• Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    This is getting so stupid, it’s beginning to sound like The Onion. Why don’t they just start charging for reading posts.

    Here’s an idea: Every day you get 5 Reddit Emeralds for free, and you can use them to read 5 posts. If you want to read more, you can get more emeralds from Common Reddit Loot Boxes. You can buy those boxes with Reddit Rubies.

    You can get Reddit rubies from Rare Reddit Loot Boxes, and in order to get those, you have to use Reddit Diamonds. If you have 19 Common boxes you can also craft 1 Rare Loot Box. Doing so will also require 10 rubies.

    You can also buy Reddit Diamonds with Superior Crypto-Augmented Money (SCAM), and getting those coins requires real world money.

    Ok, so now that you have all these gems, you can put them to good use. Emeralds are used to read posts. When you comment, there’s a 50% chance that it will be deleted within 30 minutes, but you can improve your odds by spending 1 Reddit Ruby. For each Ruby, the odds improve by 10%. Posts have the same mechanism, but you need to spend Diamonds instead.

    • nerdschleife@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, yes.

      When Netflix clamped down on password sharing I expected a mass exodus back to pirating and more people self hosting like I did.

      Instead they complained for 3 days and brought out their wallets.

      • x1gma@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The difference is, that Netflix (or Spotify, or whatever) does bring value on its own. I am paying money to comfortably and legally stream content, which itself is paid for and licensed by the streaming provider. From the perspective of a lazy end user, it’s worth it, because you do not need to care about downloading, finding releases, opsec and whatnot. I don’t want to protect Netflix, fuck corporations and subscription services, but password sharing was always only tolerated at most. From the same end user perspective, reddit is just an empty platform. The content is brought in free of charge by the community. And now not only they want the same community to pay, but also for an objectively worse experience? I don’t think that you can compare that.

        • Elderos@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Agree with you, but small nitpick, password sharing was encouraged at some point, at least from the PR side of the business.

          • kratoz29@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah let’s not be like, “poor guys, they needed to get rid of password sharing”, if we start to agree that they were never encouraged that’s how people forget stuff.

      • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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        I can somewhat understand both perspectives. Although I too sail the high seas, if you don’t have the aptitude to self host, and you only care to binge a show over the weekend, $12 (or whatever it costs now) is a somewhat justifiable expense. I mean, 1 comic book is $4-$6 on average these days. One of those might provide 15 minutes of entertainment and a month of anticipation. $12 is a good value.

        • El Barto@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Everything I want to watch is readily available for streaming. Why self host unless you want to keep copies?

          • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Because it’s available to stream NOW for $ but it may not be available LATER for $ or not

            • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              Sadly my children’s children won’t be able to find “Is it cake? S3E5” on their grandpa’s old hard drive.

              • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                And they’re lives will worse for it /s their primary concern is where their next dose of clean water will come from

                • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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                  Yeah well the first reason they won’t find it is the drive melted away in the heat wave of 37’, got blown up in the second War of the Rhine in 39’, and since 52’ lies at the bottom of the Central European Ocean.

                  But also because I streamed instead of torrenting.

          • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Well, sure… not everyone has to self host to see what they want to see either, but my reasoning remains the same. The people signing up and paying for Netflix all of a sudden likely lack the aptitude or don’t care enough. I got a sandwich yesterday that was > $12.

            • El Barto@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Funny on the topic of sandwiches.

              Two weeks ago I decided to make my own sandwiches and coffee, and all of a sudden I have $200 extra a month.

          • NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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            Mostly because if you set it up right it’s near entirely automated and you don’t have to worry about media availability on your subscribed service.

            Edit: also a lot of the time we (Canada) miss out on a lot of content on streaming services

            • sweBers@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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              1 year ago

              I also like the wide range of sources to pull down content and have it available vs sometimes having to wrestle with a streaming site in the moment.

          • interesting_bat@lemmy.world
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            A big part of it for me was seeing streaming companies removing episodes due to “modern sensibilities”. Multiple censored IASIP episodes, removing the D&D episode of Community. I think this is going to happen more and more and I want all the content. Not just what was approved by some diversity group.

            • El Barto@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Agreed. I am as progressive as one can be, but there are limits.

