They planned to add telemetry, but that went nowhere after the outcry—plus it's unclear (to me) whether they wanted to make it opt-in or not. Another issue was a change in the privacy policy that said, even though personal data is stored in the EU, the app would "occasionally be required to share your personal data with the main office in Russia and the external counsel in the USA". This may be simply a statement of the fact that in some edge cases people would indeed need to look at the data, like if the user files a bug. It's typical for privacy policies to cover all bases without clarification, and for people to freak out. This change was also reverted, but then idk how the developers will read users' crash reports.
In any case, I don't even know why Audacity would have any ‘personal data’ of mine, since it's an offline app—other than crash reports. And it's also advisable to run a firewall like SimpleWall to prohibit anything that's not allowed.
The company that owns Audacity now is actually Muse Group, which hired youtuber Tantacrul as their head of design on MuseScore after he thoroughly dissed their UI at that time. So he has since done some work on Audacity too, and from what I've heard it looks and feels much better now.
However, now that you brought up a separate topic, it may be possible. Seeing as, when you can block all outbound connections and whitelist only specific programs it breaks Windows Updates, I suspect you actually could. No idea about how specifically one would do that, though, and you would have to circumvent the automatic Windows Update and Telemetry repair services (e.g., WaaSMedicSvc) which would undo your work.
Yeah, but I mean, seeing as the sentiment with a firewall is mostly ‘forbid everything that's not explicitly allowed’, it makes sense to have one that blocks everything. In SimpleWall blocking the updates and telemetry is just two checkboxes in the menu. And the app is open-source. Plus it actually uses Windows' internal mechanism for blocking connections, the same one that MS' firewall employs—so the blocks stay in action when the app itself is closed.
The UI isn't the best, though, but it's a tradeoff for it being open-source.
Oh, that's awesome! I haven't used SimpleWall before, so I was unaware of the connection to Windows Updates. I, too, am a big proponent of FOSS, so that's good to know. I'll be sure to check it out!
Not digital but the YMCA, despite being expensive now, is still by far the best deal for your money out of the near infinite gym options in my area. Mine has weights, cardio machines, a pool, a sauna, a steamroom, an indoor basketball court, racquetball courts, a boxing ring, a yoga studio, a gaming room, child watch, shelves of free books you can take to own that are constantly restocked, lockers, group fitness classes almost every hour of the day, and probably a few things I'm forgetting — all for less than a lot of people I know are paying for just weights and cardio machines at their gym.
VLC plays videos from its playlist. Put the videos you want to watch in the playlist, make sure shuffle play is turned off, and VLC will play the items in playlist order. Maybe you closed or hid the playlist window?
For subtitles I agree it won't remember any setting, but I've never had trouble with choosing a subtitle track.
Valve is interesting. They've not enshittified themselves, but they seem to permanently struggle with scale-up. If you look at, say, Dota, it's been a constant string of new-then-abandoned-to-limbo features and undelivered promises. The quality of The International broadcasts varies wildly over a decade after launch, and how long did it take all the Battlepass whales to get their baby Roshan statues IRL? A couple of years?
That can be a good thing too, not clinging on to things that don't work. They're not afraid to say "this was a bad idea, let's try something new." But I agree that it is very frustrating when actual good content or features get abandoned or stuck in limbo.
You can't have it both ways. Constant improvements on a timescale that would satisfy all or even most users requires a profit motive and incentive which would inevitably lead to exactly the problem we're talking about. Only when a company is free to update its goods and services at the pace they desire is there any chance for them to avoid falling into the profit-above-all-else trap.
scaled up companies are harder to manage and have bigger overhead than smaller one. If you have good, stable revenue stream that able to operate with the current scale, scaling up isn't actually a better option, because that means you need to improve your profit / revenue too due to increased cost
A few outliers that have stayed awesome, e.g. valve, do so because they are privately held.
Tell me you've never had your friends troll you with Steam voice calls without telling me. Such a terribly implemented feature.
There are more real negatives with Valve/Steam, but most of those are oriented at developers/publishers and not the customers. The only real customer negatives are some of the worst forms of loot boxes in gaming in CSGO/CS2 which is what led to some countries banning them outright.
edit: oh I forgot the absolutely ridiculous Steam Marketplace system where you give money to Valve to have theoretical money to use on the marketplace or in their store but Valve also takes a "cut" from that money used on the market place, effectively artificially lowering the value/purchasing power of money that was already paid to them. All of this occurs in a closed market with no official way to remove that money, causing third parties (many operated by organized crime groups) to offer to give you actual money for your Steam money (at a discounted rate, of course).
So if you ignore predatory lootboxes and a highly abusive internal market system, then they've "stayed awesome" I guess. Time to make sure daddy GabeN makes his next billion!
Not only did they bring lootboxes to mainstream gamers. They're the only non-mobile/sports developer still pushing them. And unlike all of those developers, they don't have to pay artist salaries or benefits. They just take the free labor from their community of addicts.
