Tharrulous's recent activity
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Comment on Denmark's plan to eliminate parallel societies has drawn criticism as ethnic discrimination. Others in Europe may be watching. in ~society
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Comment on What's next for Kagi? in ~tech
Tharrulous Link ParentUnfortunately, due to their current dependency with other indexer APIs, per-search costs are mostly fixed and cannot be easily scaled. About a year ago, Kagi experienced a crisis after Microsoft...Unfortunately, due to their current dependency with other indexer APIs, per-search costs are mostly fixed and cannot be easily scaled.
About a year ago, Kagi experienced a crisis after Microsoft raised the price of their indexer API by 225% (from 1.25 cents to 2.8 cents per search!). As a result, their once unlimited premium plan was downgraded to only 700 searches per month. This stagnated their previously upward trajectory, leading users to unsubscribe, slowing down new sign-ups, and flatlining growth.
Fortunately, they successfully navigated through the crisis and have now reinstated their unlimited search plan.
Hopefully, as Kagi continues to expand their own indexer, they can reduce their reliance on these fixed costs, eventually introducing regional pricing.
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Comment on Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets in ~games
Tharrulous (edited )LinkThis article is based on this Twitter thread by Jacob Navok, a former Square Enix Exec. It identifies and analyses many of the issues plaguing the gaming industry today (e.g. bloated budgets,...- Exemplary
This article is based on this Twitter thread by Jacob Navok, a former Square Enix Exec.
It identifies and analyses many of the issues plaguing the gaming industry today (e.g. bloated budgets, live-service, Triple-A, sustainability of the industry, etc.). See below:
Avoiding Twitter? Click Here. Part I
A thread on the recent Square Enix news regarding FF sales numbers and expectations
• As a reminder I reported to two CEOs of Square Enix for the better part of a decade and ran a subsidiary. I also correctly predicted last year that Square Enix was going to break exclusivity. I'll note I have no confidential information that I'm basing my arguments on.
• To start, we need to look at decisions made on the titles under development within the lens of 2015-2022, not the lens of 2023. For example, FF16 would have started pre-production prior to the release of FF15, which was released in 2016.
• This is a pre-Fortnite era. Budgets for FF7 Remake and into Rebirth would have been around this period too. This is important to note and we will get back to it.
• There's a misunderstanding that has been repeated for nearly a decade and a half that Square Enix sets arbitrarily high sales requirements then gets upset when its arbitrarily high sales requirements fail to be met.
• This was not true when I was there and is unlikely to be true today.
• Sales expectations generally come from a need to cover the cost of development plus return on investment.
ResetEra Forums: Does Square Enix has realistic sales expectations for their games?• If a game costs $100m to make, and takes 5 years, then you have to beat, as an example, what the business could have returned investing $100m into the stock market over that period.
• For the 5 years prior to Feb 2024, the stock market averaged a rate of return of 14.5%. Investing that $100m in the stock market would net you a return of $201m, so this is our ROI baseline.
• Can the game net a return higher than this after marketing, platform fees, and discounts are factored in?
• This is actually a very hard equation though it seems simple; the $70 that the consumer pays only returns $49 after 30% platform fees, and the platforms will generally get a recoup on any funds spent on exclusivity meaning until they are paid back, they will keep that cash. Plus, discounts start almost immediately.
• Assume marketing expenses at $50m, and assume that you're not going to get $49 but rather an average closer to $40 given discounts, returns and other aspects. Now let's say in that first month you sold 3m copies with $40 net received (we will ignore the recoup). You need to surpass $254m to make expectations. (That's $100m + $101m in ROI baseline + $50m in marketing).
• At 3m copies with $40 per copy received, you've only made $120m. You're far off.
IGN: Final Fantasy 16 sold 3 Million copies during launch week• From the statements made, it will take FF16 eighteen months to hit expected sales. (I used the stock market as an example but actual ROI should be higher than stock market averages).
• The sales figures required aren't wild expectations; the number of copies sold were too low. And my numbers are actually much lower than realities (game dev costs are probably 2x as high, and marketing is also likely 2x as high, and this makes ROI requirements higher too).
• But that's not even the core of the problem, this is just me proving that expectations aren't set immodestly.
• The core of the problem is that the budgets were set in a period where the expectation was that audiences would grow.
• Total audience growth was a reasonable expectation in the 2015-2022 era and still is today. Not only had the industry grown significantly each year, but each day that new generations were coming of age, they were coming of age as gamers. Meaning that your total addressable population should be increasing and you should be increasing your revenue.
• What's happened? Not just to Square Enix, but to the industry as a whole? Audience behavioral patterns are radically different than expected in 2015. Remember, I said 2015 was pre-Fortnite.
• The way it used to work was that you'd pick your release date similar to a Hollywood movie, stick to it, and consider the competition to be the titles releasing the weeks before and after.
• We would look at a Hitman or a Deus Ex release and consider whether there was a Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed coming out around that time, assuming that gamers had X amount of money to spend and Y amount of time, and that if we wanted to get the full sticker price (remember, discounts eat into cash received and also at that time, used disc sales were $0 cash received) we needed to get as many sales in the first two weeks as possible.
• At that time, as a gamer, once you finished the most recent game you were on, you moved onto the next. You were looking for your next title once you finished the prior one. We wanted one of our titles to be the next title you bought to fill your gamer needs.
• This world radically changed in the last 6 years.
(cont'd)
Part II
• Earlier this month Kotaku had an article called "9 Great Games We Can't Stop Thinking About." There's a surprise 10th slide, and that is Fortnite.
