imapuppetlookaway
Just by coincidence i'm watching a gameranx video about the 10 worst AAA games, and Falcon says the same thing about games as a service (subscriptions, micro-transactions, etc.): "it seems like they're playing a game of chicken with the consumer to see what they can get away with".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8jDgkikylY
(start at 19:45)
British panel (game) shows like Would I Lie to You and 8 out or 10 Cats Does Countdown. The game element is just an excuse for funny, interesting people to crack jokes and have a good time.
I got them on Firefox with Ublock Origin but only with my VPN on US or Canadian servers. Then a few days later, even on those servers they disappeared. Haven't seen one since those first few.
Good point. Sleepwalking into authoritarianism doesn't seem difficult these days.
The only time i tried online dating apps to the point of actually talking to another human i met a young woman and we exchanged a few messages then arranged a phone call. On the phone she wouldn't stop talking. It was pretty amazing, this flood of words pouring from her. I supposed it was because she was nervous, but still - being pretty pessimistic about the whole online dating thing to begin with - figured this would never work out because her non-stop talking was starting to weird me out a little. Not in a terrible way, just a little.
Anyway, she was going on and on about her job but was carefully avoiding any details that might identify where she worked, i guess so as to stay safe by not revealing too many personal details to a stranger. Somehow, though, I figured it out. She told me what area of the city she lived in, and i got enough details about the kind of work she did that i said something like: "Oh, you work at the Goodwill on blahblah street" and then there was dead silence. The flood of words stopped. We hung up soon after that. I felt really cool about guessing her workplace, like a detective, thinking i'd impressed her with my mind, but it wasn't until years later that it dawned on me that i'd weirded her out even more than she weirded me out. A double oblivious weird out.