I mean, depending on your definition of ‘supposed to be,’ one could argue that the Juicero was, amidst a sea of devices and peripherals obsessed with getting a piece of the action on the Internet of Things, poised to revolutionize the way the home consumer juiced their fruit and veg. It’s not even all that difficult to imagine the pitch those responsible might have led with: “No more squeezing, no more cleanup, just fresh-pressed juice delivered to you weekly at the push of a button.”
For those readers who don’t recall the Juicero, here’s what was wrong with it:
For starters, it was way too expensive. If I told you all this thing did was take a bag of fruit chunks and squeeze it out of a spigot, how much would you think such a device would set you back. $40? $60? $100? Try $699. They did later lower the price… To $399.
But surely this marvel of engineering would justify the ludicrous price tag, I hear some of you say. Yes, this wondrous device was capable of a great many things, including… Pressing two plates slowly together to crush chunks of fruit and squeeze them out of a bag. And… Well, that’s really the whole deal. But certainly not, say, something you could easily do by hand, and save yourself half a grand.
Actually, I lied about the above part - it was capable of a few other neat things, when connected to the Internet. Well, it required an internet connection to work, so, hope you have that in your kitchen! But it offered so much more than squeezing juice bags slightly better than human hands. It could tell you if the juice bag was expired! Or there was a safety recall! Or a non-juicero brand! And refuse to squeeze the bag in any of those cases.
Obviously, the thing flopped, hard, in one of those rare cases where consumers by and large realized “Hey, this thing is really fucking dumb!” But it called out to a much larger issue, where Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were fetishizing the possibility of the Internet of Things, with similarly ridiculous products shoehorned with ‘smart’ capabilities. Smart shoes, smart salt shakers, smart umbrellas, the whole fucking nine. Everyone obsessed with collecting data and offering minimal benefit to users in exchange. And the worst part of is, they didn’t really make money on the Juicero itself, so over-engineered it was. The long term goal was to charge for subscriptions of overpriced juice bags, at $5 a glass. It was a preview of things to come, I suppose.
I remember they tried to use the environmental angle for marketing. They claimed that they were making use of discarded fruit pulp that would have gone to waste.
But of course it was actually an efficiency nightmare. They shipped the pulp to their factory, then shipped the weight of the pulp plus juice to the customer, who would then throw out half the weight of each package.
It would have been way more efficient for them to just buy the pulp, squeeze it in industrial quantities and sell bags of juice like some trendy health thing. But of course then they would have been a juice company instead of a tech company, and juice companies don't get as much venture capital.
I don’t think people really want a bunch of automated reddit reposts. The posts seem to draw little engagement. It adds up to the oddest way to use reddit, and if you want to use reddit, might as well just go there.
It should be the user's choice where to go. And while I love kbin and Lemmy, it doesn't have the shear mass of content of Reddit. With something like lemmit, you can fix that by bringing in the content without leaving kbin or supporting Reddit.
Ooo, send them to me. I'll fix 'em. I'll tell them every detail of what's got me fucked up latelish, every day, until they learn to stop asking.
If you don't want the most accurate answer I can come up with on a scale from "Kinda meh I guess" to detailed description of the last several things to really screw up my mood then do not ask me how I am 😅 No one's ever going to do anything with this information, but I almost can't help but answer basically whatever I'm asked. Maybe it's a deep-seated drive to yap about myself at every opportunity.
doesn't look up at that paragraph Nah, I wouldn't do that...
The last time the world got itself into this sort of mess, the outcome was social democracy (the New Deal, Postwar Consensus, Les Trente Gloriuses). A ~30 year period of reduced income and wealth inequality, tighter controls on capitalist excess, and increased prosperity which was at least somewhat shared.
It remains to be seen whether that is still a possible outcome given the amount of wealth that has been amassed in so few hands. Fascism is power protecting itself and it’s in a much better position to protect itself now than it was then.
The middle class will either recover or disappear entirely. And if it recovers, the recovery will likely be temporary. Because power can protect itself like nothing (and no one) else can.
I don’t hold out much hope for a more revolutionary pro-social outcome. I mean, it would be good. But it’s very hard to see how it can happen when the people who need it to happen are too busy keeping a roof over their heads and/or trying to survive climate change with the very limited resources available to them. If we get any kind of resurgence of social democracy, it will be because power sees the need for a breathing space, not a permanent settlement with the masses. Something better, and more permanent, is not on the cards.
People who moderate many communities isn't inherently bad, but we should be thankful instead that they give their personal time to moderate these communities.
I wish I can leave half of the communities I created here on kbin actually, and on Reddit, the reason I have so many (and you would notice how a lot of communities are related to motorsports, cars, racing in some way or the other) is because I love racing, it's a career I want to pursue soon for sure, thats why so many subreddits I have is related to cars or motorsports in general, and I really wanted to see a lot of them grow on Reddit but not anymore after seeing what Reddit is capable of doing, I don't want to be there anymore (F spez). So my reddit account is somewhat abandoned since then, I do peek at it occasionally, but my focus has shifted here.
Other than that I see modding as a hobby, I really love to do it a lot, and even better with kbin, it's really satisfying to help it in ways I can for it to grow, as I've really come to hate the corporate Reddit of today.
That makes sense and I did get a bit of that from there being some common themes in communities you moderated.
I was more referring to the fact that it can be done maliciously. Even if the moderator doesn’t realize it. I think it’s good to be a bit skeptical when it happens
No worries! I totally get you, I have indeed come across some very disrespectful and power hungry mods on Reddit, I do hope those people don't come here, or atleast change their attitude towards moderation!
WORLD DOMINATION FOR SURE, and 1 million? nahh, a billion dollars, my main goal is to get up there with Elon, Jeff and Mark, and then buy Kbin, erase that X website with Kbin and the fediverse while absolutely destroying Reddit.
A solid plan isn't it? I'm cooking here bro, it's being made. I'll tell you that.
Also @okbuddyretard, I love your profile picture for some reason man, even if I am a straight guy, I didn't expect to see that when clicking this thread.
Sometimes if you subscribe to a magazine that's not from your instance it'll just say that your instance owner is the mod even if that's not true, especially for Lemmy communities. That's probably what's actually going on, but I didn't check all of those mags to confirm
Are you a wizard? Are to trying to summon and bind me?
“How was your day?”
Dude, that was so long ago, how could it be important now? It’s already over.
“What do you want for dinner?”
While for a while I just always said “fajitas”, this one is a thorny one. I am psychologically incapable of separating the question “what do you want to eat?” from “what do you want to cook?” and thus my reply will either be rooted in anxiety or exhaustion.
Why doesn’t anyone ever ask the interesting questions, like “What’s your opinion of the designated hitter rule?” or “Which has done more harm to human ethical progress, dualism or tribalism?”
“[Untranslatable] destructed leaving just an asteroid belt. Mars now uninhabitable. Terraforming of Earth seems to have been successful now that the saurian races are eliminated. Trying again.”
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