• @ZwiezenZ writes in the article: "And once again, another weekend arrives and I realize that I'll be spending most of it playing Fortnite. I'm very close to maxing out both my battle pass and Festival pass, so that's the plan.
• I hate how deep Fortnite has its hooks in me — to the point where I'm choosing to play it over brand-new, cool-looking video games — but I can't help it. I must finish these damn passes, get all the rewards, and earn the right to play other stuff. Well, until the next season starts up and I once again return to Fortnite to drop in and level up all over again. It's sick. I hate myself. I can't wait to play more this weekend."
Kotaku's Weekend Guide: 9 incredible games we can’t stop thinking about• This is indeed the point. Square Enix are not competing against just the latest new installments, they are competing against every F2P online game that is constantly adding content and getting more robust over time.
• The assumption was that people would jump between products when they finished one. But, as you know, F2P games like Fortnite or Warzone are evergreen, they never get old. They are always updating with new content and experiences. They can continue for decades. Candy Crush has had its best years ever the last few years. And companies like Epic can continue to invest back into the products to make them better, creating even higher barriers to entry for competitors.
Reuters: Candy Crush Saga hits $20 billion revenue milestone, maker King says• The game industry is still growing in revenue but that revenue is increasingly captured by fewer live services games that are generating a level of stickiness seen in social media companies. There are reasons there are very few competitors to Facebook. Once the network effect starts, it can keep going for a long time. Since Instagram (also FB), the only real competitor in an entire decade that showed up and could quickly reach 1bn+ people was TikTok. And this is in a trillion dollar valued industry.
Kotaku: 60 percent of playtime in 2023 went to 6-year-old or older games, new data shows — A report shows that while the industry is growing, its biggest competition is Fortnite, GTA, Call of Duty, and Roblox
• I expect Fortnite, Roblox, Warzone, and similar products to continue to grow revenue. Meanwhile, put yourself in an older gamer's shoes: if you're a gamer with disposable income but less free time, and you have the choice of paying $70 to play 100 hours in FF16 or to just continue playing Fortnite with your friends for free, you'll wait to see the FF16 reviews before you decide whether to switch off FN.
• In other words, your switching costs (how good a game is, how exciting it needs to be) are now substantially higher than when you'd finish the latest Assassin's Creed and look for the next title to fill your time, because you’re awash with content options. Fortnite doesn't end.
• This is the reason we see trends where games are either spectacular 10/10 successes, or disasters, with little in between; there is no "next hit" being searched for in many cases. And this polarization makes risks higher, and costs higher too (we will get to this in a moment.)
• Now if you're a younger gamer in your teens, you may not even be thinking about FF. If you are 13 years old now, you were 5 years old when the last mainline FF, FF15, came out.
• Your family may not own a PS5 and you may not care. You're satisfied with Fortnite or Roblox or Minecraft with your friends on your phone or laptop. I'm not say that this is the case for everyone. But it is certainly a trend.
• The old AAA franchises do not seem to be converting the younger generations that the industry was counting on for growth, and instead F2P social games on mobile are where they spend their time.
• This is the reason every publisher chased live service titles; audiences clearly gravitated toward them, and profits followed in success. (It is surprising that Square Enix, which had successful F2P live service mobile titles in Japan, left the AAA live-service attempts to Eidos rather than try to build those products in Japan, but dissecting this problem would likely require an entirely different thread.)
• Regardless, the Fortnite-ization of the industry was not entirely predictable in 2015 when budgets were being planned. Even after FN came out and well into the Covid period, it felt like industry growth was pulling all ships forward, not just a handful. But that isn't what happened.
(cont'd)
Part III
• Now we have to get to the cost of development. Asset generation, motion capture, textures, animation, engineering, infrastructure are incredibly expensive. Making games costs a lot of money. The recent layoff wave is generally a consolidation toward a new expected sales average in the [fewer] number of titles being produced, not the cost of an individual title, which is going to continue to increase. (Spider-Man 2 cost $380m! )
• Development costs have gone up, and switching costs of the consumer has gone up, and as a result companies have to invest even more because it has to be a 10/10 or gamers will stick to Fortnite. (I don't literally mean FN, but similar types of products.)
• Meanwhile, FF7 Rebirth, which has a 92% Metacritic rating, can't get the sales it needs (though that's also complicated due to it being a sequel.) These factors mean the status quo must change.
Kotaku: What hacked files tell us about the studio behind Spider-Man 2• There are three levers you can pull to make the equation work for return on investment at a game company. You can decrease costs, increase price, or increase audience size. As noted, any non-service game is having trouble increasing audience size. Meanwhile, on the cost side, inflation is up, salaries are up, and consumers require sophisticated, beautiful products to get them to fork over cash rather than keep playing F2P titles.
• It is true that there are many smaller games or less beautiful games that generate audiences and are profitable. But something like Balatro is not a good example to point to. It's made by one person. AAA games can take hundreds, thousands of people to make. A single person making $2-3m in sales is life changing, a hundred people trying to split that is not enough money. And products like Balatro are lightning in a bottle, you can't generally capture that twice, and there are hundreds of thousands of competing products on Steam or App Stores that fail for every Balatro.
• This leaves only price left as a lever to pull. Since the price of games hasn't substantially increased, relative to inflation, package disc games have gotten cheaper over the last two decades. The assumption was that this was okay because the audience size would grow instead of price. But the audience went to the platform titles.
• Prices for packaged disc games will go up. Game companies have no choice, it is the only lever left. Just look at Kotaku's article about GTA6’s price point from this week:
Kotaku: GTA 6 could be the first game to push past $70• You're also seeing this trend with Ubisoft's Star Wars game
• It's not because game companies are penny pinchers looking to fleece their users. It's because this is the only path left to make non-F2P service titles workable in the AAA space given cost and competition.
