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Detective No. 27 posted:The only silver lining to the Roblox bullshit is that it'll fizzle out after a while. I know it's been around for a while but they'll fizzle out when the current crop of kids grow out of it and move onto the next thing. Like Minecraft?
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Dec 15, 2021 03:51
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Minecraft is still super popular but it seems to have flattened in recent years.
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Dec 15, 2021 04:44
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It seems one of the more over-arching concerns with all these things is: uh, maybe kids should not have huge amounts of access to the internet, especially without fairly direct supervision. I'm not saying the internet is evil or bad, but there are huge risks and parents should be more involved in helping their kids mitigate those risks.
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Dec 15, 2021 05:48
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PT6A posted:It seems one of the more over-arching concerns with all these things is: uh, maybe kids should not have huge amounts of access to the internet, especially without fairly direct supervision. parents shouldnt let their kids smoke cigarettes but that doesnt mean cigarette companies should be allowed to market to children and set up a vending machines in high schools
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Dec 15, 2021 06:17
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PT6A posted:It seems one of the more over-arching concerns with all these things is: uh, maybe kids should not have huge amounts of access to the internet, especially without fairly direct supervision. Eh I tend to agree with you somewhat. I mean there was an 11 year old flat earther in the behind the curve movie. But what is the solution really?
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Dec 15, 2021 06:21
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PT6A posted:I'm not saying the internet is evil or bad, but there are huge risks and parents should be more involved in helping their kids mitigate those risks. The Internet Makes You Stupid
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Dec 15, 2021 08:17
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Stexils posted:parents shouldnt let their kids smoke cigarettes but that doesnt mean cigarette companies should be allowed to market to children and set up a vending machines in high schools Well, you're right, but I think there has to be a two-pronged approach. Yes, we did ban tobacco companies from advertising to youth (and pretty much everyone else in most of the world) but some minors still smoke. The difference is that we both expect, and find in practice, that parents have a much different reaction to finding their kid smoking cigarettes than doing questionable poo poo online. And, reasonably speaking, it's not like cigarettes because no one needs any quantity of tobacco. Kids do need to use the internet for practical reasons, so I'd say it's more like food. You have to, in an age appropriate way, discuss the health concerns of simply eating whatever you like all the time, because that's bad for you and if parents don't give that kind of guidance, their kids can end up malnourished, obese, and/or otherwise unhealthy. Even if you coerce Roblox into being less lovely instantly, some other assholes are going to do bad poo poo on the Internet and put your kids, who might not know better, at risk. I think it's reasonable to say the Internet, in general, is not a safe place for kids. No part of it is, really, and the utility needs to be balanced with the risks and it should be used with parental guidance. aniviron posted:The Internet Makes You Stupid Basically, this. I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say that, having ended up here, a lot of us probably grew up with Too Much Internet. That probably wasn't a great thing, even if ending up in D&D shitposting is probably not so bad a fate as wandering into a den of white supremacists or getting sexually harassed and exploited by an semi-pro game developer.
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Dec 15, 2021 14:58
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Whenever I think of "the internet" as a whole as any normie or kid would experience it, I cant think of a more perfect image than that of the mobile pet owner game for kids that would prompt them to pay 5 bucks or they'd put their pet down Web 2.0 is now so saturated with grifts and nested levels of marketing algos feeding and being fed by each other and a thousand tracking points per webpage that the cutting edge grifters who would shoot their own mom for a dollar are dreaming up an even worse web 3.0 to broaden the possible ways things can get worse
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Dec 15, 2021 15:14
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This has come up before but Car Companies Want You to Keep Paying For Features You Already Have https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxzya/car-companies-want-you-to-keep-paying-for-features-you-already-have quote:Now, automakers plan to make even more money by selling subscriptions and software updates to cars that have already been sold, perhaps even for features people expect cars to have. This is beyond hosed up IMO. EDIT Maybe I should link the loving article. Thanks to Main Paineframe. SOrry BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 15:39
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BiggerBoat posted:This has come up before but The hell is this, That makes no sense,
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Dec 15, 2021 16:05
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Does a car even come with a terms of service agreement that can be retroactively modified?
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Dec 15, 2021 16:21
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There Bias Two posted:Does a car even come with a terms of service agreement that can be retroactively modified?
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Dec 15, 2021 16:26
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Are there examples of arrangements like this being effectively legislated against, either in the States or elsewhere?
