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PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

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Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#301

Post by mikkupikku »

wodenokoto wrote: post #294
qingcharles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

I have a 8gb plan and don't go out of my way to connect to wifi everywhere I go. 3 is almost a third of that, but I don't spend it all every month.

Normies don't have good intuition for the size of different kinds of data. They'll stream Netflix for a few hours then genuinely wonder how they hit their data limit because they "weren't even using the internet."

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#302

Post by mikkupikku »

lazide wrote: post #237
asdff wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was seemingly easy for every cell provider to give it to every teenager in america just 10 years ago. What is a few marginalized adults in 2026?

They won’t be marginalized if we don’t shit on them somehow .

Unless we nut up and ban gambling, there will never be a shortage of broke motherfuckers who should be able to make ends meet with their job but simply never will be able to. You have no idea how badly gambling suppresses a large subset of the working class.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#303

Post by reaperducer »

coryrc wrote: post #195
reaperducer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 of course, but wasn't 3G all shut down in the US in 2022 to open up the airspace? One of those HN myths that comes from only being willing to Google (or ChatGPT) information, rather than encountering it in the real world. 3G still exists in rural and remote areas that no major carrier wants to serve, at least as of April, 2025 — the last time I did a round of real-world web testing. Next round is in September. Mayb…

That's weird, because it's directly contradicting that the carriers themselves say they have decommissioned it. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/plan-ahead-phase-out-3g...

That's weird, because it's directly contradicting that the carriers themselves say they have decommissioned it. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/plan-ahead-phase-out-3g...

Thank you for proving my point, that people on HN falsely think they know more than others because they can Google a link, even though what's happening on the ground is entirely different.

Reality ≠ policy papers, press releases, or web links.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#304

Post by account42 »

bandrami wrote: post #268
qingcharles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

As someone living in a non-net-neutral country this really is the big advantage everybody in net-neutral-land ignores: Meta and Google pay for nearly all of my data use (one of them even seems to cover HN).

Meta and Google aren't the ones paying in the end, you are - just indirectly.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#305

Post by ZaoLahma »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #276
ZaoLahma wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly we don't, and what's worse is that the "content" is getting to the point where we need _content_ blockers. I recently got hit by an "article" that promised to tell me which three AAA games would be released with PS Plus soon. A three point bullet list was all I wanted. Instead I got pages after pages of word-manure about nothing at all for reasons I don't even understand. At the end of it I still couldn't tel…

I think we'll be soon at the point where articles are written by asking AI to extend a three point bullet list to 30 pages, and read by asking AI to summarize articles into a three point bullet list.

This drives me nuts. It's been going on for years that a simple "if this, do that" deal is encoded in an overly elaborate 10 minute long YouTube video where at least 9 minutes of it is filler. You know, when you start skimming the comments to see if anyone bothered with summarizing it.

AI amplifies the problem by making it easier to produce filler, but the problem is whatever metrics are behind the monetization. You need users to "engage" with your content for at least x amount of time to earn y amount of money, while instead the earnings should be relative to and directly derived from how useful the content is to how many users.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#306

Post by psychoslave »

qingcharles wrote: post #60
timpera wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downloading 500 MB in 5 minutes in the background of a random article is really disrespectful to readers on low-end devices or metered data plans (and these two groups are often the same people!). What a waste of ressources.

I've worked with a lot of people at the bottom end of society in the USA. They are given government provided phones they can use so they have access to Google Maps, email, job search apps etc. These phones come with 3GB of regular data per month. After that they drop down to 2G speed, but not in a way that will allow anything to actually load. Three days into the month these phones are just ewaste.

Talking about (electronic-)waste, what’s choking is how much resources are required to do the same or less than what used to be possible with far more humble hardware and bandwidth, all that in living memory.

Sure part of "software fills space like a gas" can be explained by "got to go fast to stay ahead on the market", but at some point it’s blatant negligence of frugality where it’s providing overall economical benefits.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#307

Post by nkrisc »

Defletter wrote: post #258
pineaux wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is turning off ad blockers.

Yup, I keep mine enabled at all times. Anytime I've tried selectively disabling them, I get burnt with increasingly intrusive ads. I might be convinced to enable some kind of "ethical ads" filter that only permits ads are known to be unobtrusive and not track, but then you need to trust that whoever maintains that list wont succumb to incentives.

I will never disable mine. I think back to when malware was served from ads on nytimes.com.

If you let your guard down, someone will mess up and let malware through.

Adblockers are security.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#308

Post by DrewADesign »

microtonal wrote: post #255
DrewADesign wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 2G speeds were what they were when it was heavily used? Sure. Nowadays? Not in my experience. I got downgraded to Google Fi’s 2G in a well-traveled part of Virginia using a flagship Samsung and I couldn’t even load directions on Google Maps where I’d already downloaded most of the map for offline use. 2G ain’t like it used to be when it was still given a second thought by providers.

It’s not only the providers. 2G is 120kbit max on a lot of networks and 50kbit on average. Even a 1MB site, that is lean by today’s standards will take 160 seconds to load. 2G is really from a different age. Does anyone remember WAP and i-mode? I was certainly not able to afford data back then, but that is what all the business’y types were raving about.

Yeah that’s true — 2G was in the WAP days. Forgot about that.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#309

Post by coryrc »

reaperducer wrote: post #303
coryrc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird, because it's directly contradicting that the carriers themselves say they have decommissioned it. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/plan-ahead-phase-out-3g...

That's weird, because it's directly contradicting that the carriers themselves say they have decommissioned it. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/plan-ahead-phase-out-3g... Thank you for proving my point, that people on HN falsely think they know more than others because they can Google a link, even though what's happening on the ground is entirely different. Reality ≠ policy papers, press releases, or web links.

Or maybe you're incorrect? 3G is a technology and not a speed. Not sure why you believe your web traffic sampling is accurately identifying 3G.

Re: PC Gamer recommends RSS readers in a 37mb article that just keeps downloading

#310

Post by zyx321 »

medvidek wrote: post #240
virtue3 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please go try and do anything on the internet at 2G speeds in todays world. You can barely even use FB messenger (you need to get messenger-lite). I only know this cuz tmobile would give you free 2g all over europe. it was JUST BARELY helpful. mostly just sms and email. google maps was unusable etc. This only got worse over the years. They now give you free 3G and it's bearable. 2G is insanely slow in the 2020+ world…

> They now give you free 3G and it's bearable Note that many European countries have already got rid of their 3G networks completely [0]. So it's either "you have 4G/5G" or "the internet is pretty much unusable", nothing in between. As someone living in a European country with no 3G network, my experience with mobile data is that when my phone fails to find a 4G signal and switches to 2G (pretty much only happens in…

Not really relevant here, because it's not real 2G/3G, but 4G throttled to 2G speed.
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