• Something has to give; if SQEX can’t get its cost of dev down (it will go further up) and is getting good reviews but isn’t increasing audience, they and the rest of the publishers are going to have to increase price point. Otherwise live service titles will be all we have left.
reddit.com/r/pcgaming/.../star_wars_outlaws_$110_and_$130_editions_prompt_a/• There's another path that I can think of, which is increasing the take rate. If publishers can capture more of the platform side revenue, they can moderate price point increases while capturing a better return on investment because they'll be capturing say $50 or $55 out of $70.
• @TimSweeneyEpic knows this which is why he's fighting the good fight on platform fees, both at EGS and with the app stores, to open up PC and mobile ecosystems.
• This is also why you'll see MS and others take advantage of his fight and start their own app stores. (You would think MS would chip in for Epic's legal fees given they're capturing the benefits with no risk!)
• But this path will take time, and is very hard on consoles, where the AAA publishers make a lot of their money, so expect price increases to still be the norm.
ReadWrite: Microsoft readies launch of its own mobile app store — Microsoft announced that they will be launching a new mobile games and app store to compete with Apple and Google Play.
Note: emphases mine
Source — ThreadReaderApp Twitter proxy: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1793779717813723521.html -
Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets
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Comment on Special tag: "Active" in ~tildes
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentWould it be possible to include these examples on the submissions page? It's not easy to determine which tags are necessary, and it seems these meta-tags are actually quite important. Take the...Would it be possible to include these examples on the submissions page? It's not easy to determine which tags are necessary, and it seems these meta-tags are actually quite important.
Take the
paywalltag for instance. Typically, I open a random front-page article to get ideas for tags when submitting. Since most articles aren't usually paywalls, adding this tag hadn't crossed my mind at all. -
Comment on Collapse comments? in ~tildes
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentI'm also culpable in writing long comments. However, I've now realised this greatly affects navigation, especially in busier threads. When you've got 50 comments to read, it sucks to have comments...I'm also culpable in writing long comments. However, I've now realised this greatly affects navigation, especially in busier threads.
When you've got 50 comments to read, it sucks to have comments extending past the entire height of the computer screen. This is worse for mobile users.
It also makes it difficult for other users to engage with not only your comment, but every comment below yours. I've noticed that in many threads, engagement noticeably decreases after these long comments.
So what I've started doing is to:
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Split long comments into subheadings
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Put each subsection into collapsed spoilerboxes
(See this comment for example)
I would like to ask other people's opinions on this. Is this something you'd prefer?
Another thing
Incidentally, I've also played around with manually adding a 'Continued Below' spolierbox when the comment is too long.
See this comment
I removed it previously because I wasn't sure about it, but I've re-added it right now to demonstrate.
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Comment on All aboard the bureaucracy train in ~transport
Tharrulous Link ParentThe interview provides valuable insight into the interplay between civil servants and bureaucrats, so it's definitely appreciated. However, the interview is a bit narrow in scope. If you're not...The interview provides valuable insight into the interplay between civil servants and bureaucrats, so it's definitely appreciated.
However, the interview is a bit narrow in scope. If you're not familiar with Alon's works and find it hard to keep up, I recommend this article: Why does it cost so much to build things in America? (Vox.com)
The Vox article, which also cites Alon Levy, provides a broad overview of the predicament. Since it's not in interview format, it provides a clearer and more articulate analysis. It delves deeper into issues alluded in this interview, such as lack of experience, scope creep, and institutional inertia.
The article also covers a wider range of issues, including legal and procedural delays, citizen lawsuits, and special interest groups that entangle transit projects in years of delays. As well as the stakes and potential outcomes.
Definitely highly recommend checking it out.
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Comment on The 24-hour city: In a push to bolster nightlife, cities are changing laws to keep bars, restaurants and transit systems operating round-the-clock in ~life
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentThat sounds similar to what happened in Sydney, with its post-2014 Lockout Laws. After a series of deaths at King's Cross — once Australia's most prominent and famous nightlife district — the...That sounds similar to what happened in Sydney, with its post-2014 Lockout Laws.
After a series of deaths at King's Cross — once Australia's most prominent and famous nightlife district — the state government imposed heavy-handed legislation across the whole city centre and King's Cross, utterly destroying the city's nightlife.
All existing licensed venues — whether they were pubs, clubs, restaurants, beer gardens, live music or even karaoke bars — now had new curfews and onerous restrictions.
After midnight, there were heavy and arbitrary restrictions on alcohol: e.g. you can't drink scotch by itself; however, you can drink it with Coca Cola mixed in it, but you can't drink it if the Coca Cola was pre-mixed and put into a can...
Curfew (lockout) begun at 1:30am. New licensed venues weren't approved. Most ridiculously, the City of Sydney banned kebab sales after midnight... yeah.
Occasionally, police in riot gear with sniffer dogs will close off an entire street to inspect a venue. If drugs were found on a single person, everyone gets kicked out and the business gets a 72-hour operating ban. Three strikes and you're permanently closed. Yes, they did this with a 3000-person venue during the busiest weekend of the year (the venue failed). Yes, they also did this with pubs, restaurants and beer gardens.
Evidently, this wasn't sustainable. The conditions and economics to operate a nightlife business became very difficult. The result? Hundreds of licensed venues closed. The live music scene — decimated. Century-old venues — gone. As new venues were prohibited by the license freeze, the ones that closed weren't replaced. Many inter-dependent businesses that relied on traffic from these venues (e.g. convenience stores, McDonalds) have also shut down.
