greenskye

People have made millions off of photographs despite having zero training and only casually snapping the photo. You can get lucky, or the subject of your photo might be especially interesting or rare (such as from a newsworthy event).

I think we need something more nuanced than 'effort input'

Am I the only one who doesn't really feel that 30% is that ridiculous of a cut? Typical markups for retail are at least 50%. While steam doesn't have physical storefronts or retail staff, they do actually provide a lot of value with their software. Now other launchers I think we can argue aren't earning their 30% cut, but steam provides numerous useful APIs, community forums, mod hosting, built in social and multiplayer features above and beyond the simple distribution and payment processing required by a digital storefront.

My issue with unity's pricing is that it's cost a) isn't tied to how it's used and b) is unbounded. Let's take a game like terraria for example. If they had used unity to build it, terraria would now suddenly be on the hook for new charges related to their game. I would at most expect unity to charge for new versions of their software as they were used in development. If my game was completed years ago, why would I continue to owe them money for a completed transaction? Secondly, terraria is the sort of game where users might frequently uninstall and reinstall as new updates come out. I'm now disincentivized to make new updates (especially free updates) that might cause my users to reinstall my game and end up costing me more money.

Also helps for games with lots of grinding for resources. Get to just skip that with some basic editing (which is also why I don't watch much streaming content... why watch someone else grind for resources for hours on end?)

One summer in college I watched the first 500 episodes in an extreme binge session. Probably 18 hour days of nothing but one piece day after day. Then I ran out of episodes. I keep thinking I'll watch the rest someday, but I struggle up even remember most of what I watched back then. And now watching 1000 episodes feels like an impossible challenge

Not sure I believe this has already happened, but I certainly believe we're headed in that direction

Part of the issue is that ads are an escalating infection. Anytime a platform tries to implement 'sane' advertising practices (small footprint, no annoying sounds or motion, etc) it inevitably creeps into more and more abusive interactions with users. Just look at how bad YouTube has gotten. Look at how far Google search has fallen. Ads are like crack. You can't just do it a little bit. You get hooked and you keep escalating until you've ruined everything with it.

My only real issue with Roku is the lack of a decent Ethernet port on them. 100mbit ports are too slow for 2023

I tried to run an HTPC for awhile, but all the random restrictions and issues made it more of a hassle. Stuff like streaming sites capping the resolution when played through the PC, not native apps, etc. It really was a worse experience for me than a dedicated streaming box.

Part of the reason they can't compete is cause of all the bullshit roadblocks the existing players put in their way. This was made readily apparent anywhere Google fiber tried to rollout and all of the crap they had to deal with to just roll out fiber.

It's not that they don't have the money to install the infrastructure, it's that they don't have enough money to fight all the legal battles just to do their jobs.

Not that Google doesn't have it's problems, but personally I find Microsoft's actions in regards to bing and bing search to be more abusive of their monopoly than Google. Microsoft is abusing their position as the OS in order to push people into their other products when it isn't really feasible to switch for most people.

Ya, I just want to get content. I don't mind giving back to the community for it, but needing to figure out some sort of 'system' is too much. I'm not looking for a mini-game.

I hate the whole meta of private trackers. When I've joined a few in the past the whole focus on needing to keep up your ratio has been a larger barrier to downloading than leechers ever were on public trackers.

You can't seed because several users have seedboxes with perfect connections and already have a billion-to-one ratio. I 'theoretically' have access to all this content, but I'm downloading '80's workout video volume 7' in the hopes that I can actually seed it for someone to get enough ratio to actually download something I wanted to watch.

I was on what.cd back when that was still a thing, I poorly chose my first few downloads and then never had enough ratio to download anything else ever again until I was finally kicked for inactivity.

Instead of actually fostering a working seed economy, most seem to just replicate a capitalist dystopia where a handful of users hog all the seed slots, earning more ratio credits than they could ever use while everyone else desperately tries to scrape together enough ratio to get something of value.