If you look at Costco’s actions in the past they have been pretty fair for their customers. Costco is actually in a very good position where they know exactly who bought what and Costco can issue refunds to their customers based on that data. Even if they just do it as ‘store credit’ it would still be very welcome to most of their customers and that would help to offset Costco’s administrative costs of determining the refund amounts for everyone.
It’s so fucking exhausting.
I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have corporations to tell us what it is that we want.
Fake it 'til you make it!
I was going to just downvote and move on, but you seem unable to properly understand that a lack of a reply can mean different things, and you just assume that the person not replying to you agrees with you and is just too afraid to say so. Let me be clear… you are moving the goalposts and I see no point in having a discussion with someone who is not just dishonest in the conversation, but insists that it’s others who are acting dishonestly.
Steam does not have a monopoly on gaming. If you want to narrow that down to PC gaming then you’re changing the subject, but even then, they do not have a monopoly on PC gaming because they are not the only sellers. They don’t even have a monopoly on Linux gaming because they have put their resources there into open source projects which others have also benefited from, which is how I’m able to play Rocket League (yet another wildly successful game not available on Steam) on my Linux computer. Bringing other ‘classic monopolies’ into the conversation makes no difference on the discussion we’re having. And those other monopolies were not taken down because they were monopolies, they were taken down due to their anti-competitive practices - something that Valve has actively and successfully tried to avoid.
And no, I don’t think that because you feel that one number is ‘quite close’ to another number that they should be equal. I think that’s just another sign of you being dishonest and moving the goalposts and then assuming that you’ve made a valid point.
And finally, respond to this or not, I don’t care, but I said, multiple times, all that I need to say on this subject and to you.
The gaming market is much larger than PC gaming.
And Steam does not have an 80% market share on PC gaming, so who’s lying?
And finally, who the fuck do you think you are that I owe you a response?
You are equating “monopoly” with “abusive monopoly.”
No, I’m not. I’m saying they aren’t a monopoly by the simple fact that they aren’t the only providers of the service they sell. And while they are currently in a position to use their power to make themselves a monopoly, they are not doing that and instead are playing fair with their competition.
I know! There’s this great game called Fortnite that no one has ever heard of because you can’t get it on Steam. /s
Treat customers right and you get rewarded. They are the majority market shareholder because they have earned it, not through deceptive business practices but through being a great company.
If they were a monopoly they wouldn’t allow other game catalogs on their systems, yet I have GOG and Epic on my Steam Deck. In fact, there isn’t even a requirement for me to have Steam on my Steam Deck. Just because a company is the market leader doesn’t mean they got there through unethical means.
And Steam controls 80%-90% of the video game market?
Mono=one poly=seller… and last I checked Steam is not the only seller of video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games for SteamOS.
They are the largest because they do what’s right by their customers and employees. As a ‘for instance’, I bought Portal 2 for the PS3 many years ago. I no longer have my PS3 but I can still play Portal 2 (as well as Portal which was just thrown in for me) on any PC.
I’m loving these comments, so many great albums! And a ton I’ve never hear of and will need to check out.
I have a few of these, but two that really jump out at me are
These are albums that you’ve just gotta let play.
e: can’t believe I forgot Shatner!
Reblog?
I went all in on it… I fully drank that Koolaid and was an early backer, got an extra controller and really thought it was going to be amazing. But their whole launch was so bungled that by the time I actually got it I was so disillusioned with the whole company that I couldn’t enjoy it. It sucked to have bought into the kickstarter and financed the project, and then see the product on the shelves at Target while I was still waiting on mine to be delivered. I had mine for a couple of months before reselling it at a loss.
Several years later when Stadia was announced I felt that little familiar glimmer of hope pop up, but I didn’t let myself get too excited for it. I did eventually get a couple of Stadia controllers and really enjoyed that service (and I still use those controllers today).
Oh, I agree and that’s one reason why I think putting it into Windows is a huge mistake!
I am having fun with it because I find the tech interesting and I love seeing what I can get it to do… but it is so dumb and frustrating. But so was 3D printing 12 years ago, you’d have to fiddle with the settings, do some test prints to make sure everything was setup right, deal with a warped bed, and every print was an experiment. It was shitty, but when you got a good print, that was the best feeling. That’s how I feel about LLMs, it mostly sucks but when it works, it’s great.
I also support several open source LLM projects because that is where I think the real innovation will come from, and the technology is only going to get better like 3D printers now.
Who said that this world isn’t also an existential threat to me? I’ve never implied that things shouldn’t change, in fact I said that they should. My statement about having to live in the world we have is merely a statement of fact, but I was hoping to imply that for many this still means investing for your future. Just because it isn’t useful advice for some, doesn’t mean it isn’t still helpful for others.
Great points, but not the world we currently live in, nor on any track towards. I’ll just let my mom know she can stop working because society should be taking care of her and I’ll go ahead and liquidate my 401k and IRAs since they won’t be needed.
It’s great to work towards those goals of having better social programs, but you still have to exist in the world that you actually live in.
Personally I don’t see the top post as being ‘an attack on another user’ and the post is actually of something that’s mildly infuriating because reading posts where ‘th’ has been replaced with a symbol is mildly infuriating. I do agree that common etiquette would have been to remove the user’s name from the post, however it isn’t a requirement for something like this.
Also, yeah, your post was baiting the mods… shouldn’t be surprised by the result.
Agreed, the bailout should be targeted and very selective. If OpenAI can’t survive, then fine, let it ‘die’. It won’t actually die, it’ll get scooped up by someone else and their assets will be picked up by one of the surviving companies. It’s an interesting way to innovate… burn money to push the industry further along, knowing full well that you’ll never turn a profit, but that a future company will end up with your tech and they might eventually make a profit.
The problem is most Americans with retirement savings are shareholders of these tech companies whether they know it or not. My mom lost a HUGE part of her retirement savings when WorldCom went under and was never able to recover from it and is now in her mid 70s and still has to work full time. She’s almost blind and can hardly walk and she’s worked her whole life and tried to do everything right but her financial advisor was giving her what was thought to be good, safe advice in the early 2000s and completely changed how her twilight years are playing out.
And it worked.
It’s be a real shame if the violent left were to firebomb the houses of those who changed their votes. A real shame indeed.
December 4th is just around the corner.