MystikIncarnate

Indeed. I have absolutely no way of knowing anything for certain.

I'm just screaming into the void from this hellscape we call Earth.

I'd bet that channel "members" don't get ads for that channel regardless of premium status.

IMO, Google made premium, almost nobody bought it. So they went after adblockers, hoping that people would get premium to get rid of the ads. People most just Adblock harder.

While this is happening, one exec is peering over the fence at twitch. Where they only way to get away from ads without a pretty good Adblock, is to subscribe to the individual creator.

So they make "memberships" to channels a thing.

Almost nobody buys that either. So they go... What if, even if someone is premium, we give them ads, unless they're a channel member.

Genius.

Paying to block ads per creator/channel/whatever, is a special level of bullshit that twitch has always had.

The system is working as expected. The companies are trying to find the best way to extract the most value from you using their platform.

I chalk most of the shit that makes teams horrible, is closely related to electron and their whole web app as a desktop app bullshit.

Buckle up, because they're doing that same enshittification to outlook next. It's already begun. There's a "new" Outlook. FML.

I think when the hype dies down in a few years, we'll settle into a couple of useful applications for ML/AI, and a lot will be just thrown out.

I have no idea what will be kept and what will be tossed but I'm betting there will be more tossed than kept.

Wait.... It's how much? For online access?

And others are more??

I'm a dedicated PC gamer, so I'm out of the loop on what's happening with consoles, but this seems nuts to me

Upvote for bitwarden. I love that service.

I especially love that you can host it yourself if you want. I don't do that right now, but I did in the past for a work thing. It's great.

I got Yt premium as a side effect of the Google one thing. I don't necessarily need the extra space I got the Google one thing for, but I'll probably keep it because I'm too lazy to clear out my storage and the side perks like Yt premium are probably worth more than I'm spending on one.

How dare you!

I don't mean to, I wasn't exactly looking at a comprehensive list of steam features when I wrote that. I'm sure I missed several of steam's very good features from what I listed.

My main point was, and still is, that the core thing that made steam stand out, has more or less stayed the same throughout its existence. You log in, buy, download, and launch games right from one really easy to use program, it manages all the particulars about product keys and saves, etc. So you can focus on playing the game rather than trying to get the game running.

There's a ton of other really good features that steam and valve in general have introduced, and I'm not trying to diminish the impact of those things.

While other games stores are pulling crap like exclusives to their platform, and requiring dumb shit like invasive spyware "anti-cheating" rootkits, steam has kept the basic formula the same, and doesn't restrict any major publisher from deploying something on their platform. Other developers will still delay making their games available on steam for one reason or another, but steam has been fairly neutral in what's published.

I am aware of some exceptions, so I'm not going to say it's entirely universal that anyone can publish anything to steam, but it's fairly rare that steam is preventing a game from being available on the platform.

That core purpose of steam has always been good. All the other stuff is almost always also good, but the core purpose of having steam installed is the same, or better then, when steam was first released.

The biggest thing that valve did that kept them in everyone's good graces is that steam's core functionality hasn't had any major changes in years. Dare I say, more than a decade.

It's a platform where you buy games, download them, and play them.

In the early days you still had to deal with all the bullshit, including third party launcher installs and crap to get things going, and over time, valve simplified all of that, making it easier than ever to take advantage of the core function of steam: buying, downloading, and playing games.

Literally the only improvement I can absolutely, positively credit them for, is making that entire process, easier, simpler, and quicker, than ever.

Sure, you can chat to people, track achievements, comment on your profile, comment on your friends profiles, buy and sell cosmetics on the market thing, even voice chat and I think they have a way you can stream your game to friends.... Not sure on that last one.

It's like Facebook, FB marketplace, FB messenger, discord, Twitter... And a bunch of other services, all huddled together to make a bastard child with the entire PC video game industry.... That's steam.

But the core mechanic that was always the main reason why steam was great, remains the same.

I made the foolish mistake of thinking things had finally started to make sense when Netflix happened, and I got my hopes up that going legit would be viable.

Oh well

I've been back to the high seas for a while.

Before I get into it, I'll give an honourable mention to the RIAA/music industry, which is largely just putting all of the music on every platform and letting users choose which one they want to use. This is the way, and I'm happy to pay one service to get access to the stuff I actually want to hear.

Back to video/MPAA. Are you all on crack? I saw this coming back when Netflix was the only licensed media game on the internet.... I was subscribed and enjoying some shows, the shows then.... Went away, they disappeared. After looking into it, the show I was enjoying was pulled when a copyright was revoked by the publisher, so Netflix no longer had the right to distribute the show.

I saw the writing on the wall. That publisher was going to make their own Netflix competitor with their stuff on it, to try to extort more profit from the streaming stuff. Clearly their c-suite thought that people would be willing to pay for just their content separately from Netflix. I saw that writing and noped right the fuck out. Grabbed my tri-point hat and flag from storage and set sail, and I've never looked back.

The copyright holding asshats, ruined internet streaming, because everyone wanted to be their own thing. They splintered the entire online streaming thing into a bunch of disparate platforms all with some subset of the media available via streaming. It's worse than cable, honestly.

IMO, the only good move that's happened for streaming (but horrible for so many other reasons) was Disney gobbling up all the other media studios and production companies, then putting all their stuff on one service. There's a few holdouts, but by and large the two biggest players right now are Netflix (the OG) and Disney (+)... So a bunch of good media ended up on D+, and so it's kind of "the" streaming service... For better or worse (mostly worse, as OP points out).

I'm still firmly on my ship, sailing the high seas. Unless they go the way of music, and allow all shows on every platform and you pick your platform based on your preferences, I'll stay on this ship. Thanks.