Grumble4681's recent activity
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Comment on Slate Truck preorder starts at $24,950 in ~transport
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Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society
Grumble4681 Link ParentI'm convinced that this was a major component behind banning gun ownership for felons and drug users since that happened in the Gun Control Act of 1968 which was shortly before incarceration rates...Tellin ya, if we want America to ban all guns, all we have to do is arm black people to the teeth.
I'm convinced that this was a major component behind banning gun ownership for felons and drug users since that happened in the Gun Control Act of 1968 which was shortly before incarceration rates ticked up, especially against black people. Set up a route by which to disenfranchise specific people, and then follow it up by pushing on all the levers.
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Comment on Plans for nearly 4,000 homes over Safeways divide Bay Area residents in ~finance
Grumble4681 Link ParentYeah, just to gather all the specific complaints mentioned in the article and look at them closer together... It seems the scale, and the specific type of housing is what is being given prominence...Yeah, just to gather all the specific complaints mentioned in the article and look at them closer together...
The possibility of these projects coming to fruition is causing anxiety among residents, who are concerned the proposals are outsized and out of step with their surrounding neighborhoods.
Neighbors like Erin Roach, the vice president of the Marina Community Association, are worried about the environmental impacts of such a high-density project, given known hazards in the area such as a liquefaction zone, toxic soil and already failing infrastructure. She is troubled by the lack of oversight that’s coming as a result of the state’s pressure on cities to fast-track many new housing projects.
“What we’re asking them [Align and Safeway] to do is just scale this down,” Roach, who has lived in the Marina for 35 years, said in a phone interview with SFGATE. She also takes issue with it being a luxury building. “It’s like if people are hungry in San Francisco and someone comes to them with wagon loads of wagyu beef ... and some people can qualify for getting that beef, but by and large, most people can’t either afford it or they won’t qualify for it.”
“The jig is up,” Taner told SFGATE in a phone interview. “The state of California is railroading multiuse, and we’re all getting the shaft. ... Our quality of life is going down the drain.”
Roach of the Marina pointed out that it’s unfortunate that the conversation around building housing has become “so black and white.”
“Either you’re for every kind of housing, no matter what… or you’re just anti-housing,” she said. “It’s just silly.”
It seems the scale, and the specific type of housing is what is being given prominence in this article, at least by the people they quoted (and the two people they quoted who have concerns seem to represent groups of people that have concerns, so presumably the views are somewhat representative of more than just two individuals). There was a specific address mentioned in the article in San Mateo and when I pulled up a satellite image of that location, it looked like it was predominantly surrounded by single family homes. I guess the most I can draw from that while somewhat reading between the lines seems to be that they probably think it will devalue their homes to add that many units in the area. Possibly also worried about additional population density (though perhaps a bit strange given the area, but I guess all areas have their limits, especially when it comes to NIMBYism) and congestion because of more people living in the area.
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Comment on SpaceX stock tumbles 23% from its high as average investor sees gains wiped out in ~finance
Grumble4681 Link ParentI have a friend who seems to be sort of going down this route. Though he basically has extremely low expenses compared to the average household, comes from a family that has a decent amount of...I dont have any statistics, but with how aggressively it's pushed, I'd assume a lot of people start with safe investments and then slowly move towards stock gambling.
I have a friend who seems to be sort of going down this route. Though he basically has extremely low expenses compared to the average household, comes from a family that has a decent amount of money so he just got something like $20,000 as a gift from his grandmother that he put into Google stock. Originally when I met him, he was just doing index funds only. Then he started getting into Robinhood and buying individual stocks and he hit big with Nvidia, but he was only doing small amounts so he didn't get a lot but I think that boosted his interest in trying to go for individual stocks rather than index funds. He basically used to follow the boglehead type strategy originally, but then he got way more into constantly checking the market performance every day, which I don't believe is part of the boglehead strategy as usually that is more like, put money in, don't even bother thinking about it or looking at it except for along planned paths in life like setting up for retirement later etc., because then you're basically trying to play the market.