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Dec 15, 2021 16:29
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There Bias Two posted:Does a car even come with a terms of service agreement that can be retroactively modified? Thinking about it, I can only see three possibilities: 1. Existing cars will need to be updated. I don't see much chance this will use the same wavelength as the remote start fob itself so you should be able to wrap aluminum foil around the relevant antenna and keep the functionality 2. Existing cars came with a built in timer that will disable the remote start, and concealed that from the user. This seems like the fastest route to losing a law suit. 3. Existing cars will be grandfathered.
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Dec 15, 2021 16:35
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AtomikKrab posted:The hell is this, That makes no sense, Hello this is OnStar
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Dec 15, 2021 16:36
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There Bias Two posted:Does a car even come with a terms of service agreement that can be retroactively modified? In the case of Toyota, it wasn't retroactive. It's been in the fine print when you buy affected models all along, complete with the details and specifics of the free trial period. The article (dunno why it wasn't linked in the first place!!!!!) is playing it up because it's the apparently the only example they could find of a non-Tesla company charging for something software-locked that wasn't tied to the mobile app or the infotainment system... ...which suggests they didn't look very hard, because there's plenty of other instances of car companies software-locking something and making people pay to unlock it. For example, Mercedes limiting the rear-wheel-drive unless you buy a $500+/yr subscription is much more relevant to the article's fears of locking basic car performance behind subscriptions.
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Dec 15, 2021 16:41
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AtomikKrab posted:The hell is this, That makes no sense, It makes perfect sense if you look at it as a way to rip people off and effectively hold their car's functionally for ransom. I'm trying to come with an analogy but it's so hosed up, Dystopian and such a modern problem that I'm struggling. I guess manufacturers are looking at it like "well, sure, you OWN your smart phone but the service and app subscriptions are add ons" type of thing, which is fine for poo poo like satellite radio or something but not for basic functionality of a vehicle that you own. It's more like being charged extra every month to have your phone make a sound when there's a call or a message or paying extra to unlock certain area codes. I guess it'd be like buying, say, a toaster oven (to use something simple) and having to pay a monthly fee in order to get the heat above 100 degrees. Bad example maybe. But this is a really bad trend that's going to become the norm unless something is done about it and it's one of the real dangers of connecting every loving thing to the internet, whether it needs to be or not. Manufacturers can basically "brick" your car, intentionally or otherwise, unless you pay up. One of those things where your car payment is $300/month but if you want to start it, use the heat or whatever, it's an additional $50/month. My current car, while old, is not connected to the internet in any way and I can still drive it, start it manually and roll down my windows. I can use my phone for directions if I need to. Soon, we will have no choice but to buy cars with all this poo poo because not only will they no longer be built, they simply won't WORK unless you pony up. We've already seen posts where someone's grill won't fire or their fridge won't work die to wifi or software failure. quote:The article (dunno why it wasn't linked in the first place!!!!!) Cause I hosed up. Thank. Fixed BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 17:00
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AtomikKrab posted:The hell is this, That makes no sense, Imo it makes a lot of cents
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Dec 15, 2021 17:06
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I've never been sued by a door, but I guess I can live through it.
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Dec 15, 2021 17:48
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PT6A posted:Well, you're right, but I think there has to be a two-pronged approach. Yes, we did ban tobacco companies from advertising to youth (and pretty much everyone else in most of the world) but some minors still smoke. The difference is that we both expect, and find in practice, that parents have a much different reaction to finding their kid smoking cigarettes than doing questionable poo poo online. reining in companies like roblox isn't anywhere near as difficult or futile as you're implying, any laws or court decisions that apply to their scummy business practices could easily be applied to other digital services that target kids, especially since most of what they're doing already has laws against it in the non-digital space. a court decision applying anti-scrip laws to digital funbux and laws defining what they're doing counts as minors either gambling or buying financial instruments would ensure that nobody follows in their footsteps. saddling more liability to companies that market to kids if kids are hurt using their products would force them to more actively purge predators from their platforms and invest in moderation. there's a huge difference between "the internet" and "companies that make platforms and products specifically for children" that you're not acknowledging here. plus roblox isn't some fly-under-the-radar chinese app company that endlessly reregs with new accounts pushing shady fraud apps, they're the biggest videogame company in the world, and it took them ten years to grow this big. even if someone does try to follow in their footsteps there's no reason they can't be smacked down too.