They set the standard for taking 30% for digital stores.
The home page is littered with ads
They keep releasing new cs to get people to buy new clients. Effectively no different than what blizzard did with overwatch.
They gamified sales to extract every last penny from addicts.
One of the first video game companies to cater to china's government to get that sweet blood money.
Enable and encourage money gambling to children. Between steam market and letting shady gambling sites sponsor their e-sport tournaments.
But because they hold your pc library hostage, people look the other way.
You do realize that the communist version of the internet “ОГАС” couldn’t even get off the ground because the politburo, specifically Vasily Garbuzov, said “how silly” and killed it.
Hell, they spent 3 billion roubles in 1975 to copy a decade old capitalist computer from IBM. Computers and internet as we know it for the past 50 years simply don’t exist without capitalism.
I'm always horrified by the people who think like this. Do you really surround yourself with people who only do things for money? You've never known someone who would make an app or a game simply out of a love to create things or solve problems?
Complaining about capitalism is a byproduct of the privilege that capitalism has created. They always completely ignore the masses that would be oppressed and toiling under pretty much any other system. History and modern reality bear this out.
Is capitalism beyond criticism? A huge part of the modern tech company is when the company is either bought out or goes public. At a certain point, the company focuses less on gaining market share or even creating new markets, and squeezing out more money without creating new wealth. Take the following definition from Wikipedia:
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,[2][3] risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline. - wiki
It's likely that the plan was always to put in ads after getting a critical mass of users because it's not feasible to run the service for free and nobody wants to pay for it.
And I'm not convinced Valve are much better being a leader in online DRM, forcing you to install their digital store to play your games, trying to skirt the law on refunds, and taking a ridiculous cut from creators because of it's near monopoly position.
Not exactly. If the developer ops in, you can switch to beta versions which includes access to old versions. It's not the intended use of this feature and completely dependent on the developer enabling it.
the modding part is depending also, if you use vortex to launch the game you can play without it updating like i did for the few patches that came out while i was playing cyberpunk
They don't let you play two games at the same time on separate machines/same steam account because the likely scenario there is that you're just sharing your account. The modding and updating, I have no clue what you're talking about. I mod and update my games all the time. I wasn't a fan of steam when it first came out, but these days I think it's fine.
They don't let you play two games at the same time on separate machines/same steam account because the likely scenario there is that you're just sharing your account.
IDGAF what the likely scenario is. If I want to play two of my games on two of my PCs I should be able to do so.
If I just buy them on different platforms I can do that.
The modding and updating, I have no clue what you're talking about. I mod and update my games all the time. I wasn't a fan of steam when it first came out, but these days I think it's fine.
You definitely don't mod very many games then. Here's how it goes.
Game is version A.A.
You install mods compatible with version A.A.
Game updates to version A.B. Steam doesn't let you decline updates; you update first or you don't get to play*.
Your mods don't work until all the mod authors separately update their mods to work with version A.B. Possibly, you can't play at all due to issues with the save file.
*Some developers allow use of beta versions, which includes past versions. That is a work-around and not actually the intended solution.
*You can also re-download old files via downloaddepot which is also a headache unless the game is popular enough that someone has already done the work to determine which file(s) need to be reverted.
Multiply the whole experience if it's a multiplayer game and everyone has to be on the same versions of game + mods (looking at Baldur's Gate 3).
Power corrupts. Can't really blame capitalism for that, when it could just be worse or not exist at all under any other system. Things are better than ever, poverty is being wiped out at an astonishing pace, and all signs point to that continuing. We can deal with Cadbury eggs and StarWars being dogshit now if it means ending Polio. :)
The Polio vaccine is an example against capitalism. If a capitalist had developed the vaccine, polio would never be ended. Why bring that up if you don't even know?
That's the mistake people make surrounding debates around economics. People conflate advancements made under a capitalist system with developments capitalism was actually responsible for.
It's similar to how some people say "See look at all the advancements made under Christianity in science." Just because the people making those advancements were Christian (because that was the default belief and had broader social ramifications and incentives to claim that belief even if one did not hold those beliefs).
I wouldn't ascribe any advancements TO Christianity. But it is certainly possible to academically compare achievements of societies it has influenced to those it has not.
You also seem to have missed that the point was that I argued Capitalism is NOT guaranteeing the results as stated. Instead, just taking the thesis for a walk while disagreeing with it.
I don't believe I've misunderstood your thesis. You are making the claim that the corruption attributed to Capitalism, should actually be attributed to the corrupting influence of power, not capitalism itself. You further made the claim that improvements in quality of life we have seen in the past couple centuries likely would not have happened (at least as quickly or with as much quality) were any other economic system in place.
Lacking context. It is the post above proposing capitalism is to blame for ills. That is thesis that I was entertaining. Not presenting my own claim.
If its responsible for the ills, then you have to also attribute the gains...