So over time this friend would then start asking me if I saw the market dropped 3% today or something like that, like why would I care if it dropped 3%. But that's around the time I think he started buying into individual stocks on Robinhood, and then he kept telling me I should buy SpaceX IPO (despite the fact that I don't have a grandmother who can just gift me $20k out of nowhere). I said SpaceX just seems like another Elon pump and dump scheme to me so even if I had money I wouldn't do it, and he kept insisting that IPOs are like a guaranteed deal, even if I believe it's a pump and dump I can sell on the first day and he said 90% chance I'd make money off it. I didn't bother to argue the point any further, but I had already told him that I wouldn't gamble on those those things and to him that 90% figure he gave me was disputing the idea that it was gambling. So I think he told me he tried to buy 7 shares of SpaceX IPO but it wasn't clear at the time how many he would actually get due to demand exceeding supply, haven't talked to him about it since so not sure how many he ended up getting. And yes, if I had bought and sold right away, sure I could have made money, but again, that's just gambling to me.
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Comment on Steam Machine prices revealed, starting at US$1049.00 in ~games
Grumble4681 Link ParentI think you're vastly overstating the value of performance. How many people play games on their Steam Deck? Clearly that's not pushing the envelope of performance. Yes, it's portable, but that's...I think you're vastly overstating the value of performance. How many people play games on their Steam Deck? Clearly that's not pushing the envelope of performance. Yes, it's portable, but that's not the point. The point is, the games are playable, and people play them.
What is also unclear in some of these price comparisons people are making is the OS cost. For example, the links you had in your prior comment, say they include a Trial version of Windows 11 with an asterisk that says this
*The trial version allows you to use and test your PC, but you need to register to be in compliance
I don't know what that means exactly, do you have to pay more? If you aren't counting the price of Windows 11 in that, then it's not a straight comparison either.
And if you say that SteamOS or Linux is free and someone is free to install that instead of Windows, well that defeats the purpose of a prebuilt machine. Some people want something that works out of the box. You don't unbox your PS5 and install an OS on that, it's already there.
Also with the pricing of components for GPUs alone over the past several years, then the worsening of prices even more recently from datacenter/AI demands, I genuinely question whether the average gamer can even afford to chase performance in gaming anymore. At some point, you just have to settle with mediocre performance because of just being priced out of anything else. Nvidia and AMD don't give a shit about consumer space anymore.
So this is where I think performance is being overvalued. If the Steam Machine can land 99% or higher of games being released for the next several years as verified compatible/playable, then I think there's a market for people out there who will be satisfied with that.
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Comment on Steam Machine prices revealed, starting at US$1049.00 in ~games
Grumble4681 Link ParentI would expect that another thing you're paying for is a specific hardware benchmark that hopefully developers will be targeting for years to come. So yes, you could be paying for a SFF PC,...I would expect that another thing you're paying for is a specific hardware benchmark that hopefully developers will be targeting for years to come. So yes, you could be paying for a SFF PC, SteamOS pre-installed but I don't see that as the main draw.
I see it as more like a next tier of benchmark for developers to target beyond the Steam Deck. And it does seem like Steam Deck was meaningfully used this way, if only in part because Valve built it into the Steam store whether games were compatible. I can pick any game in the store and it tells me right away whether that game works on the Steam Deck. I would think that has some meaningful impact on what developers would target with their games, if it is within reason to target the Steam Deck's hardware for the game they are making, trying to make sure their game is compatible is the difference between getting the green flag on their Steam store page or not for that specific hardware.
And they explicitly state on the Steam Machine page linked in this post that they will be doing this for the Steam Machine.
Steam Machine Verified
We are expanding our Verified program to include ratings for Steam Machine, so customers can understand how their games will run.
This is the console-like aspect to the Steam Machine I would say, a specific set of hardware that potentially will have a large enough user base worth targeting and ensuring that the game they're developing works on that hardware.
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Comment on Yum Brands sells Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital and Yum China for $2.7 billion in ~food
Grumble4681 Link ParentThis is probably going to sound petty, but I went to order from Pizza Hut about a year or so go, and I haven't had Pizza Hut in years prior to that and while ordering from the app the usual 'add a...I want to eat some Pizza Hut when I get a chance, but even knowing how much pizza places overcharge when you order off the regular menu, that makes me want to never give them my money again.
This is probably going to sound petty, but I went to order from Pizza Hut about a year or so go, and I haven't had Pizza Hut in years prior to that and while ordering from the app the usual 'add a tip' section is in the order placement screen even when placing a pickup order. That alone is whatever, everyone has that at this point, but Pizza Hut's went a step further and made it default 20% or something along those lines, and then on top of that if you selected 'more' or 'other' or whatever the option was that I don't remember now, 0% wasn't there. You then had to select custom and specifically put in 0% in order to not put in a tip on a pick-up order. I closed the app and didn't follow through with the order at that point, and then haven't bothered with Pizza Hut since then either.
