[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml -1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

It's comments like this that concern me. It's extrapolating on a worst case hypothetical, and setting it equal to a present day reality of Google's hundred billion dollar advertising empire.

It doesn't mean there's nothing to be concerned about, but I think you need to understand the difference between possible bad thing, and fanning the flames of mob mentality.

Remember how Google wasn’t always evil?

You know who also also wasn't always evil? VLC. And guess what, they're still not evil! Even though they have turned town tens of millions of dollars that would have compromised their software. So, what does that prove? Maybe that measured concern should be combined with an ability to be nuanced on a case by case basis.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 3 points 16 hours ago

But it means we’re probably more susceptible to propaganda that accuses corporations of corporate bullshit, whether the accusation has merit or not.

Exactly. It's a different variation. I think the Mozilla stuff is more a sleepwalking echo chamber than an intentional campaign, but at a certain point the difference doesn't matter.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 5 points 16 hours ago

I still don’t want to see any unsolicited ads and this feels like the initial steps to try to make it more palatable to eventually try to force users to accept ads back into their lives.

Right, there's still a slippery slope issue here. I actually think it was a good thing that Mozilla was coming up with add-on products to create a revenue stream. I would love to, for instance, pay for a 2TB Mozilla Drive over Google Drive. I would rather do that than the ads.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 10 points 16 hours ago

Thank you for breathing a bit of sanity into this thread. Same here. Some commenters were like "oh there's already too many adds" and I was like wait, what? They're not adding more adds to Firefox, are they? The article doesn't suggest that.

The "Mozilla bad" crowd echo chamber has gotten completely out of control in my opinion, and it's an avalanche of low effort comments, dozens of upvotes, and it's kind of a self sustaining echo chamber that exists because it exists.

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submitted 16 hours ago by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world

I don't know if you have heard, but Loops.video is a Reels/Tiktok like app from the creator of Pixelfed. I recall it being announced, and checked just now on a whim. All of a sudden, it appears pretty close to ready to launch!

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 2 points 16 hours ago

I think the only real path forward is for a developer to figure out a way to decentralize video hosting

That's what Peertube is all about. It's like the Lemmy version of Youtube. And it seems to have real funding and development mojo.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

I would emphatically reject that any progress is being made. I'll be moving on to other conversations.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

I was using them interchangeably. I guess one is understood to be kind of a general foundation or overall company, whereas Firefox is just the browser itself

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Your argument that hitting at the CEO ignores the whole context of market dominance of Google could IMHO also used against your argument: If the CEO is so powerless that she cannot take the responsibility for the decline of Mozilla, than why does she get payed at all.

That's my argument? I don't recall supporting the CEO pay. Pretty sure I said I don't like it. And just to be clear, I am finding it hard to justify that much for a CEO. So that's not turning my argument against me, because that was never my argument.

What it would really look like to, as you say, "turn my argument against me" would be something that speaks to Google's search monopoly, ads monopoly, and hundredfold advantage in revenue, and why, in light of those facts, they would imply that Mozilla should have more market share. Like if I forgot to carry a two somewhere in my math, or why they are actually proof of a synergy that Mozilla is benefiting from that I'm not accounting for. Those would be examples of turning the arg against me, and I'm happy to hear it if there is one.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

Non-profit doesn't mean that there's no employees. They're still organizations that have a cash flow, seek to raise funds, and employ people to serve their mission. Most non-profits have paid employees.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Right and that has existed long before today. And I can't find anything in this article suggesting that the start page, or anywhere else, is going to be reallocated towards new ads which is what it sounds like the commenter above me was suggesting.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I mean I don't love it, but I'm also not sure what the argument is supposed to be about how this ties to browser market share. Mozilla made $593 million from their most recently released financials. The CEO made $6.9 million. My calculator tells me that's 1.16%.

So is the argument that Mozilla that if they set the CEO salary to $0, used it all on more developers, that would spin up a browser experience that's so improved it would lead to more market share? A 1% change in Mozilla's spending will bring them to 50% market share? 40%? 20%?

What's the cause and effect here? Do we even actually know that that's true, that it even has anything whatsoever to do with development choices at all? I get that the CEO is an easy target but I think assuming that is explaining market share ignores things like Google's dominance of search and ads, and how those piles of cash drive initiatives like Android and Chromebooks, which helps propel Chrome to dominant market share. Those are the drivers of market share. I don't even think people have even tried to begin to think through this argument in real terms, it's just a lot of knee-jerk reaction to news stories disconnected from any specific idea of cause and effect.

[-] abbenm@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 days ago

Did I miss something? I don't think the browser is going to be full of ads?