              Just a few months ago I realized I haven’t seen one episode of The Office because Netflix removed it.

              Just give the option to “show/hide” them. But don’t hide them completely.

                • El Barto@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  The one with the blackface joke. One of the characters - can’t remember his name right now - appeared wearing blackface just for a few seconds as part of a joke implying that blackface was, well, inappropriate.

        • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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          The strange thing, to me atleast, is that you can even just stream shows and movies on websites like bflix with subtitles for every language. I have friends and family that would pay netflix their left leg if they asked them to. And now they’re stuck with a bunch of subscriptions to multiple streaming services because everything is split between multiple platforms.

          • Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Is there any risk to streaming movies in bflix? Do you need anything special to use that site (like a VPN)? There is a little knowledge barrier to doing things like this.

            • Cubes@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Also trying to use a site to stream media on a smart TV sucks so bad

            • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Honestly not really. Torrents expose your ip directly to everyone downloading and uploading the torrent. But only the website itself sees your ip. Companies will join the torrent and add your ip to a list. Then ask your isp to send you a notice. With a website, companies cant see who is watching on a streaming website.

        • Raltoid@lemmy.world
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          Even if only spend a few hours a month watching, it’s still pretty cheap entertainment.

          Hell, some good beers while binging a season will literally cost more than the monthly fee.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Weirdly, I’ve been using my parents’ Netflix credentials still and haven’t been kicked off yet. They live hours away so there’s no mistake there about being in the same household.

        Hopefully I’m not tempting fate too much by talking about it on the Internet lol

        • CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world
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          Plot twist: Your parents can’t access their Netflix anymore but aren’t tech savvy enough to understand why, so they’re back at watching classic broadcast television.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            Lol I was actually wondering something similar. That, or they haven’t said anything out of fear of sounding rude.

            I talk to them regularly though, and told my dad that I’m still logged in and watching it, so I hope he would have said something if it wasn’t working…

        • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
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          A relative I share an account with got the prompt last month. I setup a VPN at my place so they could connect once a month and “check in” at home with their mobile app. After that they could disconnect and continue watching on their Roku.

        • Buckeye@lemmy.world
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          My brother is on my account in a different state and neither he nor I have been booted. Hoping we just got missed and they’ll never notice.

      • WookieMunster@kbin.social
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        Thinking people are retarded because they don’t pirate or self-host. Most people don’t have the time, room, energy to do it, you must be a genius

        • nerdschleife@lemmy.world
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          Bit of a leap there. I was merely saying consumers gonna consume no matter what the overlords demand in return.

          Just earlier today I had to beg my cousin to get a DOS laptop with an i3 and ssd over a windows machine with a celeron + emmc for the same price. The task of installing windows was enough to make him see these options as equal.

      • GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de
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        I find it a tad arrogant to believe costumers can’t make rational decision that differ from those of the vocal online minority of reddit et al. Whenever a website changes its product (arguably for the worse, most of the time) said minority prophesizes the end, and calls out some kind of revolt, whereas the vast majority of users or costumers customers just makes due with the slightly worsened conditions, simply because they still see the product as worthwhile. Netflix, for all its flaws, still is a decent product for a decent price, as long as you’re into the kind of slop they produce. And there probably is a large portion of costumers customers who weren’t even affected at all by the recent changes.

        • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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          Dodging lawsuits? Bruh you sound like you’re scared.

          No one is going to come after you with lawsuits because you’re pirating movies. Worst case scenario your ISP ends your service after sending you a dozen warnings over the time span of a year.

      • kratoz29@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My GF pays for Netflix and other than some annoying messages and text account sharing is still possible, not as cool as before though.

        Anyway, as she does not have the premium version, or whatever is called (no 4K) good quality picture films we end up watching them on Stremio lol.

        She doesn’t care, but I do.

      • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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        I kept paying for a little while, until I had ripped everything off their site I wanted to see, then I cancelled lol.

          • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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            Yep, I got a program that had to be subscribed to for about $30usd a year that allowed me to rip up to entire seasons of shows in 1080p at a time through a logged in account. I accumulated about 3TB of shows and movies then cancelled My subscription to both Netflix and the program I was using.