Funny Story
So, apparently Bruce Springsteen's manager once called a nightclub to organise a few post-event drinks for his band. The nightclub told them they were closing because of lockouts. The manager then asked where else they could go, and the nightclub embarrassingly had to tell them that they literally didn't know, as everything was closing or closed already.
My Thoughts
These types of responses are immensely disproportionate and counterproductive. Sure, you've stopped nightlife-related assaults and bad fights, but you've done so by killing off your nightlife. Similarly, you can also stop car crashes if you remove all cars from the road!
Continued Below (Click Here)
Sydney's Lockout Laws merely lasted 5 years, yet its legacy leaves a lasting mark on the city. King's Cross, the once-legendary heart of Sydney's famed nightlife, is now a shadow of its former past. Most pubs, clubs and bars are gone and the once-crowded streets are empty at night. It is now the haven of the gentrified, rich and boring, who live in apartments that tower the corpses of the old venues. (yeah... good luck reintroducing nightlife with these newcomers)
The better solution to dealing with nightlife-related violence is to ensure people make it home safe. This is what Sydney's southern neighbour, Melbourne, decided on. It relaxed liquor laws for smaller bars and venues, ensuring there was a more diverse mix of venues and patrons. It introduced 24-hour public transport on weekends, getting people off the streets after closing time, when it is most dangerous. It put police presence on every single one of its 200+ train stations after 6pm, ensuring human presence at lesser used stations after dark.
These are some examples how you can make nightlife safe. By actually making it safe. Not by getting rid of it.
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Comment on How Google is killing independent sites like ours in ~tech
Tharrulous (edited )LinkI was meant to post this article earlier today, so I've already written a summary. I don't want it to go to waste, so I'll post it here. However, I highly recommend reading the article,...I was meant to post this article earlier today, so I've already written a summary.
I don't want it to go to waste, so I'll post it here.
However, I highly recommend reading the article, particularly for the images.
Summary
BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Popular Science... what have they all got in common?
They all know the best air purifiers for pet hair and the best cooling sheets for hot sleepers; the best home saunas, best beard products, best gifts for teens, best cocktail kits. best. best. best.
But do they really know what's 'best'?
Search Engine Ranking
Sixteen or so 'Digital Goliaths' dominate the Google Search results. No matter what you google, the same publishers keep showing up at the top of the results page.
These big media publishers and their dubious 'best of’ product recommendation lists are ranked above independent sites that actually test the products they review. They recommend products without any firsthand testing, data, or evidence; often paraphrase Amazon listings; and sometimes even promote products from bankrupt or fraudulent companies.
For independent websites that put in time and effort to produce genuine reviews, this is a death knell. Their fates precariously hangs on the unpredictable whims of search algorithms, SEO, and ultimately, their placement on search engine results pages. Thus, any changes to those will impact their websites.
Product Reviews
Back in 2021, Google Search introduced the Products Review Update. After years of silence, they finally heard the pleas. Google will finally promote reviews that dedicated time, effort, and money into actually testing products, countering lazy publishers that haven't even seen the product. This sounds like a good thing, right?
Well... things didn't quite happen as expected.
This isn't to fault Google. Google's Product Review Update did really alter the search landscape; real review websites were rewarded, lazy publishers weren't. Naturally, these big media publishers weren't really happy at the loss of traffic; however, they had a trick up their sleeves.
Untrustworthy Product Recommendations
So, people don't generally start off with specific reviews of particular products. Instead, they need to determine which products are even relevant at solving the specific issue they need to solve. Whether that's a 'best of' list, Reddit thread, forum post, you'd need to start somewhere.
Unfortunately, savvy SEOs at big media publishers have discovered that they can create 'best of' product recommendations without dedicating time or effort in actually testing and reviewing the products they recommend.
"All they had to do was say what they needed to say to pass a manual check if it came to that."
By faking their experience with the product in bogus tests, quoting non-existent subject-matter experts, and exploiting the public’s trust in their brands, these publishers can trick Google and the public into believing their content is trustworthy and reliable.
They merely need to include the right things: E.g. "rigorous testing process", "our lab team", "[X Expert] we've collaborated with", "evaluated with [Y methodology]". Maybe even sprinkle some photos of post-it notes, tape measures, people holding clipboards.
Even when their content is manually reviewed by a Google human, how can one — as a non-subject expert — determine that these seemingly genuine recommendations aren't authentic?
The Web: Inundated
"Why trust us?
Popular Science started writing about technology 150 years ago... first issue in 1872... our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers... writers and editors [with] decades of experience... trustworthy voices... very best recommendations..."
-Popular Science, at the bottom of every article
Big media publishers have started to recognise the value of their brands. Trusted by people, privileged by Google. What better way to honour that value by pumping out 40 different pages of 'best of' recommendations for home cleaning products? Fully-tested by experts, mind you.
Huh, this Better Homes & Gardens article seems suspiciously similar to this Real Simple article. The photos seem to feature the same person with the same air purifier in the same room at the same time, just at different angles? Same photographer? Same 'expert'? What's going on?
Buzzfeed... is literally just the Amazon reviews copy and pasted. Reddit seems to have good discussion. However, the top comment links to another website... that is simply a word-for-word copy of the Real Simple article. Also, the Reddit account is banned, yet the comment somehow remains.
An aside: If this sounds like a nightmare, it honestly is. I've already given up on general web. But now? Even Reddit has been astroturfed to the abyss. Nowadays, I really don't know where to go for authentic product recommendations. /endrant
The Exploitation of Trust
"Private equity firms are utilizing public trust in long-standing publications to sell every product under the sun
In a bid to replace falling ad revenue, publishing houses are selling their publications for parts to media groups that are quick to establish affiliate marketing deals."
