatar

You're absolutely right, presenting an awesome website first and allowing the true nature of the fediverse to sneak up on people is a great way to handle it. Even if someone learns about the fediverse as a whole first somehow, they'll need to figure out what 'portal' into it makes the most sense anyway.

WaltJRimmer ,
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world avatar

No. I am on Lemmy.World right now viewing a KBin thread. My entire interaction here is through Lemmy.World and not KBin. So for me to say, “I was on KBin arguing with someone,” would be factually incorrect because I am not on KBin. It would be factually correct to say, “I was on the Fediverse arguing with someone,” but since the Fediverse has different forms, that interaction itself could take several forms and context does sometimes matter. There’s nothing wrong with the more generic The Fediverse, but there’s also nothing wrong with stating which instance you’re using to be more specific.

Silverseren ,

But the person you were arguing with wasn't arguing with you on Lemmy.world, so that's misleading on where the argument was taking place.

If someone took you at your word and looked on Lemmy.world in specific, they would not be able to find the argument in question, because it was taking place in a Kbin.social thread.

WaltJRimmer ,
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world avatar

They absolutely would be able to find it on Lemmy.world. Here’s a link to this very argument: lemmy.world/comment/971144

Note that is on Lemmy.World. That’s part of why the Fediverse is great. You can find this argument which you’re engaging on KBin and I’m engaging on Lemmy.World on any similarly connected Fediverse site.

bvanevery ,

The battlecruisers were out arguing in neutral space, in the verse.

The cruisers' home ports were planet Lemmy and planet Kbin.

Unfortunately half the galaxy was destroyed in the ensuing exchange.

fishos ,

You're missing the point. If I email you, are we talking ON Gmail? ON Hotmail? Not really. We're using our different clients to interact with the same original message. Sure, the message gets converted to your emails specific formatting, but it's just a copy of the original info. The message itself is the conversation, the clients are just access to it.

You wouldn't say "I drove my Honda to the store". You'd say "I drove my car".

Nobody said "I'm browsing Apollo/Sync/RIF". You'd say "I'm browsing Reddit" or "fuck spez".

You're one step from being the mom that calls every video game system a "Nintendo".

WaltJRimmer ,
@WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world avatar

You wouldn’t say “I drove my Honda to the store”.

I have absolutely heard people talk like that, especially if they have multiple cars.

Nobody said “I’m browsing Apollo/Sync/RIF”

I used to say, “When I was on RIF.”

bvanevery ,

are we talking ON Gmail?

Sometimes. People meeting in real life, exchanging email addresses, and noticing they're both on GMail, is common enough for some people, they really are on GMail. Implying they could chat trivially. But that's not applicable to the scenario under discussion.

Actually you'd just say you drove to the store. We don't really care if you own a car, a truck, and a SUV in your driveway. We don't expect you to have a horse and buggy.

bvanevery ,

You had an argument on the 'verse.

The apostrophe is gonna get dropped eventually. Same as it did for 'net meaning internet.

I doubt fedi~ will be remembered after awhile. It'll be seen as pedantic, technical, or old school.

I don't know if people are generally sci-fi enough to think of you as on "planet Lemmy" but it would have a bit of snark like saying you're on planet Mars. Could be a good subculture lingo.

"I am Clark Kent from the planet Kbin!"

"Yeah and I'm Flash Gordon STFU."

volodymyr ,

Maybe it's even more like "I got an outlook message" instead of "I got an email". Since email is an analog of ActivityPub. Just that people are not used yet to the fact that social media can be interoperable like email, so "saw on lemmy" carries different connotations. It should not, however.

Anecdotically, I have an old frendlica account too, from times of diaspora, and it's now very lively, so I saw this post on frendlica too.

Hoomod , to RedditMigration in /r/NonCredibleDefense recieves automated notice from the admins to remove its NSFW designation, or else. Mods respond by messaging the admins a bunch of death and porn.

reddit must have sent out a "remove the NSFW or we remove you" to all the subs that are still set to NSFW. I saw the same story for PICS and even the cyberpunkgame sub

Annoyed_Crabby ,

Yeah, likely the same procedure as sending it to private sub, which is all of em, even those who’re originally private.

Speculater ,
@Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

If cyberpunk hasn’t moved here yet, they missed the theme of the game.

Viking_Hippie ,

Either that or they did a corpo run and went too deep in character 🤷

tal , to RedditMigration in What’s with social media companies trying to destroy themselves recently?
@tal@kbin.social avatar

The way a lot of dot-com startups work, they have high fixed costs -- stuff you pay no matter how many users you have, like programmers -- and low marginal costs, stuff you pay based on how many users you have.

That means that it's good to be big, because you can spread those fixed costs over many, many users. One programmer writing software used by five hundred million users can make a lot more money than software used by five users. The resulting effect is called economy of scale.