      • pips@lemmy.film
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        Well, why would they ditch for piracy? Netflix was smart about the whole thing: adding an authorized household (not user, entire household) is cheaper than creating a new subscription. The people subscribing to Netflix aren’t fundamentally opposed to paying for streaming, they were opposed to an unfair change in the business model. Netflix countered with a seemingly fair change in the business model that now eliminates the hassles that come with password sharing and could make the marginal increase in cost per household fairly small. It was overall a pretty smart business decision.

        There are many many problems with Netflix, including their growth-based business model, the lack of insight into their finances, and the way they’re slowly enshittifying the film industry. They’re a major reason for the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. However, this change wasn’t stupid and people weren’t stupid for going along with it. I don’t see how it would lead to an overall increase in piracy, that’s being driven by the many new streaming services forcing costs on consumers. But consumers won’t blame Netflix for that because, frankly, that’s not Netflix’s fault.

    • SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social
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      Obviously yes. Reddit could change the app icon to a swastika and hide the real icon behind a $50 paywall and people would still use the app because of convenience.

    • hh93@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      just look at election-results around the globe and how easily a lot of people are fooled by populists…

    • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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      Remember a scary thing about average IQ: half of the people have IQ below that number, hence “average”.

      • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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        That’s not really how averages work, that’s the median, but I get your point. In order for that to be average there have to be scores lower.

  • nostalgicgamerz@kbin.social
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    VC money very likely dried up and the IPO was the opportunity to raise more funding. all they needed to do was put ads in 3rd party apps and they take a cut of revenue…

    I honestly thought that after all these things they would spring back but I honestly now feel like they’re going to go the way of Digg

      • Killgannon@lemmy.world
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        I mean I honestly don’t understand. I’m just going to assume that they aren’t actually retarded and want the best for the company, but this sounds like one person over there is making the decisions and everyone else is terrified of calling out the bad ideas. How else does a company just implode like this? I’ve worked in creative tech environments with super dominating bosses that was scary to even ask a question let alone call them out. So sad.

        I was a daily (hours) Reddit user for the past 15 years and I quit…completely. I have not gone back. The hour Apollo shut down I was done. I said I would leave and I keep my word. Been here ever since. It’s taken some time but this is filling my Reddit need.

        Only problem is looking up tips on video games always links to a Reddit discussion and I just refuse. Fuck u/spez

        • andrew@radiation.party
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          It’s crazy how easy this recent drama has made leaving Reddit for me. Saw all the user-hostile changes and just deleted my Reddit apps and have only been visiting it via google searches on very domain-specific knowledge.

        • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I agree with everything you said. However, I almost couldn’t finish reading your comment because of your use of the R slur. I’m not reporting it or anything, just something to think on.

          • atomicorange@lemmy.world
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            Yeah, It’s unnecessarily cruel. Hits like a gut punch ever time I see it now. Thanks for saying something.

          • Souroak@lemmy.sdf.org
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            A week or so on Lemmy and I’ve seen this slur on like 3 different occasions. It’s disappointing. I guess I was just more familiar with what communities to avoid on reddit (wsb) if I didn’t want to see it.

          • Killgannon@lemmy.world
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            You know what, I appreciate your callout. As an 80s kid there was a LOT of terms we used and our vocabulary was quite robust when it came to offensive words. Although we never truly meant to hurt any person or group those slurs were associated with. I’ve done an incredible job of eliminating all that stuff from my lexicon, but this word in particular has been difficult for me and if I use it I’m always angry.

            I’ll try and do better

            Just keep in mind there are words you use today, oftentimes daily, that will be considered hurtful and maybe even a “slur” in a matter of years and at most a few decades. All we can do is try and be conscience of this and work hard to eliminate them from your vocabulary but it’s not easy when you’ve used a word or term for decades

            Here’s a selection of words from a list that a Harvard group just recently deemed “harmful”:

            American, You guys, Prisoner, Crazy, Victim, Karen, Walk-in.

          • ngdev@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The meaning of retard is to delay or impede the development or progress of; to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment

            Just something to think on

            • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
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              In the 21st century the that word is widely understood to be a slur and thus violates rules 1 and 2 on lemmy.ml (where this community is hosted).

              Also, you’re quoting the definition of the verb, which is typically not applied to people, while the (now deleted, on lemmy.ml at least) grandparent comment was using the word as an adjective… which is.

            • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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              Yeah, it was even a medical term and then a bunch of kids (and less gracious adults) went around using it as an insult and now it’s taboo. Welcome to living languages, they change. I said what I said, your “umm, actually” adds nothing to the conversation.

            • Pregnenolone@lemmy.world
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              It’s totally appropriate to use in that context e.g. retarding a fire or the brakes retarding a car, but OPs are clearly not using it like that.

    • empireOfLove@lemmy.one
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      Well you see, finding a way to reliably deliver ads via the API would have taken far too much developer brainpower for a company that can’t make a functional video player or a mobile app that doesn’t annihilate battery with ridiculously excessive cpu use and keepalive requests…

      • tool@r.rosettast0ned.com
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        Well you see, finding a way to reliably deliver ads via the API would have taken far too much developer brainpower for a company that can’t make a functional video player or a mobile app

        It honestly wouldn’t be that hard at all. You deliver ads via the API alongside actual posts, as if they are an actual post, and forbid altering them in the developer ToS. If you want to be anal about enforcement, run popular 3rd-party apps in an emulator to verify that the JSON returned by the site is unaltered when it’s rendered in the app. You could put this together in a weekend.

        Which really just speaks to quality of talent at reddit, or the management at reddit suppressing that talent. Or both.

        • empireOfLove@lemmy.one
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          I’m pretty sure the real issue is the data collection Reddit wants about user habits. They can’t get thst from 3rd party apps, even if they make browsing habit data (scroll speeds, post linger time, ads displayed, etc) a mandatory part of the API they cannot verify what the 3rd party app is reporting and it becomes junk data that advertisers cannot rely on. They need complete ecosystem control to make the marketing optimizers happy. So, fuck the consumer!

      • debil@lemmy.world
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        a mobile app that doesn’t annihilate battery with ridiculously excessive cpu use and keepalive requests

        Speaking of which, how on Earth it’s such a slug these days? I pretty much quit Reddit when the protest started and moved to Lemmy. I never used any other Android app since I was reasonably happy with the official app. However, when I launched it to check how my old subs fared, I was quite surprised at how slow, laggy and bloated POS it had come.

        I honestly don’t remember it being this crappy just a few weeks ago.

        • empireOfLove@lemmy.one
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          It’s some combination of developer incompetence- they’ve basically never put out any decent running code- and intentional resource use for the ridiculous amount of tracking they run. Reddit tracks everything about your browsing habits as well as actively loads ads in the background. It’s entire purpose was never for quality user experience, it was for revenue generation (which 3rd party apps get in the way of)

    • Spacefart@lemmy.world
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      There is still the free option of revanced, that patched the original reddit app so that you don’t have any adds… You can also change the icon of you want.

  • dottedgreenline@lemmy.ml
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    I also hate the inclusion of the u/spez freakout about employees not wearing reddit colours in public for fear of physical harm. It is a full-on propaganda tactic, in the vein of Elon Musk or Trump’s bullshit. It immediately puts shade on the userbase. These “journalists” should get their shit together and either write about how ridiculously stupid he was to say that or just not present it at all, it’s barely relevant to the article. For anyone who has actually been following along, the way the article presents that tidbit is inane and completely false at best.

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    There’s this super frustrating trend where instead of making the paid version of things better, they just make the free version worse. Like how you used to be able to do background play on the YouTube app. It’s like they know these features are good so implement them to attract people to use their service, and then later take it away to force the subscription.

    • Funwayguy@lemmy.world
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      Oh it was so much worse than that. Google indirectly banned every 3rd party app on the Play Store from streaming videos in the background to push that feature. Seemingly overnight every app that could do it vanished or cut the feature. Sure you can sideload a fix but your average non-savvy users got screwed into paying up.

    • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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      I’m glad they do that, it makes people switch to open source alternatives, like NewPipe for YouTube.

      They simply have better features and privacy.

      • Cyyy@lemmy.world
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        YMusic ftw. if you want to listen to music in background, it’s the better alternative compared with newpipe. newpipe is the best for videos…but YMusic for music.

