261–270 of 479 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless they've changed recently, I thought GOG's platform itself does not have DRM? Steam does provide DRM and doesn't tell you if a game uses it, though as far as I know there are generic tools to bypass it. GOG also specifically advertises games that don't have DRM, e.g. [0]. Steam versions of the same game (e.g. Skyrim) often require Steam to be running and enforce mandatory updates that aren't always desirable wi…
There are some games on GOG that still include DRM. The one I can remember offhand is Cult of the Lamb where the game would only run until a certain milestone at which the copy protection determined the GOG version was pirated and would gate the player from advancing. There were forum posts from the developer confirming this was intended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With GOG you can download the games's installer, vy backing up those you can still install your games even if you get banned
For purposes of backup I don't see that large of a difference between a single installer executable and a zipped folder that you'd get after installing a non DRMed game from Steam.
I've taken to getting a cracked copy of every steam game in my library so that steam can't screw me over again in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody would say they aren't in the PC, tablet or audio business, yet they make more off ads than they do off Macs, iPads, headphones, speakers... everything but iPhone.
I'm skeptical of that. I think I'd need to see some hard data on it. I spent most of my career in the hardware business. It's really odd to see so many folks unable to understand business models that make money, besides "sell data." It really seems as if folks can't grok that companies that make money, can do so without necessarily selling data.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/14/google-pays-apple-36percent-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And also it would be good to limit the ban duration with a law. For example manslaughter can be 5 years in prison. So if google decide to ban your account because you send your doctor a photo of your son for medical purposes, they are not allowed to ban you for more than 5 years and then they must restore full access to your account.
I think for these big companies as well, they should have to have a more targeted punishment. Since having access to an Apple or Google device is increasingly mandatory in many countries (often as a result of government legislation!), getting that cut off is more impactful than other services. So like, if you get caught, red handed, absolutely 100% you, performing gift card fraud, the maximum punishment from Apple sh…
> Update 18 December 2025: We’re back! A lovely man from Singapore, working for Apple Executive Relations, who has been calling me every so often for a couple of days, has let me know it’s all fixed. It looks like the gift card I tried to redeem, which did not work for me, and did not credit my account, was already redeemed in some way (sounds like classic gift card tampering), and my account was caught by that. Obvi…
Banks frequently completely freeze accounts for no discernable reason and with zero communication, support, or recourse. You're just lucky that it hasn't happened to you. That does not mean it doesn't happen to anyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet they continue to sell these cards. Why? It's simple: they're essentially free money. The worst case for them is that the recipient of the card uses the full amount of the card. In that case, the issuer "only" makes the full profit on those sales. Often they do better: the card is used partially or not at all, then lost or forgotten about. You can see how lucrative they are by looking at promotions. You can of…
Your math is wrong. The merchant wants you to use the card, in all cases, always. Because statistically, you are likely to spend 30-40% more than the card face value, when you do. The unused portion of the card sits on the merchant's balance sheet as a liability, for years, until they decide to recognize it as revenue ("breakage"). They prefer this over NOT selling a GC, of course, and some merchants (e.g. Starbucks,…
Stopping the theft you describe is very easy. Don't have actual gift cards just sitting around. Require customers to get them from the cashier at the time of purchase. Have dummy cards on display if you want them to have something to hold, or make them ask.
Of course these solutions aren't free. Adding friction to the purchase process will reduce sales. Retails have clearly concluded, I assume correctly, that it's not worth the cost. Nothing wrong with that.
Don't confuse something being difficult to fix with something not being worth the cost of fixing. We can put a solid upper limit on the impact of fraud by looking at what it would cost to stop it, and conclude that the impact of this sniffing fraud is less than the impact of having cashiers exchange dummy cards for real ones at the time of purchase.
Note that this isn't a "this is easy, they must be idiots not to do this" sort of thing. The current approach is probably the smartest one, given how things currently work. If the incentives changed to make retailers bear more of the cost of fraud (say, legally putting the burden of proof on the retailer to show the card was used legitimately, otherwise they have to refund it if the customer alleges fraud), things would change quickly.
I kinda thought Apple was better about this sort of thing, what with the Genius bar and that sort of thing. I pretty much made an ass of myself by assuming that, I guess, because I switched from Google stuff straight into Apple. I should probably start to work on self-hosting now that I can see I was incorrect to trust Apple...
> I should probably start to work on self-hosting now that I can see I was incorrect to trust Apple...
Jumping to that conclusion might be worse. Don't think of trust as a binary bit. Better to ask:
1. To what degree can I trust Party to do Thing?
- what is Party's track record?
- what are Party's incentives?
- what is the probabilistic distribution of outcomes?
2. What is my best alternative to #1?
- ... track record?
- ... incentives?
- ... distribution of outcomes?
3. Pick the least worst for you
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think it's different with GOG? Both GOG and Steam allow you to use local copies of games, and both would deny you access to your account to download more games once banned. Steam allows you to install games without DRM from their platform.
Unless they've changed recently, I thought GOG's platform itself does not have DRM? Steam does provide DRM and doesn't tell you if a game uses it, though as far as I know there are generic tools to bypass it. GOG also specifically advertises games that don't have DRM, e.g. [0]. Steam versions of the same game (e.g. Skyrim) often require Steam to be running and enforce mandatory updates that aren't always desirable wi…