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Dec 15, 2021 18:26
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AtomikKrab posted:The hell is this, That makes no sense, Sure it does, rent-seeking is NEGATIVE economic activity. This is now the point where the rent-seeking of car companies is eating features of your car, acting as a physical proof that no, really, rent-seeking is negative economic activity. It started from whatever referral they get from whatever subscription revenue service, they're not running an MMO so they're not going to improve the service, they're just going to demand more ransom unless you want to
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Dec 15, 2021 19:09
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PT6A posted:Well, you're right, but I think there has to be a two-pronged approach. Yes, we did ban tobacco companies from advertising to youth (and pretty much everyone else in most of the world) but some minors still smoke. The difference is that we both expect, and find in practice, that parents have a much different reaction to finding their kid smoking cigarettes than doing questionable poo poo online. I think you're mixing up the analogy Stexils was making. The internet isn't being compared to tobacco. Content on the internet that is poisonous to kids' brains is being compared to tobacco. Kids do not need Nazi or QAnon propaganda any more than they need tobacco. Roblox in this analogy is like an amusement park. We don't allow tobacco advertising at amusement parks, and people going around trying to sell tobacco to kids at the amusement park get ejected by security.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:25
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PT6A posted:It seems one of the more over-arching concerns with all these things is: uh, maybe kids should not have huge amounts of access to the internet, especially without fairly direct supervision. The internet and allowing children unfettered access to an open network where they can interact with and be influenced by strangers was always a problem. But in the old, early days of the internet it was a problem with seemingly simple solutions that were similar enough to problems parents and society has always had to deal with. Monitoring a kid at a park and monitoring a kid's activity online used to be mostly the same. See who they're talking to, make sure you have access to their accounts, lock them away from anything you don't want them seeing (or better yet, whitelist them safe options). But now? It's not just looking out for bad sites and bad actors trying to abuse your kids. The platforms themselves are the problem thanks to algorithms. Adults aren't equipped to deal with algorithm generated content pipelines. A dumb kid has zero chance. The biggest thing that can be done is to ban AI/Machine Learning content algorithms for social media. Or just in general. We do not understand the system, we do not control them, and those that operate them don't even take the obviously moral action even when they do their own studies and show their product literally increases child suicides and depression. Get the gently caress rid of it.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:31
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BiggerBoat posted:I guess it'd be like buying, say, a toaster oven (to use something simple) and having to pay a monthly fee in order to get the heat above 100 degrees. Bad example maybe. That's a perfect example. Let us never forget the Juicero, a $400-$1200 subscription-based device that could only squeeze Juicero brand juice bags if they had a readable QR code, the bags weren't arbitrarily expired, and it had a stable connection to the internet. The cherry on top is that in the end the juice bags were hand squeezable (much to the surprise of investors). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-valley-s-400-juicer-may-be-feeling-the-squeeze
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Dec 15, 2021 19:36
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The future is 10 year car loans that get more and more expensive over time as more and more critical features drop off their "free trial" period lol There's a reason why all the pro-markets/capitalism writers that warned against this sort of thing inevitably becoming where all energy and investments are directed were jettisoned for the sociopath Austrians just as soon as the rent seekers took control
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Dec 15, 2021 19:42
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Epic High Five posted:The future is 10 year car loans that get more and more expensive over time as more and more critical features drop off their "free trial" period lol Truth. The (much) older business models that most successful companies centered around were durability, value and had something of a long term approach that would foster loyalty and enhance the reputation of the brand. Think Kenmore and Whirlpool. I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with how careers used to work where the idea was to get in with a good company, share some semblance of mutual loyalty and then retire with a pension. Meanwhile, the corporation got a reputation as a "good place to work" so, theoretically (and often in practice), they attracted the best talent and everybody wins. This is what I was always taught by my elders growing up and now, of course, it's all useless advice and mostly complete bullshit. Along those lines, I have some poo poo to post about job hunting as it relates to Tech Nightmares and how much of a shitshow that is these days but I'll have to get back to it.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:56
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BiggerBoat posted:I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with how careers used to work where the idea was to get in with a good company, share some semblance of mutual loyalty and then retire with a pension. Meanwhile, the corporation got a reputation as a "good place to work" so, theoretically (and often in practice), they attracted the best talent and everybody wins.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:04
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BiggerBoat posted:
I feel like people always claim "back in the good old days things were built to LAST" then when you actually look up statistics everything broke nonstop. Things used to advertise how well they last because broken appliances were a real nonstop problem, so people were excited to hear about it. Like the whole maytag advertisement concept was about how busy washing machine repairmen always are. Where like, I guess maybe I've called a washing machine repairman once in my entire life? It feels like most major appliances these days rarely require any sort of major work. even cars, cars used to have 100k as some sort of impressive upper limit that was rare to reach, now a car with less than 100k is basically new condition.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:26
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:I feel like people always claim "back in the good old days things were built to LAST" then when you actually look up statistics everything broke nonstop. "Back in the old days" things were generally built to be serviceable. You don't call out a washing machine repairman these days because it costs you $150 to get him to your front door and the parts will cost $300 minimum plus a few hundred in labor and at that point you just buy a new washer and have the haul to old one off to the landfill.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:28
