I’m going to add on to this: aside from every competitor having to build their own product from scratch, a vertical structure of leadership allows for an individual or small group to have massive resources invested into their ideas. Which are so very often deeply flawed ideas.

Have you looked at Paint3D? Microsoft had a vision for a future where we interact with 3D objects in daily life and we would need a basic software to edit them, just like we use Paint to edit the images that we interact with. It’s kind of insane, i can’t even guess how many man-hours were spent on it by Microsoft developers.

And absolutely nobody has ever used it.

You can find more extreme examples, especially if you look outside of software (oh god the military); but Paint3D is one of the more accessible ones, any Windows user can check it out right now.

I understand some of these words

You are technically correct. I should have said physical media

I really like the comparison of analog media with camping!

Since owning a CD player i use my CDs more now than i did in 2010. Unfortunately Discogs shipping fees mean i can’t buy most of the things i want

It’s not even a matter of bullying: NFTs disappeared because they were fundamentally not viable, and there’s a good chance that generative AI is also not viable.

Generating an output is extremely computationally expensive, which is a problem because you need several attempts to get an acceptable output (at least in terms of images). This service can’t stay free or cheap forever, and once it starts being expensive, that’s also a problem in itself since generative AI is most suited to generate large amounts of low-profit content.

For example, earlier this month, Deviantart highlighted a creator that they claimed to be one of their highest earners; they made $25k “in less than a year”, which is not much for the highest earner, and they did it by posting over NINE THOUSAND images in that time. They were selling exlusives for less than $10.

The only way this makes sense is if it’s really cheap to generate that many images. Even a moderate price, multiplied by 9000, multiplied by the number of attempts each time, would have destroyed their already middling profit.

That’s exactly what i remember yeah.

I actually think this version flows better

Does this matter if the traffic is encrypted, such as an https website instead of http? Like, really how often is internet traffic unencrypted?

What does a single cell say when you step on its toes?

The second hand market. I don’t think many of them will even be 1080p or 60Hz, and i’m pretty sure you can forget about 4k

I have one listed on craigslist right now, for free because it’s broken. No takers.

Yeah, some crazy people want to have their MRIs at a hospital rather than in the woods like you’re meant to. Takes all kinds i guess

Surely “speed of sound” must be an exaggeration, i don’t see the object reaching mach 1 and then stopping within such a short distance.

Plus they happened to be in a hospital, so chances of survival are maximized.

Yeah i knew there was no way the headline was accurate. Oddly enough this isn’t the kind of thing a CEO would think

Honestly they do it so consistently that i’m starting to wonder if they have a choice.

A common way to do things for tech startups is that they get venture capital funds, use them to run the business at a loss hoping to acquire market dominance, and then use market dominance to turn a profit. I think a lot of tech startups that we know are currently in phase 2, meaning they’ve thrown money out the window for years and are now trying to recoup their investments.

Also, Reddit wants to go public and Twitter already is. This is relevant because investors are animals, all they see is short-term profit, and they use their voting power to make the company behave that way.

There’s a common thread between both my theories: it’s shareholder capitalism. I say this as a lifelong shareholder myself, shareholders ruin everything.

a few bold humans who I’ve caught plucking from the tree

Let them. You’re about to have more plums than you know what to do with, and yes leaving them there will get gross and attract all kinds of critters; you should encourage people to pick your plums, or pick them yourself and give them out. People are suggesting making jam and pies and such but that’s a lot of additional work compared to just dumping them on your neighbors.

For picking plums, i recommend using a broomstick or curtain rod to shake each branch, all the plums fall, you pick them up. This should be done a few times a year.