• jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Zoom: “wE cAnT cOlAbOrAtE iF wErE nOt In PeRsOn. We NeEd EmPloYeEs To ReTuRn tO tHe OfFiCe.”

    They have stiff competition but this has to be one of the most incompetent boners I have ever seen pulled by a major corporation. Stating very clearly to the entire world that you have no confidence in your own product. If Eric Yuan (Zoom’s CEO) wasn’t the principle shareholder he probably would have been fired out of a cannon by now.

    • llama@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      And what are zoom employees using from the office to sell their product? Why no other than a fine Zoom call, from our desk to yours!

        • Demuniac@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well nothing in particular, I’ve been done with the rate of MTG product releases for a while now, hate the universe beyond as for me it damages the feel of the game significantly, and the overall price increase is just rude at this point.

        • snor10@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Despite previous promises that they would not, they did something similar to Unity and tried to retroactively change their Open Gaming License to force creators of Dungeons & Dragons derived products to give up ownership of their products unless they pay exorbitant sums.

          They also sent the Pinkertons to intimate a guy who got shiped some unreleased Magic the Gathering cards by accident.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Literally every company is doing this. There was a time when, for example, Apple could reverse engineer the Word document format and make their own word processor that uses them. This was very common and resulted in things like IBM PC clones that sped up innovation.

    Now companies use litigation and corporate buyouts to reduce their competition, then set up ways to extract rents on customers rather than providing a service. Business folks love this because it means a consistent stream of revenue that won’t go away. And now you’ve got carmakers looking to charge by the month for features.

    For more details, read Chokepoint Capitalism.

    • tuxrandom@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And now you’ve got carmakers looking to charge by the month for features.

      When I reach the point at which I am forced to buy a car like that, I’d just find out from where the feature gets controlled and hack in my own controller and a good 'ol switch.

      • ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Right now it’s your right to do what you want to your car as long as it still passes vehicle inspection, but it appears that car makers want new laws that prevent you from modifying your own car.

        If we just sit on our hands now, well likely move into a future where we will be forced to either pay subscription or take public transit, which requires subscriptions.

        • tvarog_smetana@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The Library of Congress added “software that runs land vehicles” to their copyright exceptions somewhat recently. That’s why farmers are legally allowed to use cracked software from Ukrainian grain farmers to run/repair their tractors

        • sznowicki@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Even allowed now I would never ever modify my car firmware due to huge liability in case of any incident. Literally any insurance company figuring out you tempered with car software would try to take all the money paid for damages back from you.

          • aesopjah@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            You can inject CAN bus commands if you can sniff what they’re sending. No firmware modification necessary. Not saying it’s a good idea to do so, but it is possible to do so.

        • loobkoob@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          At least public transit is an ongoing service. I’m far less opposed to subscriptions when I’m actually being provided with something for them.

          Car manufacturers trying to charge subscriptions for features in the car you own feels like racketeering. They’re not providing an ongoing service, they’re asking me to keep paying them to not remove a feature.

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Cory Doctorow’s new book delves into this as well. I’m 2/3 through but it defines the problem very well for laymen and prescribes how to solve it.

    • the_lone_wolf@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      This was very common and resulted in things like IBM PC clones that sped up innovation.

      i don’t think it was due to reverse engineering but bcz of releasing specification by IBM them self due to which other manufacturer where able to make identical clone and can run extracted BIOS from IBM PC without any modification!

  • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Microsoft. They’ve been itching to go to a fully cloud-dependent subscription-only model for Windows for a while now.

      • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        the surprising thing there isn’t that they went back on their word, but that they said it in the first place.

        Seriously, how could an OS company seriously believe they’d never need or want to release a new major version

        • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          It was to keep everyone in their eco system and just update it as they found more ways to extract revenue

          • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Right but they could have done that without promising that 10 would be the last Windows version. Let’s be honest, everyone is already locked into their ecosystem outside of enthusiasts and people with Apple Hardware. If you want a non-mac laptop/desktop, unless you go well out of your way, you’re almost certain to end up with a Windows PC, they didn’t need the “last version” gimmick to keep people on Windows.

            Hell, a lot of non-techy people who are already used to using Windows would rather not use a computer than learn to use a new OS. It’s easy to forget how tech illiterate the average person is

            • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              I’m probably one of the less technically literate people here and in my case, you’re absolutely right. I assume Linux involves typing commands somewhere and I, frankly, have to look up how to do a vlookup in excel every time it happens.

              I would probably prefer to use my phone (an old ass iPhone) instead of a computer with a totally new os. I’m not a huge fan of macs, but it’s still basically the same on the user end. I suspect linux is more different.

              Inb4: I straight up don’t have time to switch my os for at least a year, I just wanted to support the above comment. I am well aware that my assumptions are probably wrong, just wanted to share what the reputation of Linux is among non tech people (if they’ve ever even heard of it).

              • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                I assume Linux involves typing commands somewhere

                It doesn’t, it’s akin to command prompt/poweshell on Windows albeit less verbose or Terminal in Mac. It’s just something you can do but if you don’t use it on Windows then you aren’t going to need it on Linux

                I would probably prefer to use my phone instead of a computer with a totally new os

                Android/Chrome OS are Linux, I think this is the easiest way to show people how little “command typing” is needed

                just wanted to share what the reputation of Linux is among non tech people

                Tech people use that reputation as well, a bunch of people think it makes them smarter but Linux is better for non tech people than Windows because it has a natural defense against scammers/viruses.

                I switched to it because Windows was too complicated and I couldn’t get anything to run well <- Linux has less overhead but that wasn’t my issue

                • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  it’s akin to command prompt/poweshell on Windows albeit less verbose or Terminal in Mac. It’s just something you can do but if you don’t use it on Windows then you are going to need it on Linux.

                  You just lost 99% of windows and Mac users right there.

              • SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                You should read up the Halloween documents to get a better understanding of where some of those assumptions (which to be fair have since become something of a self fulfilling prophecy…) originate from.

              • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I am well aware that my assumptions are probably wrong

                No, no, this is entirely accurate. It’s just that the Linux-a-boos would love to tell you otherwise. But it’s all a bunch of circle jerking. The people who are willing to deal with that and have already dived need justification and will tell you it’s simple.

                Sure, some distros are a bit more hands off and “works out of the box”. But you still have to find the box. And figure out how to open the box. And figure out how to get it out of the box. And then it just works. Until it doesn’t.

                It’s not as hard as it used to be, but anyone telling you “any normie can just do it and never look back” is full of shit. It still has its hurdles and you’ll still be occasionally troubleshooting your own PC. Most people don’t want that. But the people who do are already running Linux.

                • NOPper@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  My grandmother has been running under Linux for about 6 years now after constantly needing people to fix her Windows install. She can barely use Facebook.

            • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              Some people stay on previous versions though and that means less of a base to send advertisements to

              It’s not a worry of people going to Linux, it’s a worry of people staying on 10 instead of going to 11

              • CaptKoala@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                As a lifelong windows user, 10 is my last windows, I’ve heard nothing but garbage from those I know running win11.

                I will be switching, it’s just a matter of distros, better support for gaming/vr/drivers etc.

                I’ve been messing around with Ubuntu on an Orange Pi 5 and so far, apart from gnome (even with extensions) I’m really pleased and feel much more in control of my hardware.

                The moment I heard of ads in the start menu on 11 I vowed it won’t happen, and yet the bing bar showed up on my desktop last week after am update. Needless to say I’ve already been into the registry to fix that issue, but yes, that basically sums up how I feel, and I know most I know feel the same re: MS Windows at this point.

        • snor10@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I assumed what they ment where that with W10 they would transition from point releases to a rolling release model.

          This is common in the Linux world, Arch being the most well known example.

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah then MacOS 11 came out after 20 years. The idea was to have the same version number for the dumb dumbs. It’s why the Xbox 2 was called Xbox 360 so it’d match PlayStation 3, but bigger.

        • far_university1990@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Firefox did the same bullshit. Was on version 5 for ages, saw chrome do insane version numbers, „oh no they might think we are outdated“. Now firefox v110.

          What a pile of shit

          • seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            LOL why do you care what version number it is? They could switch to using letters, I wouldn’t give a shit.

            The part that’s cool is rolling updates. It just doesn’t make sense to have a release schedule like they did. The reason why software had that in the first place was for marketing: you’re supposed to get excited for the new version 6.0 or whatever and run down to the computer store and buy it to replace your old, outdated version 5.0. That model doesn’t make sense for software that’s free, though. Incremental updates make more sense. Features get rolled out gradually instead of being all bundled together for a big, splashy upgrade.

            • far_university1990@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              I do not care about the version numbers, i care about „oh no, chrome is doing something, quick we need to adjust or we will be laughed upon“.

              Copying chrome is the pile of shit.

              Rolling updates makes sense, i agree with that.

  • TiredNerdDad@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    This is a turning point and I’m here for it

    Twitter, Reddit, Facebook => Fediverse

    Unity => Godot

    AAA Studios => Indie devs

      • andxz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They completely botched the WotLK server situation launch as well.

        I waited for that shit for years, and me and many others couldn’t play no matter how much money we were willing to spend to do so. I don’t know if they ever fixed the servers, but back in December they were still a hot mess.

        Also, to a lesser degree, SC2.

        They certainly lost a loyal customer in me, at least.

    • The Picard Maneuver@startrek.websiteOP
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      1 year ago

      Well this year was overwatch 2, which was pretty much the same game but wrapped in skeezy monetization, with the excuse that they needed to drop a sequel (and delete the original) for their new PVE content. Then a few months later, they announced they weren’t even going to do the PVE content, but they were keeping the new monetization.

      • FUCKRedditMods@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Seriously fuck them to death for this. And their “new maps” is just like the same fucking maps but at nighttime or daytime instead! OoO what a sequel! The company deserves to crash and burn.

        Also I PAID for one of the call of duty games and after a year they one day just said I can’t play it anymore because they ended support for older versions of windows, of course they also refused to refund me. I didn’t buy “one year” of gameplay I bought the fucking game. Never making that mistake again.

