Not really. Games would’ve gone digital either way, it was the obvious path to go. Steam might’ve sped up that process by a few years, but pretending that without steam, digitalization of the games industry would’ve never happened is naive at best and dishonest at worst.

And yet consoles still have physical game copies available all these years later. Why is PC so much different?

And I’m not saying to be happy that Epic is competition, I’m saying that if GOG dies, you’ll only really have Steam and Epic. That sucks ass, but it’s still better than only having ONE option. And like I said, once Gabe is gone, I 100% believe Valve will go full on enshitification mode. I wouldn’t have to worry as much if I could still buy physical fucking copies of modern PC games.

As for Epic competing by creating better platform, I completely agree. Their launcher has made improvements, but it is still very bare bones and not great. I try to remember that tons of common sense software features we take for granted get patented. Hell, that’s why so many streaming services felt so much shittier than Netflix for so long. It’s not as straightforward as just emulating what Steam does but slightly better. That’s still no excuse though, and they still fall very short of offering the mostly comfortable user experience we’ve grown accustomed to. Steam didn’t start off where they’re at now, they’ve had 20 years with an entire company dedicated to developing it.

My main point is, we all love Steam and Valve because they’ve been a mostly ethical corporation so far as well as mostly improving the experience of PC gaming, especially with Linux (minus expediting and enabling 100% digitization so they could attain better profit margins on Half-Life 2 sales). But nothing lasts forever, and pure monopolies are bad. Fuck Epic for buying exclusive rights for third party games, but in this specific context, it is their game, so it is what it is.

As far as I know, Jack Dorsey left Bluesky almost a year ago: https://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-bluesky-twiiter-nostr-interview-2024-5

His interview on the topic: https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana

I have to somewhat agree with him that Bluesky is still very much susceptible to turning into Twitter all over again. Right now, it definitely feels like Twitter in its infancy but with all the modern QoL features we expect to have nowadays. Which is nice, of course. Twitter didn’t used to be such a toxic shithole of bots and disinformation, it used to be a powerful communication tool for activism and journalists covering rapidly evolving events live.

However, the endgame of such platforms is inevitable. Higher user saturation means higher operating costs, which then usually means the company has a higher reliance on advertising, which then leads to more algorithms and data mining for targeted ads, which then leads to easier mass political manipulation campaigns.

I’m not sure if it’s actually possible to attract mass audience without an algorithm driven model. Mastodon tried and it’s had some moderate success, but because it’s completely devoid of algorithms, users have a harder time discovering people/accounts/mindless entertainment. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why Bluesky took off so much faster.

Games not developed or published by Epic only become exclusive when the publishers and/or devs take their money. Why is no one mad at them? And of course Valve doesn’t have to do much of anything, they have had like a 10+ year headstart on cornering the PC marketplace. GOG has been completely awesome and more ethical than Valve and yet they’re barely scraping by. Gamers/consumers just love to fanboy the hell out of corporations these days. When Gabe is gone and Valve inevitably goes public and enshitifies, you’ll be glad there’s still some competition left. But it’ll suck because 90% of PC gamers have probably damn near 100% of their library locked into one platform. Remember, Steam is a huge reason why PC games went fully digital almost two decades ago.

Exclusivity has been a thing since the advent of videogames, this isn’t anything new. Epic is just a shitty company, so they’re an easy target to criticize. They funded the development and published the game, it’s their right to do with it as they please. They’re losing money by not bringing it to Steam, so their loss, really. But it’s not even close to the equivalent of console exclusives, as the barrier here is spending 5 minutes to just download their shitty launcher. It sucks, but this really isn’t that big of a deal, in my opinion.

How does it hurt you? Look, I get that people dislike using multiple launchers, but it’s not like you have to buy a console to play the god damn game. The melodrama is crazy, all you have to do to play it besides buying the game is download epic’s launcher. If you’re in Linux, it’s a bit more of a pain, but hardly.