        • marron12@lemmy.world
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          What do you like better about YMusic? I’ve been using NewPipe for a little while and it’s OK, but it’s kind of annoying that you can’t sort by date or views. I usually end up searching Youtube and plugging the URL into Newpipe.

          • Cyyy@lemmy.world
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            YMusic is specific designed to work with music so the player, loading times etc are better. in NewPipe you first need to open a video, click play (or tab and hold to play), select play in background etc… and also create your own playlists. in YMusic you click just on a song you like and boom, it plays. also it can download quickly the music and also recommend automatic new music etc.

            YMusic is just way better for music. you can even login with your yt account and use your music playlists etc. from computer.

    • crossover@lemmy.world
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      The problem with (almost) all social media platforms is they need a LOT of users. Because each individual users brings in such a small amount of revenue.

      So these companies (running on investor money) go through a deliberate early “growth” stage, where their singular goal is to get as many users as possible. They usually do this by…actually making something people want to use. Plus some addictive tricks thrown in to keep people “engaged”.

      Once they have their 100 million users, or whatever number they’re targeting, then the processor of turning it to shit begins. Because now they have the users they need to extract revenue from them. The problem is that growth stage often kills off competitors as well. So now you have a near monopoly tightening the screws on users, who have to just accept it because the cost of moving to an alternative is too high.

      But eventually it hits a breaking point. Users jump to something new, and the cycle repeats. The users who stick around with a shit product are the ones who ultimately pay the debts that early users got to enjoy.

    • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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      This is why so many apps and services have problems monetizing their stuff when they start out as free and/or ad supported as a means to pump the usage numbers fast for that juicy investor funding and sky high stock valuations.

      Free/ad supported is essentially the “bottom” of race to the bottom when it comes to how to make money on a product or service. And it is hard to climb the ladder of convincing people to pay for something when the core product that provides most of the value has always been free. You can’t exactly just paywall the core product or people will likely feel ripped off and leave. So that leaves increasingly sketchy “value added” options.

    • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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      It takes innovation and creativity to make the paid version better. It takes nothing but greed to make the free version worse.

  • Rexios@lemm.ee
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    This title is exceedingly misleading. This icon is not “ugly” and is an obvious marketing stunt to bring awareness to the return of r/place. Wether or not you think r/place should come back is irrelevant to this discussion. Reddit didn’t “make the icon ugly” so people would pay to fix it.

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      Two things can be true at the same time.
      The fact that there really is an icon named “Original” that is locked away does not help. The old icon simple isn’t there at the moment as far as I could see.
      So even if they changed the icon for /r/places the fact that you won’t even see the old icon in the selection and that it’s nowhere mentioned that that is the reason for the (temporary) change will properly lead enough just buy premium. Hopefully users that forget to cancel once the normal icon is back.

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    Do iOS users not have free icon packs? I’m so confused by this…

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      You can’t change icons from the system/launcher settings. Individual apps can offer icon options, but they are internal to the app.

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          To each their own, I moved from iOS to Android in 2020 and first days I started experimenting with different icon packs, but not all are perfect or of my taste, nowadays I only use the monet icons feature for Pixel Launcher, but if it wasn’t for that I’d just use stock icons lol.

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            There are plenty of apps that allow you to change the app icon for free. This is entirely on Reddit.

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            Have become? If anything, iOS have historically been getting more customizable over time not less.

            And I don’t think it’s really accurate to compare iOS with MacOSX and earlier, entirely different systems with different use cases and form factors. I’d recon if Apple released a phone in 2002 it’s be just as locked down.

            Not trying to defend this by the way, just surprised by the usage of the word “become” here as if it used to be different for iPhones.

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            It’s the same on the Reddit Android app too (although the icon option in the app looks ok, the icon in the launcher is pixelated)

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      Sort of, you can use the Shortcuts app to make a custom launcher and use any icon you want. It’s not very intuitive for the average user.

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      I found an article from 2020 that said it wasn’t possible to use custom icons on an iPhone. Idk if that’s changed, since I don’t have an iPhone. I know customization is not something they are known for.

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        It’s more of a workaround: you need to make a shortcut (which you can set a custom icon to) to launch the app of your choice. This is still possible.

  • iegod@lemm.ee
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    Anyone paying for reddit premium has to just be the biggest sucker. Then again I don’t understand anyone paying for a similar privilege on twitch either. Batshit insanity.

