This is in regard to Lemmy.world blocking piracy communities from other instances. This post is not about whether you agree with the decision. It’s about how the admins informed their users....
No. This is why if a service loses sight of its core value proposition, it dies.
If youtube is actually successful in killing adblocking on their service - which I suppose a server-side timer could actually do - then they will only succeed in killing their relevance, just like so many social media seem to be doing right now.
I pay for services like a debrid and VPN, because they provide me with the services I need. For very few dollars a month I can get 4K streaming from their servers 24/7. That is all hosting should cost. If the fediverse version of youtube, peertube, became mainstream then collectively people should have absolutely no problem maintaining those costs from the users’ side.
Once that happens and mainstream video streaming is part of the fediverse, I think the network effect that governs social media might snowball until eventualy centralised social media is a thing of the past.
Do not pay for youtube, whatever you do. Let them die.
Social networks don’t succeed or fail on casual viewers alone. Youtube is a video sharing site, not a content producer. If they get so toxic that the content producers start finding alternatives, then the casual viewers won’t all leave right away.
If it gets so bad that big creators, like pewdiepie, have alternatives that grow in relevance and youtube loses its critical market share then it will eventually lose the casual viewers too, especially if those alternatives aren’t up to their eyeballs in ads.
We saw this with digg losing its place to reddit, where they sold out their content to publishers. Content got thinner and worse until the vast majority of users left for reddit.
This may not be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. For reddit it was the API lockdown, for twitter it’s… well I could point to any number of individual decisions but let’s just call them Elon Musk. Facebook hasn’t quite hit that tipping point yet I don’t think.
With youtube I can easily see this being part of a string of decisions to promote publisher content over user content. They’re already selling views which could really sink them in the end.
Audience is only part of the equation, arguably not the largest part. How many content creators use adblock? The big ones already know how completely meaningless ad revenue is because youtube doesn’t pay them enough and they are already aware of how easy it is to block ads. Also they’re more likely to be using youtube on a desktop because they use one to create, and they also are more aware of the alternatives like revanced. A lot of big creators have spoken out over the years in favour of adblocking.
If youtube makes it impossible for creators to use their own platform they’ll leave in droves, and they will have the voice to encourage their audience to follow. Youtube isn’t the main voice on their own site, the creators are.
Another thing this will impact is the ability for creators to collaborate, since they would have to watch others’ ads in order to see their videos.
Once that happens, the audience will naturally follow. That’s how social media sites have failed in the past. They’ve pissed off the power users to the point they finally left, then the content declined, then users followed.
Youtube is making the same mistake all capitalist entities do, of mistreating the people who actually make the product they’re selling. It’s a fundamental contradiction that only leads to decline in the end, it’s just a matter of when. This may not be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, if this isn’t it, then something down the line will be.
It’s funny how you put all the blame on the users and none on the people that run the site. They fail to pay creators properly, fail to protect them from copyright claim abuse, and all the while they expect those creators to keep making content to keep their site relevant. It’s going to come crashing down eventually.
Also, in matters of taste the customer is always right. If people are so fed up with ads that they adblock en masse and/or leave, then youtube are the only ones to blame.
Youtube constantly screws over and underpays the people who create all of the content that makes their site possible whilst also demanding they pay for a service that is worse than what adblockers already offer whilst also running a business that relies solely on critical mass of users rather than any actual value that youtube themselves can uniquely provide. That could never backfire.
I pay a very small fee for debrid and VPN servers that offer exactly the same server capacity with enormous bandwidth and virtually no downtime. Plenty of services exist that can do what Youtube does. Peertube is a fediverse youtube that is based on a P2P model that lessens those burdens significantly, and it will grow with its users.
The thing that makes youtube dominant is the same thing that makes other social media platforms dominant: users and creators.
They are squeezing those users and creators as much as they think they can without completely alienating them and forcing them to find a better alternative. Once they pass the tipping point and an exodus begins, history shows they will only worsen things and accelerate the process.