I dislike Epic as much as the next guy, but he’s not the only one waging it, lol. Try to find any of Valve’s games on the Epic marketplace.

Ironic that the site has “peace” in it.

Did you get a job there before moving? I’ve been contemplating emigrating from the US, but it’s such a steep upfront cost

I dunno, if he’s truly remorseful and has changed his ways from being a blind zealot, I think he deserves some degree of forgiveness. But if others don’t feel the same, that’s fine.

Do not do the last part. He’s a minor living in fear. Publicly shaming him like that will will almost certainly create an even worse situation if the asshole is prone to physical violence. The key here is for the kid to survive in the short term and escape once they either can get the courts to grant them emancipation or they turn 18. Then after that, therapy so they can learn to move on and thrive.

Ummm, to an extent.

https://texaslawhelp.org/article/corporal-punishment

If a child is showing signs of lasting marks, bruises, burns, broken bones, or other physical injuries, this is likely abusive.

If it’s leaving lasting bruises, even in Texas that may be where they draw the line? If it happens incessantly, along with verbal abuse, you may be able to get some help.

That being said, getting tossed into the foster care system isn’t often an improvement. My suggestion, besides maybe discretely seeking resources, is to focus on near term goals of becoming self sufficient and getting the hell out of there as fast as you can. Pieces of shit like this guy don’t deserve children.

Oh, 100%. That’s what I mean, our Congress has become completely useless due to the “all or nothing” stance the GOP and to some extent the DNC have taken over the last couple of decades.

What a fucking shit show. It is astounding how impotent our legislature has been for so long. This whole thing could easily be avoided with actual fucking laws, but instead they’ve continued to hand more and more power over go the executive/presidency for years and years.

People like Zuckerberg only care about money and power. Meta will happily accept the DNC’s advertising money.

That all being said, the DNC could’ve also outlawed political advertising on social media when they had the majority in the Senate and house years ago.

I agree to some extent. But you have to realize that it isn’t 4% of voters. Trump won ~77 million votes this election vs Kamala’s ~75 million. That’s incredibly close, mainly because she tried to pander to the majority.

There’s nothing she could’ve really done much differently this cycle that would’ve clenched the election with 100% certainty. There were simply too many factors working against her, like the shitty economy and the GOP’s massive disinformation campaigns promising to turn everything around. A huge chunk of voters are already admitting how “shocked” they are with some of the shit Trump’s administration is doing. This is due to microtargeted advertising, meaning that the many voters get completely different political ads on social media that leave out their extremist positions. My theory is that the DNC seems to not be very good at taking advantage of this capability, choosing to just provide blanketed campaign messaging that’s mainly the same for everyone.

Sorry, got a bit rambly and off track there. I’m tired.

Moderately toxic?

He’s morphed into what exactly? Being anti-vaxxers? I fortunately don’t know any anti-vaxxers personally, but I know plenty of MAGA idiots. Even those idiots tend to support vaccines, though. I just truly don’t understand anti-vaxxers, they’re the dumbest of the dumb.

Yes, I fully relate with this as if you spoke from my heart. Agreed on all points, haha.

I do cook, kind of have to when you have kids. But I definitely do not enjoy doing it. Especially because I’ll slave over a new dinner idea and my kids will just refuse to eat it.

I know people who like that he’s on board with shrooms and other recreational drugs as alternative treatments. Which I can honestly understand, given all the research that says stuff like shrooms does offer some promise in some mental health therapies. It’s ridiculous an agency like the DEA can dictate what drug options are available to people.

But other than that, RFK Jr is a fucking idiot and should absolutely not be allowed to head our health agencies.

I feel like this commonly used argument misses key context. There are numerous scenes where Clark disappears and then within literal seconds, Superman appears. Like yeah, the costume would totally work in instances where someone hadn’t literally just seen Clark, but if I just saw that fucker a few seconds ago and then saw Superman, I’d definitely at least do a contemplative eye squint.