circuitfarmer

This, and as far as I can tell, the only way to avoid being called a RINO is to completely eschew any kind of critical thinking and absolutely toe the party line regardless of how asinine or nonsensical.

This is the way

This result is predictable for a lot of different things that started as products and seem to be ending up as services.

Microsoft wants Windows to be a subscription service with the associated perks to the company (namely, targeted ads, and also extreme control over anything the system does, including this ad scheme), and so an increased number of people seek a more traditional OS.

The movie industry pushes streaming down everyone’s throat as a highly fragmented market where media ownership no longer exists; thus an increased number of people start to return to physical media.

Car companies push to paywall features of their cars behind subscription services. An increased number of people seek used cars which have no such paywalls.

The patterns are clear, in my view, but the C-suite is always driven by a naïve lust for ever-increasing profit.

But it wasn’t worthless to Epic, who potentially sold it, active address or not. It doesn’t really matter what happens with it further down the chain after that sale. The point is that simply signing up for an account, even with fake credentials, does give Epic something. Not a lot, but something.

They can. That’s literally what data brokers do.

Sure. I’ll be more clear next time. I think my original point still stands.

Chances are they have already gotten more than a cent from you – depending on what they do with your account data. Even just an email address has a price. That’s my only point, really. Just signing up gives them something.

I mean, I dont think it’s controversial to say it is surprising that a game had an expansion in 2000 but and then only had any other after the HD re-release in 2013. 13 years is an eternity in gaming. That’s my only point; I dont think it has anything to do with keeping “up to date”.

Oh, I mean the OG expansion “The Conquerors”. As far as I know that content is just included in the Definitive Edition now. But back in the day, it was the AOEII expansion.

AFAIK all the other DLC came after the Definitive edition re-release. My original point is that I didn’t expect new expansions to what is ultimately a 90s game.

I legit never imagined I’d see another expansion for this game. I say expansion because we didn’t call the others DLC back then.

A challenge that they themselves don’t understand and couldn’t undertake, but they’ll happily risk the livelihoods of others for their hunch

Mankind Divided is free right now btw

It’s not free. The point is to get me to make an account on Epic and install their stupid launcher. That isn’t free and I’m tired of people claiming things are “free” when in fact they exist to get you to sign up for another service. It’s not free-as-in-air.

And not to mention: the original versions actually run fine to this day. Pure money grab and they made the product(s) worse to do it.

Just to add: the Steam Controller may have been a commercial flop, but I still maintain that it is one of the best controllers out there, in particular for playing strategy games from the couch (right pad > mouse). I still use mine regularly and have a couple backups. The price of the Steam Controllers now reflects that it’s technically a niche success.

Edit: and the dual trackpad setup plus integrated configurator technically does live on for the Steam Deck

Meh.

It’s not designed for or good for VR gaming. As an AR device, I find it a bit silly since I can just look at a real screen. It would be a novelty at $100, but at the price Apple wants I kind of think of it like a joke.

Now hiring for an Engineer². Don’t apply if you dont have 20+ years experience with LLMs

What advantage does this hold versus the company paying a living wage in the first place?

The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.

Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn’t be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I’d argue we’re past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It’s already a no-win scenario.