Apple's shit is 100% automated with no human intervention

You're completely forgetting the hundreds of staff that are used to check each one of those applications put on the store. There is some automation for sure, but people still have to spend time to check the apps, even the free ones. The paid apps are compensating a lot for the lack of commission on all the free ones. For this reason, I don't mind the 30% fee on app prices.

When it comes to subscriptions and in-app purchases though, that is fully automated and just handles money transactions so it really should not be anymore than 2-3% like a credit card in my opinion.

Chrome's killer feature for me is built-in (not add-on) bookmark and settings synchronization across devices

The new Microsoft Edge can do this too. Just use your MS account when enabling sync. And it doesn't seem to create 40,000 copies of some bookmarks like Chrome did to me. Chrome literally hangs on my iPad for 5 minutes while it loads them up.

Another benefit is that Mobile Edge comes with built-in Adblock Plus so reading web pages is sane again. That and tracking prevention and third party cookie blocking. It's a major step towards being like the Brave browser except that it actually works well.

I used to scream this about e-book prices but they still sold for about the same as the hardcover versions. I finally had to come to terms that I was paying for the content of the story and not for the medium it comes on. Now, I just wish that when I decide to get the paper version, the digital version should be included for free. Same could apply for game discs.

I don't get it. Why would you play a game more than once?

Why does a sprinter run the same 100m over and over. To get a better score or time. Really depends if you're playing the game for the exploration and experience or the challenge.

Free market means without government interference.

No, free market means free to compete with your competition. Governments can step in with all sorts of regulation to make it an equal playground for companies to compete in. When one becomes a monopoly, government can legally step in and make adjustments as needed to restore competition.

In the pandemic case, government shut down all theatres so there is no one to compete against. It is still a fair playground for all the competitors since none of them are allowed to operate.

And just the fact people go outside more when it's warmer and are not so close together when outdoors probably reduces transmission a bit too.

I still havenâ(TM)t figured out why people anticipate needing so much of that for a respiratory infection

You don't need it for the infection. They think they're going to be stuck at home for a month and maybe not able to go to a store to pick up more before running out. Of course, now that the stores are sold out, they're sh... out of luck either way :^).

He has no problem with HBO and HBO has no problem with him. This is about Hotstar in India that is licensed to broadcast HBO content and THEY are censoring the show.

When you can get every gun carrying American to wear a smart phone that reports their GPS location once a minute to a similar system, then maybe you can ask for it for the drone users. A drone probably has a 0.001% chance of going near an airport and causing a problem, but people with guns kill people every day.

2427 guns deaths in the U.S. already this year, including 604 kids shot. Another 4210 gun injuries on top of that. A drone is not even worth people's time to worry about if you're concerned about safety.

This must be referring to the new weed growing industry in Canada! :^)

They are just the popular shows of their decade.

You're probably right because the last good sitcoms ever made were M*A*S*H, WKRP in Cincinnati, and Cheers!

Carlson: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

Yes, but the android one probably uses the mic to record your own farts without you knowing, counts the occurrences, and sends the data off to unknown marketing firms so they can advertise room deodorizers to you. :^)

2) We can develop alternative disposable utensil products that are strong enough to hold up to a meal but which break down in dozens of years instead of thousands of years.

You mean like chop sticks? In a country where everyone already knows how to use them, unlike me...

I'd say I'm actually for option 1. Parents should absolutely be in control of what their kids watch. I just don't believe kids are really being harmed at all by having their viewing habits recorded by YouTube. If you don't know somebody is recording your viewing history, how can it hurt you? YouTube should be neutral and just provide the service without deciding what content or ads are good or bad. Individual parents should do that for their own kids.

As for the targeted advertisements, if parents don't like them, then they shouldn't let their kids watch the channel. Or, they should have enough control over their kids to say "no, you're not getting any of that stuff being advertised to you". I saw ads on TV during Saturday morning cartoons for tons of stuff I would have loved to get as a kid and my parents had the intelligence to say "no". They didn't need the TV networks to decide for them or get laws passed to control what the networks could advertise.

Are there any research papers that have actually proven that kids are physically or mentally damaged by having data about them recorded, or by seeing targeted ads? I watched tons of TV as a kid (on my 3 channel TV) and was never damaged by advertising.

All of this sounds like junk science made up by adults who think they know what they're doing and it's going to cause real economic harm to the great creators on YouTube and other platforms. And that will be bad for the kids who won't have good content to watch and learn from anymore.