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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • There’s a lot of empirical claims surrounding this topic, and I’m unaware who really has good evidence for them. The Substack guy e.g. is claiming that banning or demonetising would not “solve the problem” – how do we really know? At the very least, you’d think that demonetising helps to some extent, because if it’s not profitable to spread certain racist ideas, that’s simply less of an incentive. On the other hand, plenty of people on this thread are suggesting it does help address the problem, pointing to Reddit and other cases – but I don’t think anyone really has a grip on the empirical relationship between banning/demonetising, shifting ideologues to darker corners of the internet and what impact their ideas ultimately have. And you’d think the relationship wouldn’t be straightforward either – there might be some general patterns but it could vary according to so many contingent and contextual factors.











  • But I suppose if you’re buying Apple you’re probably going to buy a new device every year anyway. Never understood the mentality personally.

    My cousin gets the new iPhone every single year, and he was up for it at midnight as well, I don’t understand why because it’s not better in any noticeable sense then it was last year, it’s got a good screen and a nice camera but so did the model 3 years ago. Apple customers are just weird.

    I think you’re basing your general estimation of the Apple customer on the iPhone customer a bit too heavily. E.g., I have never had an iPhone and wouldn’t ever consider buying one, considering how locked down and overpriced it is, and how competitive Android is as an alternative OS.

    Meanwhile, I’ve been on MacOS for something like 7 or so years and cannot look back, for everyday computing needs. I have to use Windows occasionally on work machines and I cannot emphasise enough how much of an absolute chore it is. Endless errors, inconsistent UX, slow (even on good hardware), etc. It is by contrast just a painful experience at this point.

    And one of the reasons people buy MacBooks, myself included, is to have longevity, not to refresh it after a year (that’s insane). It’s a false economy buying a Windows laptop for most people, because you absolutely do need to upgrade sooner rather than later. My partner has a MacBook bought in 2014 and it still handles everyday tasks very well.






  • in the end, you’re leeching off a service you enjoy.

    I don’t think that’s a fair or true statement.

    For one thing, the “service” here has risen to a point of ubiquity that it’s a de facto public space. Everything is on YouTube – legacy media channels, individual enthusiasts, alternative media outlets, the worlds of tech, fashion, politics, sports – you name it. If you were deprived of all access to it, you would have a qualitatively poorer access of what is going on in society. So it’s not equivalent to a traditional service like a trade.

    For another, blocking ads is not merely refusal to pay a fee of some kind. Advertisements are cognitively intrusive, designed to affect your willpower and decision-making, used to track and control your behaviour, compromise your digital safety, and turn you into a product for companies to whom you do not give your consent for the opportunity to be exploited. Blocking that system of “payment” is not simply prudent but right, and the choice between paying a monetary fee or being so exploited is not a fair choice at all.