gila

In general I would agree, but as it pertains to Youtube adblock blocking - there is no gradual slide into degradation (apart from perhaps to do with the implementation of ads itself, though I'd argue they're less obtrusive now than in their original implementation many years ago).

There is fundamentally no way to adblock-block today which does not involve collecting info in a way that causes obvious privacy concerns. It's not somewhere Google can get to by taking little steps. The adblock-blocking that's been happening to date is easily circumvented. Logically an arms race between adblockers and adblock-blockers will ensue, except in practice it'd be like raising the stakes from a civil war re-enactment to actual nuclear war

Google's desperation to show tracked ads is but one vector in the equation which determines longterm viability for watching Youtube ad-free for free. There are also other vectors to consider like the level of obtrusion required to actually effectively adblock-block, and its related effect on the userbase. And also just the level of inconvenience presented by ads, determined by their length, skippability etc.

The proportion of the userbase blocking ads is still relatively negligible, and this is an outcome manufactured by Google toeing the line between too obtrusive and too ineffective. Any measure I can imagine which would actually capture a significant portion of users blocking ads would also significantly skew the balance in favour of obtrusivity, which they would pay for in lost users.

As long as many users are happy to continue being vigilant in blocking ads, IMO this balance will ensure blocking ads will remain feasible.

There is no purpose for using the word 'grape' as a substitute for 'rape' other than to avoid tiktok moderation. It contains the full original word, therefore doesn't serve any censorship purpose. Using it this way can even recontextualise the word in a way that trivialises SA. It's harmful, unlike lol or lmao.

There's a whole tiktok-only meta where people think that adding particular tags or censoring certain words will prevent automod from deleting their post

I'm not sure it even works that way, but it's very common

Literally swap the word Fediverse in that pinned post for Lemmy and you'll get more engagement with it. Because you're right, even if the current reddit user has heard of lemmy and mastodon, they still most likely don't know what the fediverse is, don't understand the site linked to is a lemmy instance / reddit alternative. Subbed to [email protected] btw, if the current activity there can be sustained I think it'll shape up to be a nice community

Yeah, I think it depends heavily on your recent experience. The Pixel 7 experience is much improved over my previous 2020 Xiaomi phone, but the SoC is only marginally better. Software optimizations and ditching MIUI seem like just as big of a factor in the improvement, if not the main factor. If I'd had another flagship in-between those devices maybe I'd find Pixel 7 performance lacking too, it's simply the most performant smartphone I've used.

Affiliate marketing is what they're doing under "Hustler's university". Probably the same thing.

The clause is:

If we make changes to this Agreement, you are not required to accept the amended Agreement, and this Agreement will continue to govern your use of any Licensed Technology you already have access to. However, if we make changes to this Agreement, you will not be allowed to access certain Epic services or download the Licensed Technology unless you have accepted the amended Agreement.

My understanding is this is fundamentally different to the Unity clause you're pointing out.

Another thing is that Unreal is ~~open source~~ source accessible. If there's a bug in 5.0 that is resolved in 5.1 but you don't want to accept the amended terms for 5.1, it's possible to fix the bug and build the engine yourself. In the event of a significant change like the one with Unity, I imagine some dev group would just fork it and maintain it themselves.

It's allowed by a specific clause in their TOS which assigns a EULA version dependent on the engine version. The EULA itself is different for different versions.

The point is that devs choosing to stay on an old version would not be good for Epic, so they are unlikely to directly create the circumstances where that is the logical result.

It's like you're making all these connections and then still coming to the conclusion that my premise is false. Yeah, the 2.0 controller is bad, because the choices Apple made to design the iPhone 15 SoC weren't about bringing new features to users. They are about posturing features in a particular way for business reasons. Churning through models means each year they need new features to sell. They need to introduce compelling new features at a faster rate than they are being developed, so they drip-feed them instead. And if you actually care about getting the baseline i/o upgrades on new models you'd get from literally any other manufacturer, you have to buy a Pro.

Epic allows devs to stay under the license terms for specific versions of the engine. If they started charging for installs, devs can just use the older engine versions and avoid the charges.