It's not enough to even shamelessly inject tip requests in places where they don't belong, they had to go the extra step to make it even more of an inconvenience to do it. They want you to feel like you're obligated to tip by forcing you to select custom and put in 0% to avoid it.
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Comment on What internet discussion sites remain? in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentOne thing I've found semi-related to this on reddit is the crowd-control mechanism, or at least that's my understanding of what is behind what I'm about to explain. On several occasions I've...In a similar vein, I consider shadow banning to be a disservice. Humans are naturally social, but when you don't know if your posts are visible, it feels like you're always talking into the void. It also means you're afraid to speak out for fear of being shadow banned.
One thing I've found semi-related to this on reddit is the crowd-control mechanism, or at least that's my understanding of what is behind what I'm about to explain. On several occasions I've noticed that if I post in relatively popular posts, my comment will go through as normal, appears to be there, but if I view it logged out or logged into another account, surprise, it's not there. Am I shadowbanned? Nope, because other comments do go through just fine. I can't recall if that crowd-control mechanism is also a mod approval queue or not, but if it is, pretty sure they never approve them, probably because there are too many to look through. I also think there's some other mod approval queue mechanisms, not entirely sure what controls them exactly, but I've had comments filtered out in some subreddits, again, they appear visible to the account that posted them but they're not visible to anyone else, possibly some word filter system or who knows what since I don't follow all the mod tools or moderate any subreddits.
I think the lack of transparency in these mechanisms and the deception behind them is a knock against the site as a whole.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 8 in ~society
Grumble4681 Link ParentFrom what I've read about the tattoo, I personally don't believe it to be a declaration of Nazi sympathies or alignment of Nazi ideology, but perhaps others have come across more information than...From what I've read about the tattoo, I personally don't believe it to be a declaration of Nazi sympathies or alignment of Nazi ideology, but perhaps others have come across more information than I have. I believe the truth lies somewhere between what Platner says, and what some others are insinuating it means that leads me to believe what I do about it.
From what I gather, he got the tattoo while being part of a Marine unit, and the group of marines seemed to have all gotten that tattoo or something similar. I assume he probably killed people in combat, and likely other marines he was around did as well, and the level of familiarity I have with that specifically is none, but the level of familiarity I have with people who have dirty jobs or 'dark' jobs that the average person doesn't see or have experience with tells me that it's fairly common people in those jobs often have extreme desensitization on some level and have coping mechanisms and humor that the average person would find incredibly distasteful and disrespectful out of context.
Hell I worked in a role that was really none of those things, it was essentially customer service, which I'm sure many more people have much more direct experience with, and I can relate on the level that I would mute the phone while on the phone with customers and such, and just shit talk them and bitch about them to a coworker (likely because the person I was talking to was an asshole). Incredibly unprofessional, incredibly rude, if I said some of those things to their face I'd likely have gotten fired. Of course, none of the customers ever knew, instead I was the most friendly and helpful person as far as they knew. Literally the difference between whether I was an exceptional employee that went above and beyond or the worst employee is a matter of whether the phone was muted or not, at least as far as the customer was concerned. And I can extrapolate from that experience to an extent and I know it works to an extent because I have a friend that is a nurse and I've seen relatively realistically portrayed media and I've heard from my friend and others first hand how people in the medical field act regarding situations that occur in the hospital and people that go in the hospital. I'm sure it's not the same for every person that works in a hospital, but from what I gather, to a lot of people that work there, the patients are just a pile of meat at some point. Not to say they don't care or they don't want to help people, but there's a point of dissociation where there can be quite crass remarks made about people or almost disrespectful but the reality is that is the life they have to live, people who work in that field have to live that life and see those things on a daily basis for years, if I overheard one of them saying it while I was in the hospital getting treatment it would certainly shake my belief that they're actually helping me, that they're competent and caring, I might actually think they're the worst employee instead of the best, but it may not accurately reflect who they are or what they are thinking in the context that I perceive it as a patient.
