The weather and the economy are notorious for their bad (often hilariously bad) predictions. It does feel a bit farcical to put much stock in a study purporting to know how one will affect the other 25 years in the future.
I disagree with her on probably most things, but she's right on this. TurboTax is aggressive, and you could make an argument for predatory.
Others correctly point out that people are free to use something else, but I question how much that matters. Fact is, TurboTax is the most popular service, commanding 73% market share in 2021. When a company becomes that dominant, I think it's worth looking into their practices to make sure they're above-board.
That all said, I will probably disagree with her over what regulation, if any, should be done. I think the IRS should absolutely have its own system, and it's bonkers it's taken so long just to get a pilot program going (and one that can't even cover everyone in the states in which it's available). Better education of the public on available services would also help. TurboTax should be allowed to upsell and offer premium services, but they should be prevented from using any dark patterns.
IANAL as well, but some of the claims just seem bizarre to me. "Restricting the flow of speech" on their 7% market share streaming service? Really? Complaining about green bubbles? It feels like parody at times
I'm also really curious to see how the strategy of redefining the market to be "high performance smartphones" and focusing on revenue instead of market share will pan out. Taken to its logical extreme, the first argument would seem to establish bad precedent if allowed.
Where are you getting the idea OP is horrified?
If they want it to default to showing a diverse spread when context doesn't specify, I think that's fine. It might make me roll my eyes a little bit when that spread inevitably doesn't reflect reality, but we're talking generic humans here, and I recognize that that eye-roll is probably on me. There's nothing wrong with it showing me a spread when I just ask for "people". In fact, it might be laudable.
Where it gets absurd and wrong, of course, is when the diverse spread is enforced when context is specified. Racially diverse Nazis are getting the headlines here, but just a simple "show me a white scientist" was also producing racially diverse images. That's dumb and wrong. And it gets worse when we see that it enforces the correct racial context in non-white situations (e.g. it won't show you white Zulu warriors, even when asking for them, because that's not reflective of reality).
This feels like yet another instance where efforts to be sensitive, non-racist, etc. actually had the opposite effect. It's pretty funny. Frustrating and cringe-inducing, but funny.
As for avoiding "dangerous" prompts
The Xbox hasn't supported HD-DVD since the 360 era, and even that was only with the purchase of an add-on.
This playful exploration highlights the potential for exceeding perceived limitations in digital formats.
This is exactly the type of thing ChatGPT et al tend to say.
It's no surprise to see China doing what it's been doing for ages. What is surprising is that the Hugos would invite the controversy of being hosted there. I tend not to put much stock in the Hugo/Nebula/Locus/whatever awards just due to personal preferences (there are some great books on those lists, but also some books I thoroughly disliked), but I can't help but feel like this is a step on the road toward irrelevancy.
You don't have to pay, no. You can file them yourself, use a free service, or pay someone. All three options have their benefits/drawbacks. (I'm not saying it's a good system, just setting the record straight.)
What benefit is there to the customer to constantly top off a gift card instead of paying cash?
Anyway, this is very common behavior, and it's always scummy. Microsoft did it with XBLA points back in the day. Nintendo did it, too. Basically every single scummy gacha game does it. I'd love for this practice to be abolished.
There are plenty more reasons to stop using LastPass than just the most recent breach.
I'm just confused a country north of the equator wants to be the leader of "the global south".
"Racing to the bottom" means cutting corners to offer the lowest possible price. Curbing password sharing isn't a race to the bottom. It's not even ethically objectionable, because a subscription company has every right to make sure that the people using the service are in fact paying for it. The free ride was nice while it lasted, but nobody complaining has a leg to stand on.
The answer is "it depends". Many users were unwittingly on less-secure schemes.
I donâ(TM)t know about the Xbox, but the PS5 is quite quiet.
"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" -- button at a Science Fiction convention.