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Crain posted:The internet and allowing children unfettered access to an open network where they can interact with and be influenced by strangers was always a problem. But in the old, early days of the internet it was a problem with seemingly simple solutions that were similar enough to problems parents and society has always had to deal with. Monitoring a kid at a park and monitoring a kid's activity online used to be mostly the same. See who they're talking to, make sure you have access to their accounts, lock them away from anything you don't want them seeing (or better yet, whitelist them safe options). I think another big difference is that, now, broadband internet is incredibly common and most tweens/teens probably have at least one device that can access it, and there's no real limit to that access. When I was growing up, the natural limiting factor was the fact that it tied up the phone line, and even if you were fancy and had a separate fax/modem line, eventually mum or dad would want to use the internet and you'd get kicked off, and that's if you were lucky enough to have your own computer at all. You can just head straight down the loving rabbit-hole to your heart's content and your parents probably won't even know until it's too late, unless they are supervising you closely. One side of that is regulators actually committing to playing whack-a-mole with the bad actors in terms of social media and exploitation in the Roblox style, but the other side of that is that parents have to know there are very real dangers. Yeah, you absolutely could regulate a lot of these businesses better, but part of the whole point of those videos was that a lot of bad poo poo goes down adjacent to those main sites without being on them, and also that there's no easy answer when it comes to how to approach content moderation. I don't think those companies, or the government, can be the entire solution. There's a need for parents to be involved, as with any activity that kids are involved in.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:37
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AtomikKrab posted:The hell is this, That makes no sense, “Your subscription for braking has expired, please enter your payment information to enable braking.” But seriously, the system that allows me to check the status of my car remotely requires a monthly subscription after the first year. The reason I keep it is the feature that allows me to have the AC running when I leave the car with our dog inside.”
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Dec 15, 2021 20:41
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Motronic posted:"Back in the old days" things were generally built to be serviceable. You don't call out a washing machine repairman these days because it costs you $150 to get him to your front door and the parts will cost $300 minimum plus a few hundred in labor and at that point you just buy a new washer and have the haul to old one off to the landfill. First of all -- this is like gas costing a dollar back in the day. Thats inflation -- you had to pay the repairman for his time and parts back then too. It was less dollars, because everything was. But it felt just as expensive. Having worked on manufacturing of washing machines, even today's machines are serviceable if you know what you're doing. If something goes wrong, you can get the parts at a reasonable price and repair it yourself. You just don't know how to repair it yourself, because today's washing machine is more complicated than grandmas. It has a lot more features, its quieter, it uses less electricity and water, and it looks prettier. Additional components and electronics are required to achieve this that are less mechanicallu intuitive than before. It is this way not because of some grand conspiracy, but because this is what people wanted. And for the vast majority of people, its probably not going to break down, so designing it to be explicity easy and cheap for the average joe to repair makes no sense. Believe it or not, we DONT want warranty claims or RMAs.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:41
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Motronic posted:"Back in the old days" things were generally built to be serviceable. You don't call out a washing machine repairman these days because it costs you $150 to get him to your front door and the parts will cost $300 minimum plus a few hundred in labor and at that point you just buy a new washer and have the haul to old one off to the landfill. The special nightmare, though, is electronics in everything. If even a five-year-old washer's circuit board goes bad, the manufacturer may not have a stock of replacements. There's nothing to do but replace the whole drat thing. Nobody makes aftermarket electronic parts for appliances.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:44
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Motronic posted:"Back in the old days" things were generally built to be serviceable. You don't call out a washing machine repairman these days because it costs you $150 to get him to your front door and the parts will cost $300 minimum plus a few hundred in labor and at that point you just buy a new washer and have the haul to old one off to the landfill. Yeah, and people HATED it. There is a reason maytag's entire branding was around "our machines need less service, see, our repairman is a lazy goofoff" as the absolute primary focus with a specific character and slogan instead about them cleaning well or being big or quiet or fast or something was having to service all the time was the biggest complaint people had and a metric people bought machines over.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:49
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OctaMurk posted:Having worked on manufacturing of washing machines, even today's machines are serviceable if you know what you're doing. If something goes wrong, you can get the parts at a reasonable price and repair it yourself. The last washing machine I had I wanted to fix myself. Its bearing was going. However you can't just buy the bearing. The only part you can buy is the entire assembly that included the tub and the bearing. Also the bearing wasn't made to be removed unless you had specialized tools like a very sturdy arbor press. So if I wanted to fix my machine I'd have to buy a very expensive part I didn't need or find a way to get the old bearing out without breaking anything and hope I could find a generic replacement. That's not built for service regardless of whether or not you could actually do the work.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:53
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OctaMurk posted:Additional components and electronics are required to achieve this that are less mechanicallu intuitive than before. It is this way not because of some grand conspiracy, but because this is what people wanted. Or was legislated. I work in an appliance-adjacent field, and have seen firsthand the longevity compromises that are made to hit efficiency numbers. Micro fin heat exchangers in HVAC equipment that seem significantly more prone to failure and sensitive to contamination, auto start/stop and lower viscosity gear oils in cars, etc. I think that in certain cases, a significant amount of durability/fault tolerance/poor maintenance tolerance is no longer present due to efficiency requirements across a range of industries. I'm not saying efficiency is bad. I'm saying that compromises have to be made to hit those numbers.