Two results below Buzzfeed, we've got Popular Science. Founded 1872, it was recently sold to North Equity LLC in 2020. In 2021, it switched to an all-digital format. In 2023, it stopped being a magazine altogether.
Gone are the days of its team of journalists and editors. Gone are the days of its lists of authentically tested products. Gone are the days of its truthfulness and trustworthiness. Every single Digital Goliath are pumping up their bottom line with affiliate earnings in lieu of their publications' reputations.
"The strategy of [these big media giants] for their publications seems to be to optimize resources and maximize profit.
However, most readers don't know this. Not only do they slap on a deceptive "Why Trust Us" text box on every product recommendation page, their page recommending Molekule air purifiers was created a month after the company had gone bankrupt. Hugely ironic.
Shouldn't Google Step In?
"We might one day see the first page of Google results full of copycat recommendations once they roll out their hacks across all their websites, including Verywell, People.com, Health.com, Travel + Leisure, Byrdie, MyDomaine, The Spruce, Lifewire, Southern Living, TreeHugger, Parents.com… and so many other top tier publications.
Oh, wait, that’s already happening"
Technically, these 'best of' lists are classified by Google as 'reviews', and should provide "insightful analysis, original research" instead of “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products, services, or other things”.
In reality, Google has a clear bias towards big media publishers. Sometimes, these sites outrank even brands themselves on their own branded keyword.
Independent Sites are being Killed through Inaction
"This situation just isn’t sustainable. Many independent sites will go out of business if this trend continues."
These Digital Goliaths are not only taking traffic away from newer independent sites like HouseFresh, but also from established websites such as GearLab. Despite producing product reviews based on unbiased, independent testing, these sites have witnessed a significant drop in their traffic in the past few months.
The result? A barren web full of investment firms and ‘innovative digital media companies’ that sell you bad products.
The Future
Recently, Sports Illustrated was outed in using fake AI writers for product reviews. The publisher blamed an outside company, AdVon Commerce.
This is illustrative of the future spearheaded by these Digital Goliaths / investment firms. Buy beloved magazines, shut down their print editions, turn them digital-only, fire the actual journalists who earned our trust, and outsource the affiliate part of their sites to external firms.
Everybody loses but the investment firm.
"Google won’t be the gatekeeper forever, but they are the gatekeeper now.
The ball is in their court."
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Comment on A startup allegedly ‘Hacked the World.’ Then came the censorship—and now the backlash in ~tech
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentThey have their South Asia bureau there. So they have assets, offices, employees and interests in India that would be jeopardised. The Politico article actually delves into significant detail:...They have their South Asia bureau there. So they have assets, offices, employees and interests in India that would be jeopardised.
The Politico article actually delves into significant detail:
The act of blocking foreign reporting was once simple: Impound some magazines at the airport and call it a day. (...) The confiscation wouldn’t hamper readers beyond the national border.
Now, though, publishing is global. (...) Instead of banning disfavored pieces of newsprint in one particular country, judges are apt to demand that things be removed from global websites. A vast organization like Reuters, with major interests in India that could be sanctioned, not to mention local employees who could get in legal trouble, doesn’t have the luxury of blowing off the judge.
“If you are the Iowa Daily Beagle, and you publish a story that upsets some company in India, that company can go to an Indian court and get whatever injunction they want,” (...) “But if the Iowa Daily Beagle has no assets in India and does no business in India, they can’t do much. It becomes more of an issue for international publishers, like Reuters. They certainly have resources there, and they are subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian court.”
Of course (...) publishers have the ability to geofence content, making it so that an American reader can access a certain page while an Indian reader cannot. But that can backfire. Particularly in a country with historic reasons to be prickly about Western condescension, a judge is likely to take it as a sign of disrespect if an order is ignored beyond the border — not a good move if you are facing trial.
(emphasis mine)
It's really unfortunate that nowadays, since news is digital and global, legal constraints are able to transcend borders.
In the past, it didn't matter if you had global interests, newspaper printing / distribution was inherently a local affair. And once the countless copies were distributed, the works had permanence — no jurisdiction could alter or censor the printed words, or physically remove your access to the article. Everyone, from individuals to libraries and archives would all have copies.
Nowadays, as we've seen in this controversy, the canonical article can be deleted; the Internet Archive backup taken down; works, discussions, analyses, podcasts based off the article removed. It became well-nigh impossible to actually read this article.
And your distribution infrastructure: from the Google links DMCA'd; to your document clouds deleted; to your CDN, domain registry, and domain registrar threatened; etc. It's not just your article, but your whole distribution pipeline that are all vulnerable to such threats. Any infrastructure you rely on that has an India presence will also face this compulsion.
(See Also: Twitter deleting accounts and Tweets of critics worldwide due to single jurisdiction takedown orders — Local employees were threatened if global removal wasn't enacted)
In our interconnected digital era, the clash between journalistic freedom and legal constraints unconfined by geography have become a complex and delicate affair. I really don't know how we can resolve this tension. In the past, due to impracticality, foreign jurisdictions couldn't impact your local press and speech rights. But nowadays, there are increasing precedents that jurisdictions are using to silence speech across the globe.
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Comment on A startup allegedly ‘Hacked the World.’ Then came the censorship—and now the backlash in ~tech
Tharrulous (edited )LinkRelevant article from Techdirt: Sorry Appin, We’re Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts To Silence Reporters Legal Threats Despite receiving legal threats and demands from Appin...Relevant article from Techdirt:
Sorry Appin, We’re Not Taking Down Our Article About Your Attempts To Silence Reporters
Legal Threats
Despite receiving legal threats and demands from Appin Technologies, the author and owner of Techdirt (Mike Masnick) firmly refuses to let Appin Technologies silence his reporters.Initial Censorship
Appin has used the Indian court system and various powerful global law firms to pressure numerous media outlets, such as Reuters*, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and SwissInfo** (alongside countless others), to take down or censor their stories about Appin and its co-founder Rajat Khare, who denies the allegations against him and his company.*Reuters' article has been replaced with an editors note. Article republished by Distributed Denial of Secrets
**An aside regarding the SwissInfo article
The Swissinfo article is absolutely wild to read!
