The funny thing is, before Google existed, people had no idea if their marketing attempts were working. Maybe they had some ways of knowing or guessing, but there was no way to know how accurate their metrics were. Internet-based advertising, and tracking-based advertising in particular was supposed to change that.

And now that we sit here with a duopoly of advertising giants, we’re back to the stage where marketers just have to trust that their provider is giving them good helpful information. And how are they supposed to know whether they really can believe it or not? They can’t of course! So we’ve come right back to where we’ve started.

But considering they still spent tons of money before Google and Facebook gave them these “analytics”, it looks like they probably don’t even care that much.

And yet, voters will sadly continue falling for it. Why are voters so damn stupid.

That’s fair, but to me, the cost of a new device isn’t how much I pay for it - it’s the time I invest in using it and maintaining it, as well as how much I rely on it. The biggest reason that I think open hardware and software is important is not just the cost, but the reliability - the fact that it will still be working tomorrow. That is worth a lot more than money to me!

Exactly. All these devices can just be bricked the moment some corporation decides they’re not worth supporting anymore. Never buy a device that is so heavily dependent on running on another company’s services.

Really fascinating how this is happening in coordination all of a sudden. I’m practically certain that this is all coming from a small group of investors (maybe even just a couple) who are trying to influence companies as hard as they can into making everyone to start using it.

Staying quiet because it will make daddy angry to talk about it is still abuse.

Okay, fair point. What I mean is, don’t bring it up unless the toddler starts talking about it again. Stupid of CNN to bring it up again for no reason.

It’s a little stupid to bring this up. You have to treat the Trump administration like toddlers, ie. when they ask for something, you just have to be firm, ignore it, and wait for it to go away. Raising the topic again will just make your toddler throw another tantrum.

I get that he was asked this by a member of the media, but nobody should be talking about this. You just have to change the topic - again, exactly the same way you deal with toddlers.

Wikipedia is quite resilient - you can even put it on a USB drive. As long as you have a free operating system, there will always be ways to access it.

Agreed. People just think the first tool that they learned is the easiest to use. I’ve been a longtime Gimp user and find it pretty easy to do what I want.* The few times someone asked me to do something in Photoshop, I was pretty helpless. Of course, I’m a pretty basic user - I wouldn’t dispute that Photoshop is more powerful, but which one is easier to use is very subjective and the vast majority of the time, it just boils down to which one you use more often.

I’ve seen the same with people who grew up on Libreoffice and then started smashing their computer when they were asked to use MSOffice.

To add to subignition’s point, there is a value in learning useful software. More complicated software means that there is a learning curve - so while you are less productive while learning how to use it, once you gain more experience, you ultimately become more productive. On the other hand, if you want the software to be useful to everyone regardless of his level of experience, you ultimately have to eliminate more complex functionality that makes the software more useful.

Software is increasingly being distilled down to more and more basic elements, and ultimately, I think that means that people are able to get less done with them these days. This is just my opinion, but in general I have seen computer literacy dropping and people’s productivity likewise decreasing, at least from what I’ve observed from the 1990s up until today. Especially at work, the Linux users that I see are much more knowledgeable and productive than Apple users.

But without Microsoft’s “PC on every desktop” vision for the '90s, we may not have seen such an increased demand for server infrastructure which is all running the Linux kernel now.

Debatable, in my opinion. There were lots of other companies trying to build personal computers back in those times (IBM being the most prominent). If Microsoft had never existed (or gone about things in a different way), things would have been different, no doubt, but they would still be very important and popular devices. The business-use aspect alone had a great draw and from there, I suspect that adoption at homes, schools, etc. would still follow in a very strong way.

Whatever. The next generation will have to learn to trust whether the material is true or not by using sources like Wikipedia or books by well-regarded authors.

The other thing that he doesn’t understand (and most “AI” advocates don’t either) is that LLMs have nothing to do with facts or information. They’re just probabilistic models that pick the next word(s) based on context. Anyone trying to address the facts and information produced by these models is completely missing the point.

The bigger problem in my opinion is more about the fact that all elections that select a single winner will always end up in stupid degenerate systems like this where flaws and imperfections exist.

The best thing to do (again, my opinion) is to abolish all single winner races and have multiple winners with proportional representation. Get rid of directly elected presidents and have a prime minister selected by a proportionally representative parliament instead. All presidential systems suck, and the larger the number of people voting, the harder and harder it sucks. It’s not just a USA problem - you also see it in France and Turkey, where they also have an all-powerful president that is elected nationally and the election is a complete shit-show every time without fail. On the other hand, having a prime minister selected as the head of state from a proportionally elected parliament is a much fairer and more stable system in my opinion. It has downsides too of course, but nowhere near as bad as nationally elected presidential systems.

In any case, the example you pointed out is a potential flaw in approval voting, but I don’t think it’s very likely to happen. First of all, it would require all those voters in the second round to conspire a particular way, which isn’t very likely. Secondly, there’s the fact that the numbers would have to line up in a very particular way which has a very low probability of happening - tweak a few numbers here and there, and the spoiler effect vanishes. Sure, the scenario you point out is a hypothetical flaw in approval voting, but I think it’s a much smaller effect and probability of actually influencing anything - definitely nowhere near as much of a strategic voting effect as in plurality voting systems.

And the ones that stay behind will be the kinds of teammates nobody wants to work with.

Google is already falling behind in pretty much every area where they have competition and getting sued in all the areas where they have driven the competition out. It will really be great to see their business shrink given what they have become in the 2010s.

On the other hand, it’s also really sad to see what they’ve become too. They used to be a really admirable company around the early 2000s. So many people were cheering for them as a company run by engineers, doing things differently and running all over the incumbent assholes everybody hated like Microsoft. There was a time when it felt like Google was a company for real people fighting back against the machine. But then they became the machine themselves.

The good Google is dead. I’d love to see them get completely buried.

Good. Operating systems should be neutral. The people who make them should not be allowed to dictate the terms that others use to interact with their platforms.

This is my fear as well. Neoliberal policies are exactly what have made the extreme right so strong and powerful over the past decades. When people have no means to get forward in life, they resort to despotism, which is exactly why the poorest parts of the USA are so strongly in favor of Trump, while the wealthier parts are still clinging onto the liberal train.

Like I said in other posts, this is a good day for the current term, but if the Liberals aren’t serious about making life better for real Canadians (not the super-wealthy ones), there’s a good chance that this is only exacerbating an inevitable collapse.

Ironically, Trudeau hanging around for a long as he did may have saved Canada. If this election had happened in the middle of last year, the Conservatives would have probably won and combined with Trump, it would have been a disaster. Possibly the smartest/luckiest thing he has ever done.

Conservatives still winning over 40% of all votes total. Definitely a very bad sign.

Agreed. Incumbents always do worse in the next election. Makes me shudder to think what the result of the next election is going to be. Trudeau’s latest term was really bad and they got no punishment for it whatsoever thanks to the gift from the south. And Canada seems to be moving further and further away from proportional representation. So who will voters swing to next election?

Great result for today’s Canadians. Terrifying result for future Canadians.

I didn’t read the article, but I presume this is under the DMA which has provisions for increasing fines for repeat offenses - something like 10% of global revenue or something like that. I’m also a bit discouraged by how small the number is, but there is still some hope that it will either increase or get them to change their practices. But it is quite frustrating how slowly it’s going.

In fact, chances are that Apple is going breaking the law until the last minute so they can squeeze every penny they can out of this scheme until they can’t do it any longer.