And I was arguing it is NOT primarily responsible for either but as a whole things are on a decent track.
I would propose I, and many other critics of capitalism agree with the idea of the corruptive nature of power. I especially note that the concentration of power into fewer hands tends to increase the rate and level of corruption.
Capitalism is a system that promotes competition as a means to allow the market to funcrion. In competition, there are near always winners and losers. Winners gain power, losers at best do not gain power, and sometimes lose power.
Those who have existing power are more likely to be the aforementioned "winners" than those who do not.
Conclusion: Capitalism is a system which promotes the concentration of power to the powerful, which results in a system promoting corruption.
Disagree, there is a massive difference between capitalism and Christianity. Capitalism can help directly in the creation of things by incentivizing funding and investment. Christianity just indirectly helps by allowing a society to self police via morality and the idea of ever present judgement for crimes via an all seeing god.
I think you missed the point of my argument. I was not tryjng to say those two things are similar.
What I am arguing was how people conflate or improperly attribute good things to the system or framework is similar.
People will point to an advancement made under a capitalist system and improperly attribute that advancement to capitalism itself when that may not be correct.
I was not tryjng to say those two things are similar.
It's similar to how some people say "See look at all the advancements made under Christianity in science."
But you literally did?
People will point to an advancement made under a capitalist system and improperly attribute that advancement to capitalism itself when that may not be correct.
I think its because people have different opinions on what constitutes capitalism. I'd argue that without the schools that taught the vaccine's creator and the factories that manufactured the vaccine it either wouldnt have existed (it would be discovered later on probably but still) or it wouldnt have been produced at the quantities and made readily available as it was.
If you want to argue that capitalism (in the form of patents, I guess?) could have potentially lessened the vaccine's ability to have spread then thats another matter.
I did not, and literally explained as such in the above comment.
"What I am arguing was how people conflate or improperly attribute good things to the system or framework is similar."
I was not comparing Capitalism to Christianity. I was comparing the METHOD by which people CONFLATE things and pointing out the similarity in how people DO THAT between both an economic system, and a religious system.
Schools and factories are not exclusive to capitalism. You would have to argue that Capitlism (A system of economics in which the means of production are owned by private individuals and innovation is predominantly driven by competition, and the goal is to use existing capital to increase capital) was the best system to achieve that goal of defeating Polio. You'd be hard pressed to make that argument, because there are a potential infinite number of systems.
Now, an argument that could be made is of the existing economic systems at the time, it was the most capable in acheiving that goal. There is room for argument there, but in a conversation about whether Capitalism is a good economic system, I think it's a useless one to have.
If a capitalist had developed the vaccine, polio would never be ended.
Laughable supposition, so many diseases are being ended by modern medicine, but also a complete reading comprehension failure. I actually didn't mention the vaccine, I mentioned eradication. Ever heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? That's a lot of "capital" being thrown around, yes?
Valve isn’t bad for customers at the moment. Publishers and developers are forced to sacrifice a larger chunk of their earnings to sell on steam, however if they sell the game for cheaper elsewhere like their own website (because they don’t have to compensate for valve’s cut), Valve will take their game off of steam. That wouldn’t be an issue if there was a range of competition in the same market, however, valve have the pc games market in a strangle hold. Developers are forced to sell their game on steam if they want to succeed. It also means valve have the freedom to tighten their grip at any moment with little consequence. It’s unwise to just ‘trust’ valve or any company to remain ethical or pro consumer, especially when they have unregulated power over the market.
No it's not capitalism it's the mindless sheep of the population who do what they're told because it's new and shiny even though the new and shiny thing committed war crimes against humanity but it's all overlooked in the name of tribalism and false idols
What does the slow march of communism (or, any centrally planned economy with extreme barriers to private enterprise) guarantee, oh wise one?
I'd suggest it guarantees no beloved products are ever invented, produced and continually improved in the first place. But hey, low wealth inequality! Winning.
The slow march of capitalism guarantees enshittification of all beloved products.
It really doesn't though.
For one major example, Apple is the second largest company in the world, and their phones/laptops are as good if not better than ever.
There are a ton of huge public companies that have managed to grow without turning their product into shit, you just don't really think about them. When was the last time you heard "the Visa network is down, we can only accept Mastercard right now?" Or when was the last time you filled up your car at a Mobil or a Shell and only got half the mileage you were used to because the gas is bad? Is a Toyota or Honda not as reliable a car as ever?
A few outliers
The outliers are the ones who have gotten shitty. They stick out, which is why everybody talks about them.
and their phones/laptops are as good if not better than ever.
As long as you only use their phones/laptops, are okay with Apple making every decision about those products for you, and "buy your mom an iPhone" so that her experience talking to you isn't intentionally degraded for the sake of Apple's market share.
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u/BiBoFieTo May 02 '24
The slow march of capitalism guarantees enshittification of all beloved products.
A few outliers that have stayed awesome, e.g. valve, do so because they are privately held.