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      I pay for twitch turbo because I watch twitch for hours upon hours and keeping up with the latest ad block for twitch is more effort than it’s worth to me. Especially when on devices where ad block is more challenging.

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        I don’t get it. What’s challenging? uBlock Origin plugin installation? I watch twitch only to get warframe item drops, but i recently switched to twitch miner instead, but when i was watching the devstream(s) from time to time there were no ADs. So don’t get me wrong but the effort is almost non-existent.

        • Ducks@ducks.dev
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          It is not as simple as install uBlock Origin. I have uBlock, it is very easy to install a plugin.

          However, every other day the current ad block solution stops working for twitch and you need to install multiple plugins (uBlock, TTV LOL), modify your ublock, or use alternate twitch UI which has no features, and since it changes so frequently I need to manually keep up to date with the changes on github for multiple plugins and scripts. Not to mention none of that works on mobile when you’re away from home, I use Pi Hole and it doesn’t block twitch ads. The ad block doesn’t work on chromecast or other devices.

          Their ads are super aggressive, it is literally impossible to surf the website with ads. Every time you switch streams you’re served an ad which makes it very difficult to find people to watch or to follow multiple perspectives (I mainly watch RP).

          For a few bucks a month I don’t have to deal with it and I watch Twitch more than any other streaming platform or social media, so to me it is worth the ease and consistency of use by just having turbo. The only two subscriptions I have are YouTube Premium and Twitch Turbo because I don’t get ads and I don’t have to deal with blocking them.

          • Gianni R@lemmy.ml
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            A service that so aggressively disrespects their free users is not a service I’d ever give my money to.

            • Ducks@ducks.dev
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              You’re not necessarily wrong, but the people who create the content I enjoy are on Twitch, so to me it is worth it. Everybody values things differently

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        I read this and was like that is a good idea, I watch an okay amount of Twitch and the adblock arms race is getting exhausting. I look it up, $12 a month???

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          I’m still grandfathered in at $8 for a few more months, at which point I will re-evaluate

  • Gyella@lemmy.world
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    Reddit can go fuck themselves. I’ve been gone since Apollo stopped working. Have never & will never go back.

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      Sometimes I’ll check Joey. Once, it actually worked for like 2 seconds then I refreshed the page by accident and it was down again. I did this like 3 days ago? Otherwise I’m here.

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        I got a notification for new comments in saved threads today, in Joey, couldn’t actually check them but somehow that got through.

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    Just more subscription hell. It’s ridiculous anymore. I’ll need a subscription to flush my toilet at some point. I mean how much of this are consumers willing to put up with. Anyway Reddit is well on the path of monetizing themselves to irrelevance.

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      I’ll need a subscription to flush my toilet at some point.

      It’s called a water bill. You pay it monthly, even if you don’t use any water!

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        Idk, I pay for my utilities based on usage, and there are fees too. The fees maybe could be argued are subscriptions, but they’re not the majority of the bill

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        I’m sure you get my point. Yes you have to pay the water bill to flush the toilet. There’s lots of other “subscriptions” for utilities like power, garbage collection, sewer. We call those bills not subscriptions and they’ve been around as long as modern society. I think we can take those for granted. Not in the same league as the subscription hell we’re seeing for online services these days.

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          To that point you already pay for internet in the same way you pay for water. Paying for a specific website is like paying to use a toilet.

          Analogy stands.

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        I’m from NL… Would be better if there was a subscription to use toilets instead of paying 50c or more every time. Always have to carry coins around just incase you need to pee. Super annoying.

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              I know the US is hella behind in payment technologies, but can you tap your phone in NL to pay for toilets? I haven’t carried cash for 15+ years in Canada. If so, I honestly like that system. At least I wouldn’t encounter a group of homeless people shooting up in the timmies bathroom at 8pm.

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                You’d think so right, and everything else here is super tap to pay oriented… Most toilets aren’t though, maybe the ones at the train station, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. You pay for that, then they give you a voucher back to go use at a store in the station. Nobody uses them, so it’s just extra overpriced and hella dirty.

                Honestly it’s a scam all round.

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      anymore

      That’s not how that word works.

