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A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

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Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#221

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #28
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #13

Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…

> “ I can download any show or movie I want and have it playing in minutes without having to deal with multi platform bullshit.” Is this as true as it once was? It seems most of the old trackers are offline or dead now. I’d guess because of the success of streaming services finally meeting the market demand. It’s also possible I’m just old and out of the loop now.

[deleted]

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#222

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #28
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #13

Media embedded advertising has already been a thing for years, but companies hate leaving money on the table so they cannot resist the temptation of showing more ads. I wonder why it is that Steam hasn't had any issues remaining such a successful video game platform, while other forms of media have struggled to keep up. You're competing with piracy, but you throw ads in my face. I can download any show or movie I wan…

> “ I can download any show or movie I want and have it playing in minutes without having to deal with multi platform bullshit.” Is this as true as it once was? It seems most of the old trackers are offline or dead now. I’d guess because of the success of streaming services finally meeting the market demand. It’s also possible I’m just old and out of the loop now.

[deleted]

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#223

Post by nightski »

Jensson wrote: post #166
nightski wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Amazon had zero profits for a very long time and was publicly traded. It did very well. There are numerous examples like this.

That is exactly what I said, publicly traded companies cares about growth over profits, while companies that never intends to go public and therefore doesn't benefit from valuations tend to care about profit over growth.

Sorry I misread your comment. Either way I don't think either extreme viewpoint is right. I'd say publicly traded companies and their investors care about both growth and profits for different reasons.

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#224

Post by thedailymail »

massysett wrote: post #190
orwin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but honestly i am tired of it. If i'm on stackoverflow, i want to see ads for a new course, a job posting or a clickbait tech article on a new stack that makes Java bearable. When i'm researching some obscure history, i don't mind ads about JC Martin latest book available on amazon (and i might even buy it!), and when i'm looking for camping gear, i don't mind ads for other camping gear. That i get ads for cam…

Those ads are why you can crank an obscure topic like the second French restoration into Google and get useful information. Or you could just go straight to Wikipedia, whose only ads are for Wikipedia fund drives.

There was a time when the internet was not beholden to advertisers, but still managed to deliver all kinds of lovingly/obsessively detailed sites on obscure topics like the second French restoration. It was slower and jankier and (arguably) harder to navigate, but it showed that many people are happy to produce and maintain online content without resorting to ad-veillance.

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#225

Post by MichaelZuo »

carabiner wrote: post #186
honkdaddy wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to go check - $40/mo for a digital newspaper?! Surely this is aimed at a different demographic than mine, because I can’t imagine anyone I know paying that for news.

Noam Chomsky called the FT "the only newspaper that tells the truth."

They've had a noticeable increase in almost-clickbait titles in the last few years. So it's not like they've remained unaffected by the decline in news media.

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#226

Post by bennysomething »

pdpi wrote: post #73
AstralStorm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam is successful because its advertising is rather low key, showing a popup with offers, and providing a search, directory plus suggestions. Their gain is from consumer analytics too. (They also take a cut for using their platform from the game developers or publishers. It also provides some added value like achievements, basic social media in forms of forums and chat, some (somewhat broken at times) controller ha…

It’s important to take Steam DRM in context. In a world where DRM was becoming more intrusive by the day, and you had to contend with every game having its own unique way to mess your system up in its fight against piracy, Steam provided one single DRM system that almost everybody agrees to use. For consumers, worse than no DRM, but miles ahead of the status quo it replaced. Also, Steam does have an offline mode. You…

I use gog.com instead of steam where I can. They provide DRM free installers for all their games (this may have changed more recently not sure).

Anyway gog is really great :)

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#227

Post by carabiner »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #225
carabiner wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noam Chomsky called the FT "the only newspaper that tells the truth."

They've had a noticeable increase in almost-clickbait titles in the last few years. So it's not like they've remained unaffected by the decline in news media.

Maybe they've always been there, but it just took you a few years to notice them. By how often you hear this sentiment (X newspaper used to be better, more thoughtful and analytical), you'd expect news articles written a few decades ago to read like dissertations. Except they all read about the same, newsy and for a general audience. My theory is it takes a few years to notice the crap, but the crap was there all the time.

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#228

Post by MaxikCZ »

fomine3 wrote: post #205
U6XWpjvdqi4xTPJ wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with seeding, for me, is that it effectively implies a need to keep two copies of content. One however you downloaded it and then one actually named properly and stored in a reasonable hierarchy... (Not to mention all the *.nfo and *.lnk they include!)

Hardlink or reflink could be your friend.

Hardlink ftw. The only problem is when contents are compressed into rar or whatever. For video it doesnt even make sense from space-saving angle. Anyone can explain why so much torrents are like this?

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#229

Post by wswope »

fomine3 wrote: post #208
wswope wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a niche market that, if it could reach a broader audience, would experience an influx of new customers. Honestly curious: what makes you think that? I'm someone who really likes VPNs, but in all my experience, they have some really rough edges for non-technical people. I would never recommend one to my non-technical friends or family unless they had a very specific need for it. Using Nord as an example, sin…

Even if VPN services are like you said, still they want to sell more and it's possible by ads. Degradation could be justified for "privacy".

Is your thinking that more ads would convince people who don’t currently care about privacy to care about it? Or that there’s a contingent of privacy advocates with enough tech skills to navigate these issues that aren’t aware of VPNs yet?

Re: A golden age of consumer convenience is passing

#230

Post by fomine3 »

wswope wrote: post #229
fomine3 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if VPN services are like you said, still they want to sell more and it's possible by ads. Degradation could be justified for "privacy".

Is your thinking that more ads would convince people who don’t currently care about privacy to care about it? Or that there’s a contingent of privacy advocates with enough tech skills to navigate these issues that aren’t aware of VPNs yet?

I think former. I think it's somewhat effective, as Apple does privacy ads that attacks competitors.
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