In this way, that's how I perceive that tattoo from the available information given. I think it's possible he knew it was somehow in some way associated with Nazis, but I don't think the intention behind it was his declaration of white skin, blue eyes and blonde haired supremacy or anything like that. From what I gather, the intention was that they're a death squad, they kill people, and whether that's a coping mechanism to try to wear it proudly or they're really twisted and they love the idea of killing people and they were in the best situation possible where they are hailed as heroes for killing people, who knows. But the reality is that we pay those people to kill other people, some people anyhow, do regard them as heroes, and on that level I don't know that I can really condemn someone for taking a twisted approach to camaraderie or coping or whatever it was, it is rooted in the idea that millions of people in their home country paid and support them in the action of being exceptional at killing the enemy. Now is it incredibly disrespectful to use that symbol knowing what it represents and the people who suffered from that regime? Absolutely. I wouldn't necessarily support it in the sense that somehow he has the right to use it or embrace it regardless of his intentions, but my main thing is that I think people are trying to imply that he is secretly a Nazi-sympathizer, and that seems to be an incorrect implication to me.
Do I think he's really a great person or political candidate? Nope. Do I think that people must support him if they're 'leftist'? Nope. I think it's also worth noting, Susan Collins isn't a great person or political candidate either. Trump isn't a good person nor was he ever a good political candidate either. The vast majority of them are horrible people and horrible politicians from the perspective of what is best for the country and the people in this country. I think there's potentially a case where horrible people can be decent politicians, but almost all horrible politicians are horrible people aside from just ones that are purely inept.
This is why I will just repeatedly harp on improving the voting system and trying to implement STAR or some kind of scoring system and proportional representation. I will not fall for the "Hold your nose and vote" or "vote for the lesser evil" as being the solution. I will vote for the lesser evil if the lesser evil is the one that pushes for reform to end the false choices, the last ever lesser evil (not really, but at least within reasonable bounds of where we can achieve from here).
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Comment on Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing in ~health
Grumble4681 Link ParentThis is also an exceptional case where as you mentioned about donor parts, it should require extreme care. Literally just the idea that this can happen instantly turns me off to the idea of...This is also an exceptional case where as you mentioned about donor parts, it should require extreme care. Literally just the idea that this can happen instantly turns me off to the idea of donating my body to science or potentially any organs at all. This is such extreme levels of fucked up that I honestly think every regulatory agency should be scrambling to clarify the rules and circumstances, and any company or organization should be scrambling to make sure that any public press releases or media disseminated about their work includes that critical piece of information that it is an explicit permission of the donor for that specific purpose.
I don't believe my organs will end up being useful to anyone barring an unexpected early death (I guess that's where perhaps most organ transplants come from however), but this type of thing instantly will make me question organ donation.
Normally I wouldn't even care about what happens to my body after I'm dead, but the key thing is there, I need to be dead. As dead as we're certain any person can ever be. And dead is complete death of consciousness to whatever degree happens naturally, not just death of the body. I do not care that they think it can't possibly be conscious, given all that we don't know about consciousness, I seriously doubt they can prove it without a shadow of a doubt and that's enough for me to not entertain it.
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Comment on "The therapeutic industry is platonic prostitution" in ~health.mental
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentOne medicine? No. But there is a point somewhere beyond that where I kind of do, and did. I had a psychologist and then a psychiatrist when I was about 17-21, and had various medications...Would you call a doctor a quack because one medicine didn't work?
One medicine? No. But there is a point somewhere beyond that where I kind of do, and did. I had a psychologist and then a psychiatrist when I was about 17-21, and had various medications prescribed to me for social anxiety, depression and panic disorder. Psychiatry at that time especially, looking back on it, I consider it to be have been quack science. It was just a rotating platter of medications, some of which at least they were paid by pharmaceutical companies to shovel at people, and they never did anything except have side effects, in some cases significant ones.
Nowadays I'm told they have genetic tests and such so that they can tell what you're supposedly more likely to have success with, too fucking late for me at this point but I guess if it's true then it may not be quack science anymore.
And I say this as someone who had a deep interest in the study of psychology and sociology at some points in my life in my younger years, but I didn't and don't find the study of psychology to be the problem, only the practice of it. Practicing psychotherapy or psychiatry at that point, and maybe still today for all I know, is like reading a children's book about dogs and then going into practice as a veterinarian. Guess if you're one of the few who has read that children's book up to that point, you're the leading dog expert so that means you're qualified to take people's money and operate on their dogs.