      Edit: I didn’t say I I’ve never seen it used that way, i just find that particular use of it to be wrong.

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              That’s not how they used it though. Grammatical construction matters

              Just more subscription hell. It’s ridiculous anymore.

              “It’s ridiculous these days”

              “I don’t go out any more”

              • BraBraBra@lemmy.world
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                It’s ridiculous nowadays. Have no idea how you’re still not getting it, it’s actually impressive.

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        I understood perfectly and I bet a lot of others did too. I bet you understood it. So, mostly or completely successful use of the word to inject the desired thoughts into others’ heads. So, the word works that way, even if it sounds awkward to you.

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        It’s colloquial to the USA, it’s an expression. My grammar is usually good except when I bastardize it to make a point like, “I aint gonna take that crap” or “grammar corrections are getting ridiculous anymore.” In the USA you’d have to live under a rock to have never heard that expression.

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          Never understood why people get upset for learning. My sister is 33 and has her own business. Every time she writes emails or company ads, she types at a 3rd grade level.

          She uses the wrong “there”, says “should of”, etc.

          When I try to teach her, she gets angry. Why? Do you want to stay stupid?

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            I don’t believe it’s so much about the correction itself as it is about ignoring what the person said and only piping up to correct. Imagine we are having a conversation and you spend 3 minutes telling me about how you struggled to get the lug nuts off your tire this morning while changing it and when you finished, all I had to offer you is “they’re on the rim, not the tire” and nothing more. It can come off as a bit rude.

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            Time and place. Quite arrogant to assume someone isn’t just using local phrasing, as is the case here. People talk differently all over. The official use of English is simply official. How people actually use it in their communities is correct. Hope I’m being clear with my sentiment here.

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      I mean you technically already do pay a subscription to flush your toilet by paying a water bill, just you get a lot more benefits

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    £5.99 a month…

    i cant believe people actually pay that for what is essentially a forum.

    it’d probably be decades before they made that off me in advertising.

    They could have had my money too if what they were asking were reasonable and i retained the ability to use RIF

    • bamboo@lemm.ee
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      Yeah if they made it so that you had to pay $5 per month or moderate a sub with >10k subscribers to keep using third party apps, none of this would happened and they would have been able to make more money off of it.

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        $5 a month is still a lot imo. i’d do $12 a year ($1 a month billed annually or 6 monthly) which is still an order of magnitude larger than the amount they would get from advertising for me

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          Yeah $5 is a bit much for what it is. I picked that number because it’s the upper limit for where I’ll go “fine have money just don’t bother me any more”

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    imagine paying for an app icon… what next ? paying for a ringtone like in the good old days?

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        Oh my fucking god, memories of that scam service “Jamba” flooding back. It was like two years in a row of Crazy Frog ads for it.

        • Malfeasant@lemmy.world
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          There will always be tech un-savvy people who prefer to pay for something (and have someone to call when it doesn’t work) than have to spend 5 minutes learning how to do it themselves.

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    Ok so this is just desperate right? Like chasing 3rd party devs off could theoretically force more people to use their app, the reddit gold thing could be them paving the way to put in something more abusive. But this? Hoping to annoy your users to the point that they’ll pay you a ransom to make you stop? How is this anything other than embarrassingly desperate?

    • cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca
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      I think it’s actually an ad for /r/place, which is kinda like when your ex tries reminding you of all the good times you once had in an effort to win you back.

      • ThrDarkFlame@feddit.nl
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        And then you go lie and say “Yeah sure, I’ll come back”, wait for them to leave the house to get some groceries, and then go douse the whole place in gasoline before lighting the match and leaving.

        This is my prediction for this year’s r/place

    • TechnoBabble@lemmy.world
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      I agree, it seems like they’re doing everything they can to force users into the mindset of “you’re going to have to spend money here.”

      However… I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s a tactic that relies solely on Apple not allowing the user to customize their icons, which combines into a double whammy of “give me money to fix the thing that I broke.”

      Why do I have to pay when Android users don’t?

      Why is Reddit being greedy?

      This other site is free and doesn’t make me feel like I’m being taken advantage of every turn.

      Reddit is trying to capitalize on goodwill they already spent months ago. And the quality of the site is just going to get worse from here.