The more you scroll, the more ads they can serve on one page. So if you scroll to the bottom, don’t see the results you want, you’re likely to try to reword what you were searching for which will bring up new results and more ads. When you think about the fact that 4-5 of the first results are ads generally (if not more) and you have to scroll past those to get a result that isn’t an ad, you recognize that they are maximizing time spent looking at ads because that’s what they are selling to their real customers (the ad services for whom they aggregate).

This scenario makes it more likely that you will click on a sponsored result, backtrack, scroll some more, not see what you’re looking for, re-word your search query, click on maybe another sponsored result, backtrack etc.

Good to know that at least in Germany there’s something.

On lower end smart phones? It probably just slows the phone down less specifically because of how few processes it uses in the background. But I don’t know. I’m not a lite UBO user. It definitely doesn’t have the same number of features as the regular variant of UBO though.

I have questions about how an age rating system would even necessarily be enforced even with rated games with a non-family account. It’s not like steam knows the difference between a teenager and an adult who makes any account. You can literally just buy steam gift cards and pay for games without even needing a credit card or PayPal account.

The age rating doesn’t do anything but assuage a groups fears and make the legislators look like they’ve achieved something for the public.

My guess is that it’s used predominantly by people who own budget smart phones. Having lite versions of apps be available to people who don’t use thousand dollar flagships I think is kind of important. However, I intended the post to be informational.

Part of the problem is that Google now defaults to “All” (web, shopping, news, video, etc) instead of defaulting to Web only and allowing you to select if you want video, or shopping or news etc. That’s a lot of what I see complained about most.

This is first and foremost because Google is an ad aggregation company and they literally want to keep you on the page longer to serve you more ads.

The second problem is that the SEO for Google is so abused at this point that it’s laughable. Search engine optimisation was useful until companies and people started trying to hack it in order to have their results show up before competitors. Because large competitors also have money, it’s no longer enough to just pay to play.

Yeah, but he didn’t pay $44Bn out of his own pocket.

Agreed. I can understand fearing being as bloated and bot filled as reddit. But we don’t need to grow that big to be a thriving active community of users.

This is just conjecture though. I do think he originally did not intend to buy Twitter. I do think he was essentially forced to buy it. I know from news articles around the time of the sale that he gave significant pushback when relevant parties forced the issue. Things may very well have changed after he became the owner (and what deals he made to be able to afford it may never be known).

They counted comments and the number of upvotes (or what have you) in an attempt to stop trolls and bad actors. If you didn’t have enough comments you couldn’t post anything to the message boards and therefore could really engage with the message oars above a certain level. I remember that some also used to limit the number of comments any one user account could make per day, especially new users. It’s been 20 years or more at this point and I don’t remember those blogs or message boards, honestly.

To be fair, a lot of users don’t seem to want the user base here to grow at all. I don’t feel that way but I’ve had enough discussions here to know that this is literally not the case for everyone and it kind of sucks because stagnation is how social networks die.

That would have been a lot like how I remember message boards being back in the day, (late 90’s early 2000’s) and honestly I don’t think I like it. People like me (with both low number of comments and posts) wouldn’t be able to reach that bar to entry. I get the bots wouldn’t either, but that still eliminates human users as well and I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

My understanding from the other comments here is that qobuz is a good option, and Tidal also. Might want to check those out.

It would appear that he didn’t want to buy Twitter and was literally forced to do so. I think for him Twitter is a temper tantrum. He didn’t get what he wanted so he’s destroying everything around him as a result.

More to the point though, I do wonder why he didn’t just pay the billion dollars to get out of the deal (with his 270 billion net worth - which by the way includes assets not necessarily liquid cash).

I don’t know that he’s not in it for the money. I think the point is to destroy it so he doesn’t have to pay back what he borrowed to buy it.

I’ve been trying to Google it and haven’t come up with anything. It’s been literally article after article of “ex-target” employees making the claim. Might mean it’s an old wives tale they spread around to each other. Might be that it actually does happen infrequently (probably to repeat offenders who don’t get caught in the act but do get caught when footage is reviewed).

Given the number of people this law firm has represented and the fact that for the most part they were not prosecuted for felony theft according to this article, my guess is that it happens sometimes but isn’t standard practice.

https://cejalawfirmtx.com/2023/09/20/what-happens-if-you-get-arrested-for-shoplifting-at-target-in-houston/

Reliable, I think.

From the article:

"Why this is a Problem

While the amendments aim to ensure access to emergency services, the changes will have severe consequences for consumers, competition, and the overall accessibility of mobile services. Whilst also not addressing the core technical standardisation failures with VoLTE Calling and Emergency Calling.

This policy essentially penalises customers for using devices that work but were not purchased directly from the telcos or their partners. Once in effect, this would further concentrate profits and market control to the telcos & major handset makers, and severely limit competition & choice in the market.

Under the updated ECSD, telcos must identify and notify users of phones deemed incapable of accessing emergency services, assist them in finding alternative devices, and ultimately cease service to these phones.

This will likely impact devices that have been manually updated to work for VoLTE Calling and Emergency Calling as they aren’t ‘officially’ supported."

Google play music used to offer it as well.

I put Bazzite on my Legion go and it was very easy, and I’ve been loving it so far. The thing about these windows gaming handhelds is they’re great with Linux. I kind of wish they’d use the detachable controllers to allow people to spec in other options. Sort of like the switch where there were different joycons you could use including aftermarket ones. That would allow them to do a track pad similar to the steamdeck for people who prefer that. Missed opportunity in my opinion.