The thing about the game of “how much closer can I fly to the sun without losing everything?” is that they will inevitably lose. You can moralise all you want, the reality is that they are getting closer and closer to losing every day. When they get there, you can blame whoever you want, it won’t change anything.
I didn’t, I compared globe-spanning networks of servers that serve millions of people every day to youtube. Those two things don’t seem that different to me. They scale with user numbers just fine.
I mean you work for a larger company as a software developer, and you don’t understand the concept of debrids and VPNs? Are you sure you’re not deliberately missing the point of what I’m saying?
You have demonstrated a complete inability to grasp what a VPN does, what a debrid service does, that they already do the things you’ve mentioned, and you have yet to acknowledge peertube even exists. I brought it up, multiple times, for a reason.
I have to ask at this point, are you curious to understand my position? I don’t see much point in continuing to explain it to you if you’re not.
I am struggling to understand yours. There doesn’t seem to be a coherent idea that you’re driving towards other than to tell me I’m wrong, which isn’t a position as much as an antiposition. If you have a position, I would appreciate you explaining it clearly.
I am not saying a VPN or a debrid are necessary, only that they demonstrate the bandwidth and storage capability at scale for low cost, on which peertube could run, which would presumably scale with interest in the platform. It’s not complicated.
I won’t explain any further unless you tell me, specifically, that you are curious to understand what I am saying.
You’re wrong about debrid services, they store everything, I assume you don’t use them.
But I’m afraid I won’t “listen here”. You can’t even pretend to be interested in what I’m saying, apparently, so there’s no point in me continuing to explain.
Nobody is saying they should be handed things for free, we are saying that youtube is doing a bad job and shouldn’t be enabled.
Piracy is not a moral problem, it is a service problem. They are making their service worse with their decisions, and if it’s not sustainable long term then it will die, which I believe is inevitable at this point.
Again, this isn’t about individual behaviour, it is about mass behaviour. None of us can control that. If youtube wants to succeed, they have to navigate the reality that adblocking will happen on their service, and I don’t believe they can do that. It’s not that it would be physically impossible, they just lack the capacity to find a solution because of how they are structured. The problem is that they will not accept a lower bottom line, they have to keep increasing revenue so they are squeezing people, and eventually they will go too far. Once they get just a little bit too close to the sun they will start their death spiral and then they’re done.
Federated networks prove that we don’t need some central overlord to run our networks for us, and once there is a way to own our own video sharing network I would have absolutely no problem giving some money to support it. I’m not going to give money to a big corporation to enable them to keep squeezing us. They don’t make a good service, they make a shitty, awful service that we have to fight them in order to use properly. The only substantial thing they’re doing is server hosting, and we don’t need them to do that. The only real barrier is critical mass of users and creators, and eventually they’re going to push enough people away that that happens.
I’ve had a great time playing some of the ‘smaller’ games lately: Dredge (adore this game so much), Dave the Diver, Cloudpunk, Stray, Octopath II, Observer....
Steamworld Heist is an incredible twist on a turn-based tactics game, just by adding a tiny element of skill to your aiming. It gave my twitch-reflex monkey brain just enough dopamine to engage in the turn based gameplay that usually turns me off, and I had an incredible time.
How far did you get into Subnautica and what turned you off about it? I understand it’s not for everyone. It can be a little bit obtuse in the way it gates your progress behind radio transmissions, and if you don’t find the right blueprints your journey can be made much harder or easier respectively. I’ve been replaying it recently and I can see how it’d be hard to get into. One thing to note is that as you advance a lot of the annoyances of finding food, water & power to upkeep everything get eased through different technologies, so you slowly get more freedom from the grind, and the story is worth seeing to the end. In fact every new tech makes the game easier and faster and opens up the world that much more, either by making it easier to traverse long distances or go deeper, or carry more, etc. The early game is slow and frustrating in comparison.