        Just relentlessly fucking greedy and shitty. It’s a shame people enable this bullshit by spending $30 on character skins and paying out the ass for lootboxes. We need to answer them with the loss of our business. I did my part and uninstalled all their IP and refuse to give them another dollar of my money ever again until/unless I see a 180 in their policies and practices.

        • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
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          I didn’t buy “one year” of gameplay I bought the fucking game.

          That right there is the root of the overall problems we’re seeing: licensing, and the increasing willingness of assholes with MBAs to use licensing as a weapon to increase profits.

          When you pay your money, you’re not getting anything but the right to use the thing for as long as the company decides to let you keep using it. They take your money AND they retain the right to revoke or change the license whenever and however they want.

          The only way to win this kind of game is to a) not play it, and/or b) take to the high seas.

      • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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        This year was also Diablo 4. And they have been driving that one further and further into the ground. The OW2 lore shit is another turd on the pile. Dragonflight is continuing a “more of the same but we told it’d be different” trend, but is honestly their smallest fuck up in a list of fuck ups.

        Was HotS dying last year? OW1 was basically on life support for the past two years in order to support the OW2 fiasco so I feel like that should count as it’s own entity… Once we’re into last year, there’s Diablo Immoral

        The list goes on.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        They took the dev team away from hots (only blizzard game/moba worth playing) so they could work on their pve

          • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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            That’d make sense, I just remember visiting my brother in-law around christmas last year and he was playing it and telling me about the controversy about it being the same game.

            But yeah everything blurs together lately, don’t know if it’s because everything is so chaotic, or just because I’m getting old lol

    • M137@lemmy.world
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      Seriously? They’ve been one of the most shitty companies for years. They’ve been on the top of the most talked about and widely shown because of all their bad decisions. How does anyone who has even a remote idea and interest about this not know that?

  • Spudwart@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Twitter Reddit Unity Blizzard Microsoft Epic Google All of the Movie industry. All of the animation industry. All of the Gaming publishers.

    Basically, everything, everywhere.

      • Izzy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Cars are going to get really terrible really soon if not already. They are becoming less of mechanical machines on wheels and more of computers on wheels. Car companies like Tesla are already harvesting every tiny bit of personal data from you as they possibly can. Other car manufacturers aren’t much better. It is truly a privacy nightmare. Any new car you get you will basically have to gut it and cut out the part that tracks everything you do.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Epic is trying to make every game exclusive so they don’t have to compete on the market, instead of providing a service that is actually competitive.

        https://medium.com/@unfoldgames/why-i-turned-down-exclusivity-deal-from-the-epic-store-developer-of-darq-7ee834ed0ac7

        Tldr: Epic waits until a game with hype annouces a launch date on Steam, then contacts the developer saying “We would love to have you on our platform” and offers an exclusivity deal.
        Dev turns down exclusivity deal because backers were promised a Steam release.
        Sudddenly Epic has no interest in making the game available on their store if they have to actually compete with another store. Despite saying previously they would “love to have it”.

        Having it on their store as well would provide a better service for their users but that’s not what Epic is interested in.

        • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Oh, I see, they have been doing that for years though. I thought maybe they did something new to spice it up this year.

        • busydoinnothin@lemm.ee
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          This is silly. Epic Megagames out out some ridiculously great products. Jazz jackrabbit, omf, zzt, freaking UNREAL and unreal tournament. If y’all wanna hate on their recent decisions that’s fine not everyone stays good, but to say that simply existing is a reason to hate on them is redacted.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      All of the animation industry.

      Corporate enshitification and the Woke/anti-Woke debate are two very different things.

    • aikixd@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well, shares are company value, not product value. And companies are valued by their ability to create value. A terrible decision usually doesn’t mean much, and share price fluctuation is mainly speculative in nature. A large company may survive a bad CEO, and create value down the road. Even a crashing company has value, as it may be split and sold with a profit, turning shares into cash.

      All in all, as much as I hate, EA for example, they have a strong position and can easily eat up failed releases for years to come. Many of their releases are payed off with only pre-orders.

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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      I’m surprised they made it this long. Never bought into their cutesy signaling.

      But also, that place felt oppressive with a smiling face.

      • 1847953620@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Moderation there is worse than a joke. I gave them a motherlode of screenshots, discord links, timestamps to Nazi content being posted on a single server, and their employees would simply pretend I didn’t give it to them and keep asking for discord links, as though they were unable to follow up on it otherwise.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      I hear Discord is due for its enshitification

      I’d really like to be able to use it without having to give up my cell phone number to do so, especially when I’m on my PC / web browser.

    • Radioactive Radio@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The streaming industry has been slowly burning down for a while now. I see more and more people pirating than buying another subscription for another fucking streaming platform that has like one good show to watch.

  • F04118F@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Red Hat (Enrerprise Linux) & HashiCorp (Terraform) closed the source of their products in different ways, also fucking over their community of clients and contributors, though their reasoning seems slightly more sane than “no more free money, aaargh!”