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Grumble4681 Link ParentI don't think LegalEagle covered it in his video, but wouldn't the insurance company prefer some finding by the police/district attorney that theft had actually occurred? Absent that, does...I don't think LegalEagle covered it in his video, but wouldn't the insurance company prefer some finding by the police/district attorney that theft had actually occurred? Absent that, does insurance really have any obligation to investigate whether a theft occurred?
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentI don't even know how you just typed all that out without seeing how ridiculous the foundation of your argument is. Because really the foundation of it is that the thief doesn't claim it's their...I don't even know how you just typed all that out without seeing how ridiculous the foundation of your argument is. Because really the foundation of it is that the thief doesn't claim it's their stuff. You want to know why? Because they don't get to stay out of jail while the police and prosecutors claim "It's a civil matter". So lying thieving sleazebags with their corporate veil of legitimacy where in America that's what all of the systems are actually designed to protect is the almighty dollar, the wheels have to keep turning after all, are incentivized to lie because the system protects them. Literally the President of the United States is in the position he is in for the same reason, and you have the GALL to say it has nothing to do with the laws nor it being a systemic issue.
Don't you think perhaps, these thieving fuckers would have also "voluntarily" given up the stolen property if they got hauled off to jail like the petty thief?
The fact that you even act like justice was served is truly mind boggling. The petty thief goes to jail, and the corporate thief just has to follow the court order to pay back what they stole, justice is served, all is well that ends well.
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Grumble4681 Link ParentThat's not always how it works though. If someone burglarizes another's house, do people always have to wait for the courts to say they can have their stuff back? Perhaps there are some scenarios,...That's not always how it works though. If someone burglarizes another's house, do people always have to wait for the courts to say they can have their stuff back? Perhaps there are some scenarios, but that's not always the case. I think the thing here is that in America, commercial operations and commercial activity often are given more leeway to commit crimes, and their crimes are almost always a "civil" matter. There's an unwarranted veil of protection, and before you come at it by saying that's how the law is written and if you don't like it then change the laws, that doesn't negate the feeling that this is a completely unjust situation. Laws can be followed and produce unjust outcomes and it's well recognized that the law isn't always right or just.
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Grumble4681 Link ParentWhat seems to be likely based on the reporting in this linked post is that a couple individuals within the company saw an opportunity to steal one specific elderly person's collection, and it is..."this company went out of their way to rob one specific elderly person, be extremely belligerent about it and weaponize law enforcement against the people helping him even when it became dubious whether it was in their best interest to do so."
What seems to be likely based on the reporting in this linked post is that a couple individuals within the company saw an opportunity to steal one specific elderly person's collection, and it is possible they had done it before for all any of us know at this point, but if we assume this was the first time they did it, it's far more believable to me that a few individuals saw an opportunity to enrich themselves. Everything else that follows is just people protecting 'their own', going by the reporting in the linked post, they're all part of the same religion/cult and I'm not saying cult as an alternative word for religion but because LDS in particular does do some things differently than the standard Christian religion that dominates the US. I don't think they are quite as strict about interactions between members and non-members and ex-members as some more well known cults like Scientology, but they do have some influences there that go beyond typical religion activity.
I worked for a company who was founded/owned by LDS members and many of the people that worked there were LDS members at some point, but this is much further outside Utah so I'm sure the power/influence they have doesn't carry the same weight but even then, little by little, it started coming out that the owner and his immediate family had started becoming more disillusioned with the organized religion component of it but was keeping it quiet and it was sort of a big deal to them the fallout of it being public when they stopped trying to hide they weren't part of the church anymore. Again, nothing as serious as being found out for leaving Scientology, but I do believe it did create some distance between them and some family members they had back in Utah and even what remained of the LDS members in the region they reside in now.
So this to me comes across more like people in their 'club' protecting each other, these guys made a move to enrich themselves and the leadership probably doesn't have very great morals to begin with, so they don't likely care about the theft more than they do about protecting people who already dug themselves into a position that could get ugly to get out of. They also can likely tell themselves lies, they didn't steal it, they didn't sign the contract, they didn't outright refuse the court's order to pay the lawsuit but instead filed bankruptcy which is a potential legal protection but of course they're simply just abusing the system to draw it out and possibly find other ways to weasel out of it, but all still within some potential framing that they didn't literally go to the guy's house at gunpoint and rob the set from them. People are funny like that, it's why white collar crime in the US often gets a slap on the wrist because too many people can justify these indirect crimes done through the veil of a corporation as being a "civil" matter. If the people involved had directly used violence themselves, then they would lose that public benefit of the doubt, so instead they leverage connections they have to people who have legal authority to use violence (the police) to do that work for them.