I could cosign a bunch of suggestions already, but Outer Wilds is one of my favourite games of all time. I’ll try to explain it without any spoilers: It doesn’t gate your progress behind anything but your own curiosity and acquired knowledge. It also gives you a sense of freedom that you get from fully simulated physical movement in space. It is also deeply emotional and if you’re halfway to the end wondering, “How could they possibly stick the landing on this and end it well?” the answer is just trust, omg it’s so good. You can’t really experience it twice - it’s designed such that when you possess the right knowledge, you can finish the game extremely quickly, but also to do so you must truly understand and master the ideas you are being taught - so you can only experience it again by watching blind let’s plays. I’ve watched 4 so far and each one was a moving experience watching the person go through their own process of understanding over many, many hours.
If you like platformers, Teslagrad is a beautifully illustrated and impeccably designed metroidvania which I’ve played through many times. All the story is delivered through puppet shows rendered within the levels themselves and gorgeous collectible cards. They’ve just released a remastered version with a number of QoL changes that I’ll be playing again, and the sequel is out. I believe they’re still available in a Fanatical bundle right now.
The metroidvania that got me into the genre is actually a free game by the maker of Celeste, from many years ago. It’s called AnUntitledStory and I’ve played it through many times. Some quite hard platforming challenges but the whole aesthetic is extremely cute, and as you’d imagine from the dev of Celeste the controls are crisp and precise.
Hollow Knight is another incredible metroidvania/souls like. You play as a bug in the ruins of an ancient civilisation of bugs and it is quite haunting. Again, amazing aesthetic.
And if you want something chill instead, I’d go with Spiritfarer. You build your boat and travel the spirit world helping souls on their journey to the afterlife, except each soul is unique and has their own personal needs and closure you help them achieve before they’re ready to pass. Most importantly you can pet your cat whenever you want, which every game should have.
I mean, fair enough. If you don’t like grind then Subnautica isn’t going to be for you. A lot of these grindy games I use as podcast games - I listen to stuff while I’m doing the boring bits, then when shit gets real I pause the sound to focus.
Again, you can get past some of the grind, but if you don’t enjoy the process to get to that point it’s maybe not worth it. Even once the worst grind is gone… I mean there’s still grind. The actual story is pretty fascinating, it’s all about conservation and responsible stewardship and working with the ecosystem and not against it. Oh and also you’re virtually a slave in a hypercapitalist company town structure.
Anyway, I think Spiritfarer is very bittersweet, although I would consider myself very at peace with the concept of death, so I understand others may feel differently. If you’re a big crier it will definitely do that for you. A big theme is letting people go when it’s their time. I played it on a week when I was particularly sick and didn’t have the energy to do something more active, and it was the perfect thing for that time for me. I personally think it’s very wholesome and healing in many ways. The ambience is very soothing, you spend time tending your gardens on the ship and keeping everybody happy whilst you travel. One of the things they sometimes need is hugs. It never feels like a grind imho, but again I’m happy with minecrafty/subnautica type games. I have to admit I haven’t finished it, it was very much an experience limited to that time I was sick, which is weird. I’ll have to try it again.
Was just banned from Reddit because I dared to use Tor (which I am using rn) and comment something. Since my account was new the mod banned me, I have 1k other reddit accounts, so not knowing I was banned, I posted in the same community with other accounts, thus three accounts are permanently banned....
Ooh this one’s new to me. I was just looking through my old sub lists while waiting for my GDPR data download from reddit and wondering if there was something like this. Thanks!
If you read just the next section that’s where the other shoe drops. Blockchain. It’s blockchain of course it’s blockchain because everyone there has tech bro brain rot.
Community Points
Community Points are the first step towards a better future for online communities. In order to be truly independent from platforms like Reddit, communities need to be owned by their members in ways that platforms cannot take away. With the advent of blockchain technology, we now have a way to establish this freedom in a decentralized and secure way.