Qatar officials basically hired a private firm, Global Risk Advisors, to specifically target all sorts of people, ranging from World Cup officials, to World Cup critics, to the presidents of organisations of competing bid cities.
This firm used Appin to target their email accounts, computers, phones, etc., and even targeted their friends and family members.
Qatar World Cup critic and former German Football Association president, Theo Zwanziger, even had attackers build relationships with his friends, family, and associates. The firm created a "network of assets, sources, and contacts” who were active all over the world, working on influencing him, pressuring his to change his opinion. Despite being retired. Simply because his words had weight.
Uncensored Article (archive.org)
Swissinfo.ch Article (with references to Rajat Khare removed)
These removals or edits are an appalling abuse of the legal system. Particularly when considering the vital importance to the public interest and time-consuming nature of the in-depth investigative reporting these outlets were doing. These articles uncovered how these networks are being used, by who, on whom, for what reasons, with what outcomes. Exposing the global-spanning espionage networks used by corporations, hostile governments, the underworld, etc. to target businesspeople, journalists, politicians, officials, critics and individuals of interest.
This was especially egregious, as these articles primarily target audiences outside of India, where the dodgy court order didn't apply. Yet, faced with unfair and dubiously questionable legal pressure, and relentless compulsion from "powerhouse media assassin firms”, these outlets were forced to erase or adjust their articles for the whole world. Even the security research firm, SentinelOne, who analysed the data, withdrew their report "in light of a pending court order". Internet Archive took down their archive of the Reuters article. Legal analysis from Legal News site Lawfare was censored with any mention of Appin, rendering the analysis unreadable. The cybersecurity podcast Risky Biz removed their episode discussing this article.
(Rajat Khare also has a history of fraudulent (but successful) Google DMCA takedown claims, by forging evidence, metadata and other information).
Censorship about the Censorship
Soon, Appin started targeting those who simply reported on the removal or censorship of the initial articles. Appin claimed that merely quoting the Reuters article is a violation of the Indian court order (it isn't, and the court order doesn't apply outside India). But even if you didn't quote the article, many outlets, such as Techdirt, still received takedown notices. Similar demands were sent to their CDN provider, domain registrar, domain registry, and so on... Yeah... ouch
The Streisand Effect
Appin's attempts to silence reporters appears to have backfired on them. This has attracted more attention to the initial stories, as well as new ones by the Politico, Daily Beast, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Columbia Journalism Review, and the Wired article posted here. Distributed Denial of Secrets, a non-profit that preserves data in the public interest, has republished the original Reuters piece as part of its new Greenhouse Project to combat censorship. (I highly recommend reading the piece, linked earlier)Rajat Khare and Appin could have simply been content with the original takedowns, which snuffed access to the Reuters investigation worldwide. Instead, there is now more attention on the underlying claims than there would have been otherwise. Talk about the Streisand Effect! (Interestingly, it was Mike Masnick of Techdirt who actually coined this phrase).
The Fight Against Chilling Effects
Thanks to support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Techdirt was able to rebuff Appin's legal threats, asserting their rights under US law (First Amendment and the SPEECH Act). They also helped do the same with MuckRock, who rehosted the primary source documents the Reuters reporters used in their investigative report.EFF does good work, which is why I donate to them. Many smaller sites cannot afford to fight against the massive amounts of legal resources and pressure Appin has thrown at them, so I don't begrudge them for removing or censoring their works.
However, the whole situation has been particularly troubling. These attempts to abuse the legal system and stymie investigative reporting have left a colossal chilling effect on journalism. The fact that Reuters was forced to take down their article globally, not just in India, is concerning. At the very least, it's good Reuters is fighting this court order.
What's more concerning are the outlets who can afford to fight back but didn't. Those that don't have an India presence. Those that removed Khare’s name or their article completely without a public explanation. (*cough* The Times *cough*).
Incoming Rant about The Times
What the heck?!
Seriously, aren't they supposed to be one of UK's premier papers of record? How can they go censoring their own articles without any notice! They absolutely can afford to reject attempts to silence their reporters. Very disappointed.Although I shouldn't be surprised, since it's owned by NewsCorp / Murdoch
Concluding Thoughts
The controversy has blown up large enough that sites and outlets without an India presence are safe
(presumably... hopefully Tildes doesn't face legal threats :)).This controversy will continue to blow up. It really needs to. For the sake of quality journalism, in-depth investigative reporting, and the public interest, the industry cannot be marred by the coercion forced upon it by the like of Appin.
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Comment on Pace of electric car adoption has markedly slowed in the US in ~transport
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentYeah, I remember there was someone really knowledgeable about this topic, as they'd worked in this industry in Japan. There were multiple exemplary comments and threads, and I actually saved some...Yeah, I remember there was someone really knowledgeable about this topic, as they'd worked in this industry in Japan. There were multiple exemplary comments and threads, and I actually saved some of their comments. Alas, they're not there anymore.
If anyone wants to see previous discussion surrounding hydrogen surrounding hydrogen in Japan, see this thread Japan to invest $107 billion in hydrogen supply over fifteen years
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Comment on When the New York Times lost its way in ~humanities
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentI definitely agree with you that it is possible to report Cotton’s views without giving him a platform to spread his views. I think the NYTtimes failed to uphold its journalistic standards and...I definitely agree with you that it is possible to report Cotton’s views without giving him a platform to spread his views.