So the typical model is to take in a lot of investor money, operate at a loss, and lose money while offering a very compelling service to grow the userbase as quickly as possible.

Once you're big enough, you can spread your costs around many users, so it's easier to make money. You switch from growing your userbase to making money from it. Because you aren't trying as hard as possible to draw in new users, the service is probably gonna get worse from a user standpoint.

If money becomes tight, then it's harder to get investor dollars to operate at a loss with to grow userbase.

My understanding is that due to elevated interest rates in the post-COVID-19 situation, it's more-costly to get investment money. So that will tend to push companies from the "growth" phase to the "monetization" phase.

That affects a bunch of companies, including Reddit.

GataZapata ,

Excellent writeup

Steeltooth493 ,
@Steeltooth493@kbin.social avatar

"That means that it's good to be big, because you can spread those fixed costs over many, many users. One programmer writing software used by five hundred million users can make a lot more money than software used by five users. So the typical model is to take in a lot of investor money, operate at a loss, and lose money while offering a very compelling service to grow the userbase as quickly as possible.
Once you're big enough, you can spread your costs around many users, so it's easier to make money. You switch from growing your userbase to making money from it. Because you aren't trying as hard as possible to draw in new users, the service is probably gonna get worse from a user standpoint."

This kind of reminds me of how Legos are made. Creating the plastic molds from a molding machine to make a single Lego is extremely expensive, but if you make millions of Legos in mass production it reduces costs to make them dramatically to a point where the Lego Group has basically no operating costs to make them anymore. That turns Legos into an investor's dream.

paper_clip ,
@paper_clip@kbin.social avatar

if you make millions of Legos in mass production it reduces costs to make them dramatically to a point where the Lego Group has basically no operating costs to make them anymore

That's how economies of scale work in general, across many, many industries.

On a somewhat related note, your Lego example is more gloriously intricate than you may realize. So, you're spend a lot of money to make a machine to produce Legos at close to zero cost. What happens if someone the next city over thinks they can make a better machine and undercut you?

One way to protect yourself is with the law. You set up intellectual property protection for your Legos and sue everyone who makes "Lehos". This works for a while.

But problems come up. Intellectual property protections have a time limit. They also have a jurisdiction limit, as some guys in a different country, say, Xhina, don't respect your country's laws and start making those Lehos.

What do you do? How does your company survive?

Well, you can leverage the other valuable part of your company, the brand reputation, to do things that Lehos can't, like make deals with other intellectual property holders to make themed Lego sets. So, you strike deals with Disney to make Star Wars and MCU sets, with Warner Brothers for those Harry Potter designs, with Microsoft/Mojang for Minecraft Legos (because they're a perfect fit). That's something that some random plastic injection mold company in China can't do. You're motherfucking Legos, not dipshit Lehos. You can do that, as well as open company stores and theme parks that are tourist destinations.

So, Legos survives, and not just that, but prospers.

Pandantic ,
@Pandantic@kbin.social avatar

Then why they so expensive tho?

Montagge ,
@Montagge@kbin.social avatar

Greed

DeepFriedDresden ,

Actual Legos are fairly cheap. You can get a box of 790 for $60, which is like $0.07 per Lego. The expensive sets are the licensed sets. They pay for that licensing fee somewhere. A Star Wars themed republic fighter tank is $40 with 262 pieces, which comes to about $0.15 per piece.

Definitely some greed in there but when you're a recognized brand with the ability to license you can get away with that because you already have the contracts so nobody can compete.

fearout ,
@fearout@kbin.social avatar

This is a great write up, but what I don’t get is why do these companies stick to these idiotic measures instead of turning to their users for help in an open dialogue.

Like, I get that Reddit needs to make profit, and I actually wouldn’t have minded paying for Reddit premium to use my api key with Apollo. Instead Reddit made me and I’d guess a lot of people like me leave and never want to return. Just left with a lingering bitter aftertaste.

Did they think that they wouldn’t get enough funding that way? Well then how about giving it a test run to see if it works? Didn’t work? Well how about asking your users what they might be missing and what they might want to be more happy to subscribe, and adding features/addressing those issues? Working with developers to establish a revenue sharing agreement? There were so many alternative paths.

No, apparently nfts and shitting on your users is where it’s at.

Have a conversation, run polls, A/B test, etc. And be transparent while you’re doing it. These tools are nothing new when developing a service. Why ignore everything?

I mean, is it really just a competence/arrogance thing alone?

sailsperson ,
@sailsperson@kbin.social avatar

I think it's more of an ego thing. The people with healthy egos probably never end up as execs in companies as big as Reddit, and the people that do are likely driven by something else other than the desire to actually build a platform that respects its users and works well in cooperation with them - "I'm smart, I'm sexy, I know better than these plebs making us money".

blivet , (edited )
@blivet@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, there seems to be an inflection point in the lifecycle of businesses nowadays where the leadership loses any interest in what the company actually does. The products it makes or services it provides are considered almost irrelevant.