As blockchain tokens that are owned and controlled by communities themselves — not by any app or platform — Community Points represent a way for Redditors to own a piece of their favorite communities. They are earned by making contributions to the community, like creating content and moderating. They not only represent ownership and reputation within the community, but can also be used for community governance, moderation, and unlocking premium features. They can even be used in custom tools outside of Reddit and on other platforms.
Most importantly, Community Points are a flexible tool that each community can shape to its needs. Each community has its own Points that it can customize with its own name, symbol, distribution rules, and uses. Every community has its own needs and we expect each to use Points differently and in novel ways that help take them to the next level.
The fediverse solves the decentralisation problem by enabling communities to operate around a basis of trust. Blockchain is antitrust. It is fundamentally built on an assumption that functioning communities cannot exist.
Blockchain solves a problem that doesn’t exist. Give me a problem that blockchain solves and I’ll consider it. A decentralised ledger is an ancient technology that has never needed immutability in order to work.
Also what odds would you give me on whether reddit don’t want to use this blockchain system for a grift? 1/100? 1/1000?
That’s the other problem with blockchain, the foundation of antitrust attracts grifters, because it is a technology that enables grifts. Immutable ledgers lock people in with no escape clause, so they fundamentally enable bigger fool scams. I hate fiat currency as much as the crypto bros, but at least it sometimes allows recourse for scam victims.
Go look at any crypto bro explain what’s so great about crypto currency. They hate fiat because it’s centralised. They basically say it gives the government too much power, not realising that it is an extension of already existing power and not the source of state power.
They’re mostly libertarian capitalists, and as far as I can tell they don’t understand how power works. It seems like they think currency and laws and capital are magic spells, so if you rip up the laws and replace the currency then you’ve dispelled the evil magic and you have liberated the people of Middle Earth.
That’s why they think crypto will work, and why they say “just get rid of the laws”. When you ask how to do that, they don’t know what you mean, because they literally think “get rid of the laws” is the method.
In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability. Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list. Such a move...
And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nalied to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever.
I’ve read that before, it’s probably why I phrased it that way, but I’ve never seen that skit of it. I have so many questions, like why they’re meeting in a diner and how they’re having this conversation without already understanding the concept of flapping meat noises.
That said maybe they have highly sophisticated automatic disguises a la some sort of holographic star trek translator badges, so maybe we’re seeing the disguises but they are a cloud of ionised gas and a vibrating rock respectively, and they’re so accustomed to moving about unnoticed that a diner is as good a place as any.
But obviously the comedy works better in a diner so it’s probably not worth breaking it down except to draw out all the absurdities. I love how the one guy thought his mid eastern dignitary outfit would be appropriate. Maybe they’re drawing from limited data about human culture and they really thought this would be the most innocuous way to talk in secret, because that’s how we do it in all of our noir films. That would explain the permanent obligatory cigarettes they both have.
In a new study, deepfake video clips of movie remakes that don’t actually exist prompted participants to falsely remember the films—but simple text descriptions of the fake movies prompted similar false memory rates. Gillian Murphy of University College Cork, Ireland, and Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre...
I love how the headline is the sensational part about “deepFAkEs crEATe FAlsE mEmorIeS!!!”, then when you get into the article it’s like, “but that’s nothing special we could already do that with text.” Oh okay great so the big new problem you implied in your headline is actually not really a thing at all.
Never change, science reporting.
Honestly, I personally would be more compelled to read an article that didn’t bury the lede, and simply put, “Deepfakes no more potent than text descriptions at creating false memories.” That’s not only the actual truth, it’s really interesting!
Someone posted this over on Reddit right when it happened and I apparently saved it. I’m cleaning out my bookmarks and came across it. I hought you’d like to see why it’s good news that we found Lemmy....
Oh thanks, I’ve just done that. I wrote a LOT of stuff in my time. I always thought it’d be good to look back and see how my positions changed and how I felt about my old thoughts. It was pretty annoying not to have a way to go back and actually read my stuff, even though they’re still hosting them and profiting off of them.
