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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • What really started the ad war was the endless drive for greater profits. Let’s say I accept youtube’s terms and sign up for premium. Sooner or later they will introduce ads into premium as well. We’ve seen this process happen with many other services before. I didn’t start using an ad blocker until quite a bit after pop-ups were rampant and malware-infested ads became an issue. There’s a point where it becomes too much and people will seek out alternatives. An entire generation grew up with convenient streaming services and they’re generally less knowledgeable about piracy than the generation before them. That will likely change as those streaming services continue to jack up prices while making the experience worse all in the name of profit.

    Again, there is an endless supply of entertainment these days. If companies think they can endlessly jack up prices and/or worsen the experience, they’re contending with practically infinite supply, the consequences of which are obvious in when it comes to supply vs demand.










  • I won’t say no to cheaper games. The 30% cut was settled upon in the days where physical copies were the norm and Steam was still under heavy development. Given how established Steam and digital distribution in general is, it’s not really fair to developers to dedicate almost a third of the price of the game to a hosting platform. Yes, exposure is important, but that’s a service provided passively due to the fact of being the largest platform. Reducing Steam’s cut hurts no one except maybe Gabe’s ability to buy another yacht (and even then, not likely). Even if customers don’t see lower prices if Steam were to reduce their cut, it’d be great to see the actual developers getting more money from the games they put all the effort into making.



  • So true, things were much better when we had three channels on the TV.

    edit: In case it wasn’t clear, I was being sarcastic. Individualized propaganda isn’t any more dangerous to democracy than completely-controlled broadcasts. In fact, the completely-controlled broadcasts are more dangerous since it’s easier to control the message. It’s not killing democracy because we never truly had it.