Duskfox OP ,
@Duskfox@kbin.social avatar

Exactly this. Companies like Reddit these days are so disconnected with their userbase it's insane. Of all the millions of things Reddit could do to make their platform a better place, they choose to basically remove the services that everyone liked (the 3rd party apps) and not only that, lie to their users (as with the case of Apollo "blackmailing Reddit for $10 million") and double down on them. It sickens me how ignorant they can be, but I guess that the hard lesson we can all take away is that with money and power comes corruption.

Have a conversation, run polls, A/B test, etc. And be transparent while you’re doing it. These tools are nothing new when developing a service. Why ignore everything?

I mean, based on how dramatic the increasing in price the API was, I wouldn't be surprised if Reddit already knew what the public reaction would be, considering they'll probably also receive considerable hate for even contemplating the decision. Of course they just didn't give a second thought and just went with it.

cheeseOnBread ,

I stopped using reddit after spez's AmA. If all of this would have been handled in a more mature and open way, I would probably have moved to the reddit app, complained about it for a while, but kept usind reddit. But after what happened in the last weeks, reddit is no longer something I want to be associated with.
For lack of a better description, I simply don't 'like' reddit anymore. It's like a friend who treated you like shit.. Sure, you could still go to a party together and have fun, but it's just not quite the same anymore.

It's not so much about what they did, most people understand reddit has to make money at some point. It's the how that is driving people away imho. At least it is for me.

Pandantic ,
@Pandantic@kbin.social avatar

considering they'll probably also receive considerable hate for even contemplating the decision.

Honestly, when Christian first brought up “maybe subscriptions for Apollo to offset API costs,” I was fine with that. I get that we were receiving a service for free that cost the company money, and I was fine with paying a reasonable amount for that. I just don’t get why they had to make the costs so unreasonable that even subscription based wouldn’t cut it.

Otome-chan ,
@Otome-chan@kbin.social avatar

I mean after the whole "spez shadow-edited someone else's comment to put words in their mouth" thing, what you're describing sounds a bit too ethical for reddit as a company.

ExistentialOverloadMonkey ,

This is not true in most cases.
It's not about being profitable, it's about always making more and more and more and more - the so-called growth.

Let's take the case of reddit inc. Their revenue grew from just $25 million in 2016 to over $500 million in 2022. If they can't make a profit with that, I don't know what to say (I'd say the leadership buys a new ferrari every month, probably).
According to this thread, reddit operating costs were around $35k dollars back in 2011. Even if you were to multiply that by a factor of 10, it's still just a couple million dollars per year. Multiply it by 100, and still
They. Are. Fucking. Profitable. As. Fuck.

No, the problem is not profitability and paying the bills. Fuck no. The problem is them wanting more than what is remotely reasonable, and of u/spez being a greedy fucking pig and wanting not simply a big, but instead a spectacular cashout in their coming IPO. Well, fuck the greedy little pig boy and fuck reddit.

Balssh ,

Basically late-stage capitalism

ExistentialOverloadMonkey ,

Aye.

Stormy404 ,
@Stormy404@kbin.social avatar

bingo.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

For some reason Reddit has 2000 employees. That's a huge expense. If I were in charge of Reddit, I think the first thing I'd be doing is conducting those "Exactly what would you say you do here" interviews and figuring out why something that should be a relatively simple and mature forum website needs so many people working on it.

tal ,
@tal@kbin.social avatar

Lemme add a bit more to my above comment.

Social media companies are especially doing this whiplash switch from aiming for growing the userbase to making money. And for them, there is another factor that makes it even more important to use money for growth when it is available -- network effect. Basically, for certain services, the role of the service is to facilitate communication between their users. While it's not quite true that all users are equally-likely to communicate with each other -- an elderly user who only speaks Italian and a schoolboy in Kansas who only speaks English might not have a lot of desire to communicate -- in general, users of the service get their value from the service by communicating with each other and each additional user is one more person with whom a user can communicate. This means that it's much more-desirable to use a service with a large userbase than one with a small one, because you can communicate with others. The value of the service as a whole, if everyone were equally likely to communicate with everyone else, rises roughly as the square of the number of users. That's because the value to each user is proportional to the number of users that they can talk to, and that is true for every user -- multiply one by the other, and the value of the service as a whole is proportional to the square of the userbase size.

Social media work by connecting members of their userbase. So for them, they have a huge incentive to use money for growth whenever they can get a hold of it as far as they can.