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Comment on Lifetime Plex Pass will cost $750 USD after July 1st in ~tv
Grumble4681 Link ParentThe user thing I guess I wouldn't anticipate being a big issue for me because I've already made Plex accounts for my Plex users. I don't do it for everyone but in some cases it makes sense for me....The user thing I guess I wouldn't anticipate being a big issue for me because I've already made Plex accounts for my Plex users. I don't do it for everyone but in some cases it makes sense for me. My parents I made an account for them using a plus address for my own email and set it up on their living room TV which is the only place they'd interact with it anyhow. They can't keep track of their own logins half the time and they have extremely bad password hygiene/management. Then my sister I invited her using her own account, and then she kept bothering me because she forgot her Apple login so she couldn't set up Plex on other devices. Then she said her son wanted access and because she didn't know her own Apple login she couldn't even sign into her account on another device for him, so then I just made a plex account for him with my email using a plus address. Then I just messaged him the email and password for that account I set up. Have had no issues with that or my parents account.
I use a password manager and I store all my passwords and accounts in there as a matter of habit, so it's trivial for me to make new accounts, new secure passwords, and store them in there. It's also easy for me because if someone can't log into their account, I can just send them the credentials again as that's literally the only reason they wouldn't be able to log in is they don't have the credentials. There will never be an issue with the accuracy of the credentials themselves because I made them. Now if Plex apps were bad at storing the credentials and people had to enter them constantly, that could be a problem, or if I transitioned to Jellyfin and had that issue, that could be a problem, but generally it seems to be that on Plex at least, they enter the credentials once and never have to enter them again.
As for network issues, yeah there can be a bit more work involved on that too, but not $70/yr worth of work as far as I'm concerned. I'm already probably more overextended than I would like when it comes to network security and Plex, because Plex is the only thing I port forward as it's the only service I share with anyone else and the relay service is too limited to use. I don't want my server transcoding stuff so it can be streamed at 2mbps. Everything else I self-host I access via Tailscale. Mostly I continue with this because as far as I know Plex has had no remote vulnerabilities abused that I'm aware of that I've been willing to continue with that setup, otherwise I'd prefer to have more control over the network side of it anyhow if I was actually doing it right in my book. I'm just doing it the lazy way as far as I consider it. I could perhaps see an issue for some users if I made a more complex setup, but I think most people I would have little to no issue with.
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Comment on Donald Trump’s deal to drop suit against US Internal Revenue Service creates $1.8b ‘anti-weaponization fund’ in ~society
Grumble4681 Link ParentI think there are probably more people than we know that do believe other types of protests have their places (likely still a small portion of overall populace), but you can't outright support...I think there are probably more people than we know that do believe other types of protests have their places (likely still a small portion of overall populace), but you can't outright support them in many cases. Sometimes it's a liability for the platform in which you voice support for them on (which of course I wouldn't want Tildes or similar platforms to suffer or become non-existent because of that liability), other times its because you can't control who receives that message or how they will choose to take it and run with it, and other times its personal liability and other consequences for saying such things.
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Comment on Lifetime Plex Pass will cost $750 USD after July 1st in ~tv
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentI'd say that's a bit of an extreme. If you start from nothing meaning you don't have Plex Pass, is it reasonable? So then if you have to pay, is the monthly/annual price that will likely go up at...I'd say that's a bit of an extreme. If you start from nothing meaning you don't have Plex Pass, is it reasonable? So then if you have to pay, is the monthly/annual price that will likely go up at some point in the future reasonable? I wouldn't call paying $70/year or more reasonable just to share media with friends and family.
At that point, I'm weighing the reasonableness of the cost versus the reasonableness of the technical hoops to jump through to get friends and family set up. To some those hoops are greater than to others. Arguably the price point is similarly a greater hoop to some than to others. Though I suspect if money is no concern then one would probably be less inclined to use Plex to begin with and they'd still be using paid streaming services.