I think the NYTtimes failed to uphold its journalistic standards and values by publishing Cotton’s op-ed as it was. It's not a matter of presenting a diversity of views, but of enabling a dangerous and authoritarian agenda.
I reckon a better approach would have been to emulate the Economist's approach with op-eds. They invited John Mearsheimer, who basically claims Russia's war in Ukraine is the fault of the West, to write a guest essay in 2022. Even though the Economist is staunchly against that assertion, they published the piece in its entirety.
However, the Economist also published a separate response by Sir Adam Roberts, who disagreed with Mearsheimer’s view, and invited their readers to share their opinions. That’s how you foster informed and respectful debate, not by platforming Cotton’s op-ed without any scrutiny or balance.
In regard to NYTimes' Cotton op-ed, they needed to make clear that this piece is a guest essay that does not reflect NYTimes' viewpoints. Don't work with him to 'sanewash' his message for NYTimes readers; instead, publish his actual views verbatim. Then, subsequently publish separate pieces that challenge or analyse his argument. This way, his unadulterated views are accurately reported on, alongside with the appropriate context that addresses his inaccurate and unfair assertations.
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Comment on Looking for games like wordle in ~games
Tharrulous LinkMurdle is a fun daily logic puzzle that is murder mystery themed. Each day, you have to solve a murder case, discovering details such as who is the murderer, where did the murder occur, how did it...Murdle is a fun daily logic puzzle that is murder mystery themed.
Each day, you have to solve a murder case, discovering details such as who is the murderer, where did the murder occur, how did it occur, what was the murderer's motive, etc.
You are given a list of facts, and in some cases, mini-puzzles to solve (fingerprints, horoscope, two truths and a lie, etc.). Using the details you've gathered, you have to solve the puzzle using logic and deduction.
Puzzles start off easy at the start of the week (Monday) and get progressively harder throughout the week until the weekend. The Sunday puzzles often challenge me, giving my brain a good workout.
Overall, pretty fun.
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Comment on Transgender people can be baptized Catholic, serve as godparents, Vatican says in ~lgbt
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentI just read your linked article and explored this topic further. I also found this NYTimes article. Regarding: the article So, it appears Bishop Strickland is critical of Pope Francis, believing...I just read your linked article and explored this topic further. I also found this NYTimes article.
Regarding: the article
So, it appears Bishop Strickland is critical of Pope Francis, believing the (Roman Catholic) Church is not conservative enough. However, regardless of his opinion, as a bishop, he can't just accuse the Pope of "undermining the deposit of faith". To do so, he needs solid theoretical backing and alignment from similar-thinking bishops. Otherwise, he's undermining the authority of the Pope.
The bishop also:
"questioned whether Vatican officials even qualified as Catholics" and "warned that the global meeting of bishops and lay people in October, which is key to Francis’ vision of the church, was a vehicle to threaten “basic truths” of Catholic doctrine".
Yeah... I can see why the Pope would take issue with him. It's one thing to be conservative — a 'Traditionalist'. However, as a bishop practising Roman Catholicism, Strickland is still required to respect the hierarchy and acquiesce to higher authority. If you disagree with the fundamental structure of Roman Catholicism to such a degree, how can you still remain Catholic, let alone Traditional Catholic?
”Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed,” Strickland wrote in a public letter in August. “Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ’s Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics.”
This statement signifies Strickland's potential separation from the Catholic Church. However, the notion that the Catholic Church can be schismatic to itself makes no sense. How can the pope not be Catholic? That's the whole point of Catholicism, right? That there is an unbroken line of popes to the first pope. Strickland is such an egotist. To act as if he is in the superior position and the Catholic Church is insubordinate to him during this split is laughable.
Regarding: the rest of your comment — the potential schism
It is truly bizarre; (supposedly) 'Traditional Catholics' declaring "total war" on the Pope... because the Pope removed a heresiarch who completely diverged from the Church in liturgy and doctrine.
I came across this comment discussing this trend, and it aligns with what I have seen as well (albeit with the schism within the Anglican Diocese in Australia over gay marriage).
You joke but as a Roman Catholic in America, I am seeing this schism unfolding in real time. You have Roman Catholics who still follow the Pope and you have this growing ultra-conservative, GOP-following, listening to people like Trump over the Pope branch of Catholics that I just call "American Catholic" rather than "Roman Catholic."
It's weird coming across these Catholics because they sound and act like Baptists. They are easy to spot among the crowd because they are the Catholics shaking the Bible around and trying to convert people to their Catholicism. At Mass, the women wear the head scarves. Growing up, no one except the Nonnas who were fresh off the boat wore scarves. Now you have young girls wearing scarves for modesty reasons. What? How? Why? When did this become a thing here in the US? I am also seeing a growing, "Young Earth" movement from them. We're Catholics! We haven't done that garbage in centuries. Why is this American Catholic movement going back?
I swear, in another generation or two, they will completely break off from The Vatican and just become a complete political-religious branch of Catholicism. And fine by me. Because you are not making me wear a head scarf and Man did not ride on the backs of dinosaurs.
Could this trend be a consequence of declining number of followers? Catholicism was once followed by a more diverse cross-section of society. As society grows increasingly non-religious, would the people who continue to practice self-select themselves to be more ardent?