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submitted 6 months ago by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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submitted 6 months ago by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

What are Lemmy's feelings about the best cloud storage options these days, if you really want to break into the 1-2TB range? I'm not there yet, probably not even halfway there, but I like the peace of mind of potentially having the space if I need it. And I think subscribing to something in the Netflix price range is maybe something I'm ready for.

My thoughts so far:

pcloud - Intriguing because you can pay for a "lifetime" plan of 2TB of storage. But it's $350, which is a lot, and I don't know that I love the interface or usability, and I don't know if I trust them.

iDrive - Super affordable. 5tb for "just" $80/year. It might be the best deal, but nothing about their identity suggests to me that they are "good guys." By which I mean, I'm not sure I trust them to make long-term promises for any specific plan.

Mega - I like its very anti-google, very encrypted attitude. Born from the ashes of megaupload, they built encryption and zero knowledge into it. I LOVE that you can connect to it through the android app Solid Explorer and therefore don't even need the mega app if you don't want it. I hear bad things about it though? And it's pretty expensive at $115 per year for 2TB.

My personal thoughts/reasoning/caveats:

Homebrew stuff: I don't quite trust myself to use a homebrew setup like Nextcloud or Syncthing correctly. There's too much in terms of labor, upkeep, catastrophic single points of failure where you could lose everything. I feel like I'm 70% of the way to being smart enough to do this.

Avoiding the Bad Guys and the Free Stuff: I've tried the free version of just about everything, from Google to Onedrive to Dropbox to Mediafire to Mega. There's even an android app that offers 1 free terrabyte?? But I don't want something from the bad guys where I'm going to be integrated into their closed source death drap: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and I don't want a too-good-to-be-true free service where I'm the product.

I also would prefer to avoid something from the upstarts who kinda-sorta imitate the bad guys: Dropbox, Mediafire, Box. Because I'm not sure how much I can trust any specific long term promise from them.

It sounds like you're saying nothing is good enough! What exactly do you want!? Something from good guys, not bad guys. Something like Standardnotes, but for file storage. They emphasize privacy, good governance principles and longevity of their service. Or Linode, with their independence, sense of mission, love of Linux & free software, all of which tells me they are good guys.

Probably the correct answer is (1) here's this magical perfect source I never thought of, or (2) I'm thinking this much about it, I should probably do Nextcloud or syncthing given all the constraints that I'm putting out there.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on cloud storage. What are yours?

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submitted 2 years ago by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/lemmy_support@lemmy.ml

I joined on June 1st, 2020. Today is December 30th 2021, so it's been about 1.5 years.

Under my username, it displays as "Joined 2Y ago." So it's rounding up. I think it makes more sense to display years + months, or days, or maybe any other way that doesn't make it round up.

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submitted 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Here's a pattern you've probably seen:

  1. Racists/nazi shows up and says racist/nazi things
  2. Get called out for it and/or banned
  3. They claim they are unfairly banned "for disagreeing." They completely leave out the part about them being a racist nazi.

You know, that move. I've seen it more times than I can count and I bet you have too. They call disagreement with nazism "opinions you don't like", leaving out the nazism part. Any way of framing disagreements with them while subtracting out the actual content of what they say.

It's so common that I think it deserves a word. I know there are generic descriptions: e.g. "being a troll", but I think something specific to this particular behavior deserves its own word. That way it can just be identified and dismissed for what it is and not argued with.

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submitted 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago) by abbenm@lemmy.ml to c/gaming@lemmy.ml

I like discovering new things. So I went through the entire list of games in the Bundle For Racial Justice and Equality. I found some I liked, and wanted to share.

What I don't want to share are the relatively widely known games: Oxenfree, Celeste, Oneshot, A Short Hike, Pyre, Octodad, Hidden Folks, Night In The Woods. Games that already have over a thousand reviews on Steam.

Here are some of my obscure gems:

Cromwell - Clearly inspired by Reigns, and I loved Reigns. A story based card game with swipe-left or swipe-right decisions. Reigns was amazing, I was sad when I finished all the Android Play Store versions of the games, but am glad there's another one in the spirit of that series.

A New Life - It was made by Angela He, creator of Missed Messages. The atmosphere, the aesthetic, is just so awesome to me. Why can't other creators make games so lush with feels and beauty as Angela He? There's just no comparison imo.

Elsemir - a really well done 2d graphical point + click fantasy game. Click through to the itch.io page and check out the reviews and screenshots.

I could go on, but I'll pause there. What did you find in the itch.io bundle?

view more: next ›

abbenm

joined 4 years ago