DLCs: Games are expected to have DLCs nowadays, so game devs purposefully hold back some ideas for potential DLCs, often crippling the main game as a result.
Subscription services: For pretty much anything, but especially those automated monthly payments, which you won’t bother cancelling, even if you feel like you’re not using the service to its fullest.
It’s got to the point some people complain when there isn’t DLC. They just want to play the same game forever. Also, paid games with free to play style bullshit. At least as scummy as these free to play games can be you can at least try them out.
Also, DLC is almost a complete misnomer nowadays. Everything is content and is downloadable.
This weekend, I went into what looked like an indie smoothie shop and dropped an ungodly amount of money on a delicious sounding shake… only to watch the lady drop a scoops of powder and ONE freeze-dried strawberry into a cup with ice. Tasted like ass.
Yet they do have regulars to that shit, and nobody is taking them out of business. I want my fucking $11 back. So anyone reading this doing a class action against Herbalife, I want in…
But I doubt it, since it’s a scam that’s so normalized we don’t realize it’s a scam anymore.
First time I tried one they mixed it wrong and it just tasted like chalk. All I knew was it was some kind of smoothie shop my wife took me to that a family friend of hers owned. Then I saw the price after tasting the chalk and pretending to like it. Never wanted it since
Some people jusrt like to be seen carrying these cups. I read about someone who put their Starbucks coffee in a generic travel mug, and their friend said to them “how will everyone know youre drinking Starbucks?”
Their Schtick is that people start Herbalife “franchises” under another name, but then serve Herbalife. I believe they are generally not supposed to use the word “Herbalife” anywhere on their merchandising.
If it wasn’t Herbalife, it would be some other food service-grade ingredients. I’m not sure it would be any better, but I’m also not sure it would be any worse.
Last I saw, Tropical Smoothie Cafe (national chain) does fresh or frozen fruit exclusively for $5-6, and Herbalife does cheap flavored soy powders for $11
There is a massive quality difference. They don’t even advertise readily that there’s soy in in them; I had to look it up. Thankfully I’m not allergic. And that’s the thing. They sell fake shit and intentionally hide that fact.
There’s certainly good smoothie places that are no comparison. But that’s not what these places would be. If you’re setting up a smoothie shop and decide to use Herbalife, it probably wouldn’t otherwise be replaced by fresh fruit. Instead it would be replaced by some other protein powder, which will typically make shit smoothies.
Fully agree with you though on the allergy warnings
I’ve never heard of them. Looks like the nearest one is 4 hours away from me, and there are zero in my home state or any state I like to visit.
Actually, a quick google seems to suggest Smoothie King primarily uses frozen fruit for their smoothies. They offer “nutritional add ins” that are protein powders. This is like Tropical Smoothie.
Maybe I wasn’t clear about Herbalife. The ENTIRE smoothie is protein powder. Here is a typical herbalife smoothie. The entire smoothie. Others are the same with artificial flavors. Then one freeze-dried strawberry dropped in lets them say there’s real fruit in it.
Here is a (genuinely random) sample from Smoothie King. A little protein added at the end, but primarily frozen fruit. This is reinforced by the fact that they sell fruit “smoothie bowls” for a comparable price. Herbalife has no fruit on hand to sell.
Land enclosure. Screwed everything up for everyone stg
Microtransactions in video games. Remember when everyone got pissed over horse armor?
Trading Card Games. The whole trading card thing is about psychologically manipulating you into buying shit you don’t need, shoulda been stamped out as soon as cigarette companies started doing it, but if you think about it the ideal capitalist institution sells you literally nothing and selling people heavy paper with little pictures on it is damn close to that ideal.
Software. Should be free, isn’t. Blame Bill Gates.
Advertising. We all know about propaganda (even though we might disagree on what is and isn’t propaganda at times) and we all know it’s bad, but we literally let rich people propagandize us every single day in every single orifice.
I forgot not everyone knows what free software means. Free as in freedom not free as in gratis. The other one has good, even great reasons for existing as you’ve said people need to pay the bills. The first one does not.
This definition of “free” in the context of software is used only in specific circles. It’s confusing for everyone else and another word should be used.
You like your free Android kernel? How about your free browser. Or MF’er, do you like this lemmy shit that you’re using?!?!?!? What about all the network architecture so you don’t have to pay dozens of owners so that you can send a packet of data from your the open-source router software to the Linux server that is hosting your game.
Make no mistake Microsoft has been at war with open source since its business model requires people to pay for software. It would destroy open source if it could, it it probably will after it acquires enough enough market share.
MF is your choice of term to open discussion with someone on a topic you disagree on? Surely this is going to get your audience to be open to accept your views/input.
Edit: the discussion likely is about your use case of the term free
I’m assuming uralsolo is talking about free software as in, software which gives users the four freedoms.
I don’t think all software needs to be free, but in some ways, it’s no longer the issue of the day. In this day and age, a lot of what we’re using is no longer really software. We’re using services with client-side Javascript which is nominally free software (but not really). Most of the actual software is sitting behind a server. I see this as good and bad. It means users of less popular operating systems get access to the same services as users of popular operating systems so long as they have browsers, and the negatives are, well…I’m sure you don’t need my help to think of some.