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Comment on The bizarre story behind Shinzo Abe’s assassination in ~humanities
Tharrulous Link ParentAre you using Cloudflare's DNS (1.1.1.1)? Archive.ph doesn’t allow people using Cloudflare DNS to access their site. You'd need to use another DNS server (e.g. your default ISPs or an alternative...Are you using Cloudflare's DNS (1.1.1.1)?
Archive.ph doesn’t allow people using Cloudflare DNS to access their site. You'd need to use another DNS server (e.g. your default ISPs or an alternative third-party).
However, if you still wish to Cloudflare DNS and access archive.ph, read this Reddit thread.
An aside:
I did some research to understand the reasoning behind this issue. This is what I found.
The operator of archive.is got fed up with dealing with legal notices, so he set up his CDN so that accessing the site from any given country would get served by a server in a neighboring country (meaning that a takedown would involve international cooperation, so it would almost never be worth the effort). DNS requests have an optional field (EDNS client subnet) that provides part of the user's IP address so the CDN can respond with the closest possible server to the user, which is how archive.is does its country mitigation thing. Cloudflare's DNS does not provide this field. They say it's an anti-tracking move, others have speculated it's a competitive move since it means that Cloudflare will know where a user is located but competing CDNs won't. Because not knowing where a user is located before serving them would cause archive.is trouble, they respond to any DNS queries without the EDNS client subnet information with bad data.
-Credit: ndiddy
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Comment on Down and to the right: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023 in ~tech
Tharrulous Link ParentSame for me. Once I've updated the filters, it fixed Youtube's anti-adblock. However, right now, I've heard it's basically a game of whack-a-mole. New uBlock Origin filters are released, Youtube...Same for me. Once I've updated the filters, it fixed Youtube's anti-adblock.
However, right now, I've heard it's basically a game of whack-a-mole. New uBlock Origin filters are released, Youtube patches it, rinse and repeat.
@MangoTiger Wondering about your custom filters. Are they similar to the ones on the following website?
https://files.enderman.ch/scripts/yt-antiadblocker.html -
Comment on Why Norway, the poster child for electric cars, is having second thoughts – we can't let them crowd out car-free transit options in ~transport
Tharrulous (edited )Link ParentAgreed. The article was a pretty interesting perspective into Norway's EV policies and its evolution over the years. After reading the article, I was expecting much discussion regarding the main...Agreed. The article was a pretty interesting perspective into Norway's EV policies and its evolution over the years. After reading the article, I was expecting much discussion regarding the main topics of the article, rather than the few concluding paragraphs centred on the US (which I agree, does detract from the rest of the article).
Unfortunately, it seems the discussion has heavily veered off-course. The vast majority of comments aren't remotely connected with the contents of the article at all! Most of the page have been deviated into completely unrelated contentions and other miscellaneous matters, rather than the main subject matter — Norway's EV policies!
In the hopes of saving the thread, I've labelled the top-level root comment off-topic.
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Comment on Denmark aims a wrecking ball at ‘non-Western’ neighborhoods in ~life
Tharrulous (edited )LinkArchive: https://archive.li/9S0WR Summary of article: Denmark's controversial program aims to dismantle 'parallel societies' primarily composed of non-Western immigrants. Denmark's government...Archive: https://archive.li/9S0WR
Summary of article:
- Denmark's controversial program aims to dismantle 'parallel societies' primarily composed of non-Western immigrants.
- Denmark's government describes 'parallel societies' as "segregated enclaves where immigrants do not participate in the wider society or learn Danish, even as they benefit from the country’s generous welfare system."
More specifically:
The law mandates that in neighborhoods where at least half of the population is of non-Western origin or descent, and where at least two of the following characteristics exist — low income, low education, high unemployment or a high percentage of residents who have had criminal convictions — the share of social housing needs to be reduced to no more than 40 percent by 2030.
From the beginning, the program’s targeting of communities largely based on the presence of non-Western immigrants or their descendants has attracted widespread criticism.
Several court cases based on the accusation that the law amounts to ethnic discrimination have reached the Court of Justice of the European Union. Even the United Nations has weighed in, with a group of its human rights experts saying Denmark should halt the sale of properties to private investors until a ruling is made on the program’s legality.
Additional context — excerpt from an older article:
Access to social housing, some of which has been earmarked for demolition, has been shut off to “non-westerners”, defined as being people from outside the EU, eight associated European countries, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
People born in Denmark but who have a single “non-western” parent have also been included in the category of people subject to the restrictions.
My thoughts:
This is genuinely appalling policymaking! If these were general changes to public housing or immigration policy, it would be less disastrous. However, it is fundamentally and inherently illiberal for a society to target such specific policy based
solely andexplicitly on people's ancestral backgrounds!To base policies by loosely categorising people as 'non-Western' under broadly defined criteria, Denmark's approach practically amounts to institutional racial/ethnic discrimination under the guise of policy. Literally counting people based on ethnic origin for the purposes of housing policy. Not citizenship, nor residency status — merely where their ancestors came from!
Imagine this anywhere else. Imagine if you were Sadiq Kahn, the current Mayor of London. If this law had existed in the UK, he would be considered 'non-western' simply because his parents were first-generation immigrants. Despite being a fully integrated British citizen, born and raised in the UK, with Britain as his home, hardly different from any other Brit, he would be grouped together in the same 'problematic' category as anyone else whose ancestors were born elsewhere. How on earth is this even remotely acceptable?
(Even more demonstrations of absurdity: such policies, if law in their respective countries, would apply to people such as Freddie Mercury, Queen band lead, Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister, or even freaking Obama, the former US president!)
*Edit: other commenters makes a good point, ethnic background isn't only the sole criteria, but definitely a crucial one.
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Denmark aims a wrecking ball at ‘non-Western’ neighborhoods
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Archive: archive.md/q9eDZ