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Dec 15, 2021 20:55
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Scratch Monkey posted:The last washing machine I had I wanted to fix myself. Its bearing was going. However you can't just buy the bearing. The only part you can buy is the entire assembly that included the tub and the bearing. Also the bearing wasn't made to be removed unless you had specialized tools like a very sturdy arbor press. So if I wanted to fix my machine I'd have to buy a very expensive part I didn't need or find a way to get the old bearing out without breaking anything and hope I could find a generic replacement. That's not built for service regardless of whether or not you could actually do the work. I think "this should be fixable without specialized tools" is also pretty modern as an idea. extensive tool sets (and particularly socket wrenches with a hundred+ different heads) was the stereotypical fathers day gift for a reason. People were trying to fix their own stuff, but struggled with tools.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:04
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Motronic posted:"Back in the old days" things were generally built to be serviceable. You don't call out a washing machine repairman these days because it costs you $150 to get him to your front door and the parts will cost $300 minimum plus a few hundred in labor and at that point you just buy a new washer and have the haul to old one off to the landfill. Just for comparison's sake, I looked up washing machines in a 1955 Sears Catalog.  So, the cheapest model was on sale for $204.95, which apparently has the same buying power as $2,125.58 today. That was just for the washing machine, the dryer was another $160+. They also advertised a load size of 9 lbs, whereas the bestselling model at Lowes (This Whirlpool for under $600) can apparently do 12-16 lbs. Baronash fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 21:22
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PT6A posted:I think another big difference is that, now, broadband internet is incredibly common and most tweens/teens probably have at least one device that can access it, and there's no real limit to that access. When I was growing up, the natural limiting factor was the fact that it tied up the phone line, and even if you were fancy and had a separate fax/modem line, eventually mum or dad would want to use the internet and you'd get kicked off, and that's if you were lucky enough to have your own computer at all. that's not at all what the videos say though. all of the roblox-adjacent scummy offsite poo poo is a direct consequence of the decisions the roblox has taken with their business model and community. the reason why the community moved to unaccountable discord servers is because the company shut down their own forums, since they didn't want to have to deal with moderation. the proliferation of predators is a consequence of the nonresponsiveness of their own moderation, lack of real punishment for abusers, and culture of silence/secrecy (because roblox doesn't want people talking about how lovely conditions actually are). the proliferation of scammy offsite exchange websites exists because of roblox taking a huge cut of every in-network transaction as well as moving money into and out of their funbux. right now roblox's solution to moderation is "don't" and they won't crack down on black markets because their own business model is so scummy that it would cause a backlash among their own users if they didn't have some way to circumvent parts of it. this is completely fixable through government coercion. frankly your talking about parents needing to be involved is meaningless here because roblox is actively deceptive and opaque. they guy in the video spent weeks investigating and even then had to make a second video because he missed a ton of poo poo the company does and only found out through users messaging him. kids can make their own game and then blow all the money they made - thousands of dollars, potentially - on the ingame item market parents might not even know exists. to use your earlier analogy, it's reasonable for parents to talk to their kids about nutrition and monitor what they eat, but parents shouldn't have to check whether walmart is putting opium in the milk.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:37
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Modern appliances and cars are also subject to other safety and environmental standards which is great but inevitably has tradeoffs in other areas.  It sometimes takes some fancy engineering to do these things. It's necesarrily going to be more specialized and convoluted and crammed into smaller boxes in weird ways to make it fit.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:40
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