It’s hard to make money with free software because everyone has the right to commercially exploit it. For this reason alone, I don’t think it’s necessary for all software to be free, but I’ll be there to celebrate the programs that are free.
Retirement savings connected to the stockk market. Gives a perverse incentive for everyone to continue the wealth transfer upwards, since the stock market is largely based on the vibes of a handful of very rich people.
I’ll try to list things that aren’t in the typical internet echo chamber. Bring on the controversy. These are just my opinions.
50% of the shelf space at the grocery store is just different forms of corn syrup, sometimes with some trans fat mixed in, generationally twisting our idea of what food is in a race to the cheapest, most addictive product.
The only way it’s profitable for someone to knock on your door to sell ANYTHING is if they are obscenely inflating the price (think 100-600% markup)
Most supplements, especially expensive ones with TV ads
Dr Scholl’s and the goodfeet store
Genuine leather is just about the opposite of what you’d think
Bamboo fabric which is pretty much just a different way to say rayon but is pitched as a revolutionary and environmentally friendly cloth
Most bladeless fans just hide fan blades in the base
Many cleaning products don’t do better than diluted soap and water (even for sanitizing) especially the ones with TV ads
Financial planners who are actually financial product salespeople
Most single-purpose kitchen gadgets, especially as-seen-on-TV
The realtors racket: I just paid $30k for an internet posting and mediocre advice
Many personal hygiene products are just repackaging the same two or three active ingredients by the same one or two megacorporations
Essential oils (even ignoring mystical claims) big names charge an order of magnitude higher than they should
I believe he’s referring to “Genuine” leather as an industry term. Genuine leather is really low quality leather (but still comes from a cow). “Full grain” leather is what most people think of when talking about leather products.
The only thing worse than genuine is bonded, which is the plywood of leathers.
For some reason I was under the impression that “suede” was high quality. Is it just desirable because the collagen bundles are loose, and raise to make the surface fuzzy? Because it certainly isn’t durable, but my full grain backpack is.
Your list makes me realize just how far we peddle bullshit in our society. Virtually everything is lying to you, if only by omission or by being misleading. If you don’t know about cars, finance, food, technology, laws, housing, virtually anything, you will be taken advantage off, if only a little. Pretty much your whole list is spot-on, and it could go on for pages. Toothpaste? They’re lying about the quantity. You think your orange juice is healthy because it is very, very heavily suggested? Nope, it is old oranges with a lot of sugar. Anyway, I am not gonna type the entire comment I want to because it would become very rant-y.
My dad used to buy disposable vapes. I decided to take them apart just to find rechargeable li-ion batteries. By the way, in many of them there were quite thin wires and some of the insulation was visibly burned, looks quite dangerous.
Similarly there are some single use power banks. DiodeGoneWild made a video about those and also how to recharge them.
Just a stupid waste of batteries.
I like to tinker with things. I wanted to see if I could hit a weed cart powered by my phone so I bought a bunch of cheap 510 batteries with temp select from DH gate. They were all the same brand, same seller, same packaging. Inside was a different story though. All the batteries were from different manufactures with capacities different from what was listed.
Even fewer will know that osteopathy is exactly the same type of nonsense. No, an osteopath is not (necessarily) a “bone doctor”.
The main confusion is that, in the US, schools of osteopathic medicine picked up enough real science that US Doctors of Osteopathy are real physicians… Even if the osteopathy part of their training is still pseudoscience.
I remember a time when i bought a printer and it came with refillable ink cartridges which worked out significantly cheaper and better for the environment.
The next printer i bought had microchips that identified the cartridges as being genuines so the cheap off brand ones didnt work anymore.
That was easily 15 years ago. Why is this only just coming back up now. Its beena scam for over a decade. Maybe longer.
Let’s not forget HP making an “update” that effectively self-destructed the printer for use if you don’t use their cartridges. Evem after the public outcry and back pedaling by the company with a new bios update, my printer still “manifested” the same problem they intentionally introduced.
Replaced parts, tried other things, then just said “forget it” and replaced it with a more expensive color laser from a competitor. Happiness and reliable printing ensued.
Yep, I was gonna say, if you use it for what it designed and not for the abuse a handful of wannabe wallstreet guys decided to parade about for years, it’s very useful…
It’s true that crypto is commonly used in online drug transactions, but there are other justifiable uses, such as moving money out of countries with repressive regimes like China and Russia.
Also paying for certain genres of porn that major credit card banks like Visa and MasterCard have somewhat arbitrarily designated as unacceptable, such as certain types of BDSM e.g. consensual nonconsensual, anything that shows blood, kinky hypnosis and mind control, vampires, etc.
Of course obvious child porn should be banned by credit card companies, so some regulation is needed. But I 'm not sure that the government delegating responsibility for regulation to the credit card banks is the best way to do it. The rules and enforcement is completely arbitrary and cannot be appealed.
No it isn’t. Every single person has a complete record of every transaction. It’s the opposite of secure. It’s only useful insofar as intelligence agencies want tall grass to hide in for their own illegal transactions. Same as .onion btw
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