You see, for me what makes the money a problem is that I can't charge people for access to my Plex server. I mean, I could, but I don't want the headache of that, because when people pay for it, then they expect professional service. If their shit doesn't work, I'm not going to drop what I'm doing to help them troubleshoot it. I'm not going to issue them a refund because it wasn't working for a few days. I could take it seriously, make it my mission to have 100% uptime or close to that, but I don't care that much and I don't want to care that much. Of course I can just cut them off whenever they act like a jerk and be done with them going forward, but again, that's just hassle I wouldn't want to deal with.
Anyone who has ever had access to my server has no expectations and I like it that way. Some stuff I have in shitty 480p quality because I don't watch it so I don't care. They can watch it if they want, or they can not watch it, or if they ask and I do it when I feel like I can change the quality if it matters that much to them. I could set it up so that they could do it themselves and with limitations to prevent them from using up all my storage but again, that's more work.
I can walk through some of the most incompetent tech people through many things. I did it for a living. Not saying I enjoy it, or that I'd want to do it, but then we're weighing what I think the work of doing that is, versus the work of trying to run some quasi-professional Plex setup and charge for it to recoup my costs or pay $70+ per year for it. The initial option starts to seem like the easier/more reasonable one to me. It would likely end up balancing out that the people I am willing to help set up are going to be the least trouble, and people who would be the most trouble I'd end up not bothering with.
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Comment on Lifetime Plex Pass will cost $750 USD after July 1st in ~tv
Grumble4681 Link ParentI think this is still less negative press than "Plex axes Lifetime Pass" or something like that. To people who already own the Lifetime pass, this headline is mostly a nothing. It doesn't really...I think this is still less negative press than "Plex axes Lifetime Pass" or something like that. To people who already own the Lifetime pass, this headline is mostly a nothing. It doesn't really impact them. If I saw a headline saying they got rid of lifetime pass entirely, with a lot of the vague headlines that come out these days, I'd definitely click just to see if it's going to affect me or not. Now more so I'm equating that to what I would expect to be a general audience reaction, not necessarily about me specifically.
I'm not saying they get no bad press from doing this, I just think it's less than if they got rid of the lifetime pass completely.
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Comment on Lifetime Plex Pass will cost $750 USD after July 1st in ~tv
Grumble4681 Link ParentI suspect they know people wouldn't value their software at $750 and this is just a way to pretend to still offer lifetime passes while actually trying to push people onto the monthly/annual...I suspect they know people wouldn't value their software at $750 and this is just a way to pretend to still offer lifetime passes while actually trying to push people onto the monthly/annual plans. If they just cut the lifetime offering altogether, I think they'd probably generate more negative headlines than even this will generate. It also makes it something people would likely only consider buying on sale and that's it. This also avoids any media from clickbaiting people into thinking they will lose their already purchased lifetime plans, like if they remove the lifetime offering that doesn't mean they are kicking people off the lifetime plex pass but it would be easy to generate clicks making an ambiguous headline that makes people wonder.
I don't think they're trying to compete with Netflix, they have just been using Plex server owners as bootstrappers to their FAST service, which is really more so where they're attempting to compete, not with subscription services. Plex server owners invite their friends and family in, and Plex was happy to adjust the interface of the software to make it harder for the friend/family member to find the family/friend's server content and easier to land on Plex's ad supported content. Suddenly, more revenue coming in from people that never would have known about Plex before, and cost them $0 in marketing.
Coupled with more people probably dipping their toes into piracy due to all the streaming services cracking down on password sharing, prices going up etc., it makes the timing of now more important to them to keep people off these lifetime passes and onto recurring revenue plans.
Right, I really like the cut down offering and the DIY nature of being able to add things yourself. Especially with 3d printing now and what it could be in the future (like larger print beds without astronomical costs), and with the amount of information available today, video tutorials etc. DIYing is much more attractive especially when it can save you thousands of dollars. The lack of power windows I could see being a big deal, hopefully there's an easy add-on for that later for people who want it.
To me, running wires in the car for auxiliary type items or additional functions like power windows, stereos etc. are something that is within the realm of the consumer to put in if it can save substantial money of not having to do it on the production line. Obviously not everyone would want to do this or can do it and some people would rather just pay for it to be done, but there's already tons of vehicles out there with that as an offering and not many with this slimmed down starting base for people who want that as an option. Even if it doesn't save a ton of money over what it would cost on the production line, you also get to choose more specifically what you want in it, the exact infotainment display or exact speakers etc.