You must be getting hit by tankies, because this is a perfectly reasonable post.

I worked for a unioned grocery company for many years and there were no merit based raises, because they were negotiated years in advance and dictated by the union contract. Getting any discretionary effort was incredibly rare and difficult, because why am I going to do more and get paid trash wages for it? I’m not saying that’s the right way to think, but it’s prevelant regardless.

He spotted a sucker and couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

In a case like this, I would assume it is a budgetary thing - if your marketing campaign is budgeted at $100k, you wouldn’t want to give away a million dollars of free goods.

Mostly I suppose - but in the example/hypothetical given in the article of Sony moving it’s manufacturing from China to India, it would take 6-24 months minimum to find/develop the space they need and move the equipment. This cost to move all of the equipment half way across the world and the opportunity cost of out of stocks at stores worldwide when your distribution chain finally drys up - the cost was sited at 10%. If they MOVE a facility, I think that cost gets passed on to everybody worldwide.

There may be situations where JUST American production is moved to another country with more favorable tarrifs and worldwide production continues out of the existing facility, and probably in a situation like that, only the American costs would increase to cover the facility/equipmemt costs. But for that to make fiscal sense, this would have to be somehow CHEAPER than the price already elevated by the tarrifs. Companies could even in this case, theoretically hike prices worldwide to subsidize the impact to everybody. More people paying a higher prices mean everybody pays less.

Now, I couldn’t say if there’s any precident for the last line there. Purely hypothetical. But regardless - it’s entirely possible it WON’T be JUST Americans paying higher prices.

People vote with their wallet repeatedly against live service games, and they keep releasing them. Eventually they’ll stop, right? Right?

I’m a former player, but played continuously from release for 11 years. This is undoubtedly ridiculously expensive, but the convenience of having your mail and auction house anywhere in the world - the value to certain players is immense. I think if I played still today, it would probably be a struggle deciding whether this limited time offering was worth jumping on - I certainly don’t need it even a little bit, but when I want it, this thing would be incredibly convenient to have. Maybe that would just be the addiction talking. But when you spend all your free time with one game, you do feel a sense of good value relative to things like drinks at the bar or a movie or buying 1 or 2 full priced games a month.

But truly, the utility this provides for you and your guild is immense and impossible to replicate. They definitely shouldn’t be selling mounts on the shop for $90. That’s fucked. But compared to some of the video game devs selling weapon or character skins for as much or more, there IS at least a unique value proposition to the player. I guarantee there will be people with it the second it releases, for better or worse.

Thanks for sharing - this is wicked. It’s strange that it has taken so long, but it’s very cool that we’re possibly seeing a return to wind power, and this looks WILD to boot.

I was pretty sure manifest v3 had already happened - but when I knew it was coming, I went ahead and switched ahead of time. Came with the extra bonus that now I’m ad free on mobile too! Mobile websites are absolutely filthy with popovers and 2 sentence paragraphs with an ad between every paragraph. I’m sick of it. And unfortunately I spend so much more time browsing the web from my phone these days than my desktop - so when I swapped on pc to Firefox, it was such a relief to have browser extensions on my phone now too.

Did people get bitchy on the internet when they released the PS One, the PS2 slim, 5 generations of PS3, or the PS4 Pro? Or the Xbox One X, Xbox 360 E, the Switch OLED, 2DS, DS lite, Gameboy Advance SP, Sega Genesis 2, Sega Genesis 3, Sega Saturn 2? I certainly don’t remember this much discourse back then. It’s like every gamer on the internet has collective amnesia about mid generation refreshes and how they have existed since the dawn of console gaming.

Just as always - it’s probably not meant for you if you’re perfectly happy with your base model.

And just like all those multitude of prior examples - no, they certainly will not release games that ONLY work on the mid cycle refresh device. Because that would be a really poor financial decision. And can you imagine the discourse if you had to buy a $700 console to replace your $500 console so you could play all the newest first party titles? On a device that has likely 4 years max before it is subplanted by the PS6? That would be a far more justified upset in my opinion.

I’m sure the union rep made it sound like you must, but I wonder if you were actually required. The major US grocery chain I worked for, the union shoved themselves down your throat but it was NOT required. It felt to me that their negotiations amounted more to collusion than actually fighting for the workers. I hope they’re the weakest union in the history of the world and that they don’t all suck as badly.

Thanks for the context - that’s fascinating.

Oh very cool - that’s a very good use case that I hadn’t considered!

Every non-PC, non-web browser on your network also reaps the benefit.

Of all the names on the list, Leazel is absolutely killing me. Everytime I think it I’m laughing again. A little disappointed but you’re probably right - it’s meant to be Lae’zel.

I just loaded up Android Studio, which has it’s own emulation layer. I’ve tried Bluestacks in the past and had trouble with it - figured that Google’s own environment would be the best option.

I only came along after Google podcasts announced that it was sunsetting, so I don’t know what the lifetime membership entailed. But I have no need for any of the paid features they offer, so I’m happy to remain a free member. I don’t really understand why I would need cloud storage… from my podcast app… and on pc, I just run the Pocket Cast app in an Android emulator since for some reason you can’t use a web browser without a subscription. Completely mystifying decision, but I’m not paying $4 a month for it.

Bioware didn’t make Starfield - that was Bethesda. Maybe you were thinking of Anthem? And fair point there.

<O>

Nice, got it figured out then?

Well that’s not classically how DND works - it certainly didn’t on my Note 20 Ultra. Maybe you had Google digital wellbeing settings turned on? Or focus mode or something of that nature, such that when the office is in DND notifications are held?