There are more assholes than good people because assholery typically delivers better results in terms of wealth, power, and status, and good people have to accept a lower social status in order to maintain their goodness, but most people don’t fall into either category.

But the vast majority of people fall into an apathetic middle ground where they don’t really think too much about any kind of moral consistency and act according to paths they’re already on and the rules those paths require.

$45 million??? That’s a rounding error on a single day of Google’s income. I’m not even a little shocked that they have no scruples or integrity whatsoever, but I AM shocked how apparently CHEAP our democracy is.

Hell, it’ll probably cost more than that to IMPLEMENT this in any meaningful sense!

The solution is what it has always been.

Since DAY ONE phone hardware should have been as standardized and open as normal PC hardware - able to run any operating system that you want.

But every time it got brought up for DECADES, techbro corporate apologists were ready to line up and talk about all the reasons that wouldn’t work and how companies would NEVER do that, as if that was some kind of sensible counterpoint.

Now the noose is closing and all it’s going to take is the combined forces of the richest companies in the world to crush what little competition remains. Undercut or sue Fairphone into oblivion, for example. The lawsuits don’t even have to have merit - they can eat the costs for a few quarters to ensure no viable alternative to the walled garden ever gets a foothold.

The thing to be done now is minimize your mobile usage altogether and try to make it to the tech dystopian endgame with a few local files of your own left.

Gregor Samsa entered the chat

“If you don’t have another cloud destination, don’t worry… we’ll automatically save it to your OneDrive account we FORCED you to get when you activated your operating system. Why no! You CAN’T turn it off! Also, we won’t let you edit your files without internet connectivity. You can never be too safe!”

Literally the ONLY thing stopping this from happening is they don’t think they can get away with it yet. I’m NOT going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Toyoake in Aichi

Thank GOD. Application sandboxing makes my Android phone UNUSABLE as a daily driver.

Let the people who can’t manage their own software vetting stay with Android and GIVE ME ACCESS TO MY FILE SYSTEM.

At a practical level, I agree with you.

That DOESN’T mean that if you do shitty things just because they’re legal, you get to be exempted from people’s judgement.

For example, shorting stocks and collapsing basically profitable companies for short-term gains is totally legal. Doing it still makes you a piece of trash, and I will judge you, and encourage others to judge you, as such.

Yes, this is a satire account, but I’ve heard the exact same crap from so-called “small landlords” who think clearly the problem is someone else.

Every small contributor that makes up the bulk of the problem thinks the REAL problem is the one that’s bigger than them and they’re the small potatoes, or the good one.

This applies to EVERYTHING. Not just property.

No, I didn’t expect that, which is why it was stupid to say it in the first place. You can’t turn this around and put it on the customer to have to read between the lines what the business is trying to actually say. How about, the multi-billion dollar company that has entire buildings full of lawyers doesn’t make claims that it can’t back up?

I’m not saying it’s right to expect that the Windows operating system was never going to have to have a paid upgrade again, but it was also stupid and wrong to make the claim that it wouldn’t. That’s on them. Nobody held a gun to their head and told them to lie to their customers and then later claim they didn’t mean it. And furthermore, why give them the benefit of the doubt? You think if you were in trouble because of something stupid you said, Microsoft is going to come to your aid? Is it being fair? To a company that wouldn’t care if they accidentally bankrupted you with a forced update?

And sure, they can "clarify"all they want that he didn’t mean the words that he said precisely and accurately in unambiguous English. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s not some random employee. He is an executive. He knows, and everyone else should know as well, that he speaks as a representative of the company. Otherwise what’s to keep them from lying through their teeth about whatever features they want? “It prints free money! It’ll cure all your diseases! No, no… he didn’t mean that.”

He’d probably have an easier time with the lawsuit if instead of appealing to upgrade logic, he just went with, I don’t know…

THE TIME MICROSOFT PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED WINDOWS 10 WOULD BE THE LAST NUMBERED VERSION AND THAT THEY’D NEVER NEED TO UPGRADE OS VERSION AGAIN.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32658340

Pepperidge Farm remembers, Microsoft scum.

I want to believe this is real SO badly, but it’s just too perfect… It can’t be… can it?

Because collapse is coming.

There’s a book called “The Forge of God” by Greg Bear, and in it,

And if your projection gets you through yours, more power to you as well. I’m just a guy on the internet. I don’t know why getting the last word here is so important to you, but far be it from me to deny you something you seem to need so badly. I’d think that high salary of yours would free you from needing the validation of making speculative personal insults at random shitposters who hurt your feelings, but hey, if you want it, you take it. Congratulations on your internet victory!

Well, you’re right. Everyone has to draw their own line. I’ll agree with you this is probably less egregious than some, and I personally do make make purchases I shouldn’t from institutions I shouldn’t to get by.

But I do every single one of those holding my nose and acknowledging I’m contributing to a problem.

I made a general comment, and my opinion has not changed. You didn’t have to make it personally about you, but you decided to come defend your honor against a nonspecific shitpost. Just like MY opinion is mine, yours is YOURS, and you didn’t need to jump in here.

Heck, I specifically addressed my initial comment to “lazy, doormat Spotify users” and for some reason you decided I was talking about you.

You are so cool. I am very impressed.

Look, I can’t expect your assessment of value proposition to align with mine - we are different people.

But if I were a paying Spotify customer, and they gave $250 million dollars to pay someone I think is actively damaging the world, and then started charging me MORE to pay for it, there is ABSOLUTELY no amount of cost benefit and convenience that would keep me there.

I will sit in a dark, silent room motivating on pure spite before I would accept such an indignity.