I’ll be honest most of it is anarchist propaganda so I’m in two minds as to whether or not to remove it. I’ll definitely get rid of the fun games stuff I posted and find a place here for it.
My kids showed me a compilation of skibidi toilet, and apart from the term that popped into my head, “slapstick horror”, which now that I think about it is basically jumpscares played for laughs, I couldn’t stop thinking about how this was definitely inspired by on the ground footage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Yes, I was in fact mistakenly referring to literal giant toilets attacking… checks notes… Russians… but I see now that the giant singing toilet heads are fictional and there could be no other way in which the two things are similar.
It’s genuinely compelling in a lot of weird ways. There’s a kind of magical realism in that every camera exists in-universe and is vulnerable to attack, and that’s thematically important becuase those cameras are symbolic of popular resistance, just like so many soldiers and others on the ground are documenting modern conflict through gopros. In fact it’s rare that they’re not killed. There aren’t really any heroes, just technology that wins for a time until the arms race renders it obsolete.
I’m really talking about how all the footage is similar to gopro and drone footage, which is how a lot of information about war comes to us these days. This is an especially strong theme where the resistance are the cameras, and the audience’s camera is always diegetic - meaning it literally exists within the story, it’s not a god’s eye view - and can be destroyed in combat.
Also the skibi toilets are very regimented and often proceed in formation like tanks on parade, whilst the cameras hide and take attacks of opportunity. It’s very much the image of a technologically superior force versus a guerilla resistance.
I’m happy if people disagree with this, it’s just an interpretation, obviously.
Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they’ve been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving…
Let’s start with where we seem to agree: I agree that having small niches within the fediverse is a good thing, and because of how it works it’s likely that that will be much easier to maintain here than it would in a centralised network where everyone is forced into the same large group by default. If you want an instance where you and your friends or niche community can connect privately, and still import posts from around the fediverse, you’re free to do that. The power of this system lies in its ability to accommodate any size of subnetwork without them becoming totally isolated.
Personally I’ve got a bunch of creative projects, and if I get to the point where I’m making major public releases, I’ve wondered how I plan to make a forum. I don’t really want it to be siloed away, and I don’t want it to be on someone else’s service where they could shut it down. The obvious solution is to start my own fediverse instance. That’s actually only just occurred to me. This is why I like debating these things - it helps me learn and clarify my thoughts. If we just agreed to disagree then that wouldn’t have happened. ;) Well, maybe eventually, but this conversation sparked that thought.
I imagine the growth of the fediverse is going to be slower than a comparable capitalist enterprise, because it doesn’t have the same insatiable need for growth. That’s an important consideration, and it’s why the sudden implosion of so many centralised corporate networks happening right now is important to the fediverse, because as that happens it will absorb more and more of the critical parts of those networks. It will grow, and because of its relative stability the more share it is likely to retain, until the mainstream is so fed up of riding the merry-go-round of imploding centralised options they will migrate here en masse.
Here’s where we still seem to disagree:
allowing lots of small entities and individuals to run servers, all adding up the level of capability that would take a lot of money for one single entity to maintain
What is that “level of capability” referring to? Because it sounds like you’re using the phrase “level of capability” to avoid saying the much simpler phrase, “size”. If it means something else, I’m curious to understand what you mean.
And I’m not arguing for my “personal preferences”. You’re the one that appealled to “Personally, I’m fine with the size the Fediverse has”, not me.
I’m talking about how social networks grow and how they influence each other. I’m talking about material reasons why the failure of reddit and other networks affects the fediverse on a fundamental level and giving you a clear A to B on how those effects occur. It’s fair to say, “but I like it smaller” and it’s similarly fair to say, “that’s irrelevant to my point”.
To use your analogy of the abusive ex… would you want someone to just never talk about the abusive ex? Never process the trauma? That’s what a lot of people are doing. Noticing that the abusive ex is imploding into a death spiral is kind of validating of your decision to leave. It’s part of the process. There’s no need to shame people for it.