The services that are especially likely to respond to capital being cheaply available are companies that have a business model that does this, even moreso than a typical dot-com. And sure enough -- Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube derive their value from connecting members of their userbase, rely on network effect as well as economies of scale. And just as they dive really deeply into spending cheap money to grow when they could, when money ceases to be really cheaply available, so they will have further to swim out when it ceases to be.

Madison_rogue ,
@Madison_rogue@kbin.social avatar

My understanding is that due to elevated interest rates in the post-COVID-19 situation, it's more-costly to get investment money. So that will tend to push companies from the "growth" phase to the "monetization" phase.

This is basic economics. Increased interest rates mean companies will pay more for every dollar they borrow. This includes venture capital. Cheap borrowing is one of the reasons real estate values skyrocketed over the course of the past generation. Cheap money increased demand, and inflated costs. Do this long enough (maybe an economic collapse or recession between), and the house you bought in 1980 for $50k is now worth $400k.

Every company utilizes borrowing a lot more than you might think. From infrastructure, to payroll, borrowing money plays part in most activities of a company. It's pretty complex.

black-twisted-boughs , to Linux in I realized why I enjoy Linux so much and why I've stuck with it all these years (slight vent)...
@black-twisted-boughs@kbin.social avatar

Definitely agree with this sentiment. Another aspect for myself -- When I tell Linux to do something, it fucking does something. No questions, no obfuscating, no disallowing in order to "save me from myself". I have a significantly increased sense of control over MY hardware with Linux.

It is frankly unfathomable to consider going back to the telemetry / spyware laden corporate controlled systems of the mainstream OSes.

george-Leo ,

If you are looking for Microsoft Office, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook for your laptop/PC then this Link is for you.
Download Link: Microsoft Official Link

If you don't believe, you can see our review and buy: "Review Chick Hare"

JoYo , to RedditMigration in does anyone regret deleting their Reddit accounts during the failed protest?
@JoYo@lemmy.ml avatar

no one asked you to delete your account.

go use reddit, no one here cares.

cyborganism , to Fediverse in Browsing the wider fediverse from kbin

I think people are just used to how Twitter works and how to interact with it. Mastodon is the closest thing there is. It’s simple.

Kbin is nice and all with many features, but sometimes people like to have different apps for different functions.

Teppic OP ,
@Teppic@kbin.social avatar

This is true, but twitter also has an opaque algorithm to choose what appears in your feed. By default Mastodon only allows you to view your feed in chronological order, so there is an argument to make that kbin allows a more twitter like experience...

I do also get there is a steeper learning curve with kbin, and it's basically still only an alpha release (it's clearly not going to be right for everyone).

ryan , to Politics in [Discussion] What are your opinions on "Open Socialism"?

Ok I've been clicking through that site and, besides requiring knowledge of docker to contribute (which will cut out a lot of people) I had to dig a few pages in to figure out what they want to do differently from any other socialism.

Society in OS is managed by small autonomous teams known as circles. There is a hierarchy of circles from the top of society all the way to the bottom. eg. Main Leadership -> Health -> Disease Prevention And Treatment -> Cancer Research. Circles define the purpose and charter of sub-circles, however they do not control them. Business has shown us that top-down orchestration is highly ineffective.

Not wrong, but god this is so tech bro-y. And hey, we have a word for your circles, they're committees.

Circles are focused on leadership and do not perform actual work. Instead a circle will create a project and assign members to enact a specific piece of work. A clear separation of leadership (circle) and producing value through work (project) helps each of these concerns be better and more explicitly addressed.

oh my god do you not see already the clear separation between the circles, the elite who get elected and re-elected to their positions, and the workers?

Circles use ideas like consensus seeking decision making, openness, sub-circle and project creation to do their job. However, society is large with many different areas. Agile software development practices has shown that there is no one size fits all practices and flexibility is required.

Jesus fucking christ I do not want my government to be run on a sprint model. I do not. We can't run a government like "whoopsie looks like what we released accidentally stops food stamps to pregnant women we'll log that as a bug and put in our backlog teehee"

As someone who works in tech, agile and a lot of what they have mentioned here is great for tech, and I don't fucking trust in the slightest that it could be applied to a government.

trynn , to Fediverse in Could popular forums implement ActivityPub and connect to the Fediverse?
@trynn@kbin.social avatar

Sure. Just look at Wordpress... it's a blogging platform rather than a forum, but it has an ActivityPub plugin available that allows federation of blog posts and comments. ActivityPub is a standard published by the W3C (the same organization that oversees the HTML standard, among many others). Anyone can implement the standard in their software if they want to.

HeinousTugboat ,

Small point of fact, but HTML is actually overseen by WHATWG primarily, not W3C. W3C agreed back in 2019 to just follow WHATWG's process.

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