And on top of that, it’s good that it takes time. The fediverse is still maturing. The slow changeover gives the new people time to contribute and make the place beter, and build capability for when serious numbers start to migrate.
People can contribute ideas, feedback, code, money for server costs and obviously content so when there is a bigger exodus there’s something here for new people to absorb.
This seems to me similar to what building dual power looks like, it’s just this is the digital version. A single cataclysmic moment of rupture isn’t a good thing unless there are structures in place strong enough to pick up the pieces.
They’ve had their time according to you but maybe people can make their own decisions? Also maybe just chill about it? You don’t have to listen, you don’t have to be here for any of the conversations.
Also you’ve created an entire community of family and friends with backstories so you can then tell me all these imaginary people want me to “stfu”, but apparently I’m the one “reading too much into the analogy”. I think you’re the one that just wants me to “stfu” but you don’t want to say it directly.
If you want me to stfu you can just block me, or just stop saying things directy to me that are blatantly wrong. Up to you ¯_(ツ)_/¯
And I don’t see what the age of the thread or the fact the poster agreed with you - although they don’t exactly, that’s another thing you’re wrong about - has to do with anything. I’m not here complaining about you talking, I’m pointing out how what you’re saying is wrong. You’re the one literally saying you want people to “stfu”. I’m glad you’ve at least owned it now.
Lemmy.world announces blocking communities via Discord [update]
This is in regard to Lemmy.world blocking piracy communities from other instances. This post is not about whether you agree with the decision. It’s about how the admins informed their users....
YouTube’s anti-ad blocking test gets even pushier with a new timer (www.androidpolice.com)
Suggestions for smaller-y games if I liked _______
I’ve had a great time playing some of the ‘smaller’ games lately: Dredge (adore this game so much), Dave the Diver, Cloudpunk, Stray, Octopath II, Observer....
ghorul (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
What are some equivalent communities to reddit's popular communities on Lemmy?
Was just banned from Reddit because I dared to use Tor (which I am using rn) and comment something. Since my account was new the mod banned me, I have 1k other reddit accounts, so not knowing I was banned, I posted in the same community with other accounts, thus three accounts are permanently banned....
The new system to replace Reddit coins and awards is here. You got out at the right time. (www.reddit.com)
Read all about it at the above link. There’s way too much to process here. This is going to be wild.
Beijing Superconductor Levitation Video Author Admits Fraud, Takes it Down (www.tomshardware.com)
Lemmy and Kbin: The Best Reddit Alternatives? (www.pcmag.com)
Love Reddit but tired of what's happening to it? We check out Lemmy and Kbin, two open-source fediverse alternatives that are growing fast.
France’s browser-based website blocking proposal sets a disastrous precedent for the open internet (blog.mozilla.org)
In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability. Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list. Such a move...
Spyware maker LetMeSpy shuts down after hacker deletes server data (techcrunch.com)
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/1088852...
Rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Deepfake videos prompt false memories of films in half of participants (www.eurekalert.org)
In a new study, deepfake video clips of movie remakes that don’t actually exist prompted participants to falsely remember the films—but simple text descriptions of the fake movies prompted similar false memory rates. Gillian Murphy of University College Cork, Ireland, and Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre...
This is real: Investing in what makes Reddit unique: Introducing Contextual Keyword Targeting and Product Ads - Upvoted (www.redditinc.com)
Someone posted this over on Reddit right when it happened and I apparently saved it. I’m cleaning out my bookmarks and came across it. I hought you’d like to see why it’s good news that we found Lemmy....
rule theory (media.discordapp.net)
What are you Watching? (August 2023) (lemmy.world)
Hello /c/sciencefiction lemmies. I’ve put together an image of some of the most discussed shows from July 2023....
Is there any evidence that Reddit has suffered at all from the exodus to Lemmy?
Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they’ve been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving…