That depends who was paying.

OK, now I respect the Chinese government's troll move.

I don't get it. What's your issue with Spotify that you imagine Amazon, of all companies, is better at?

Spotify pays poorly per play, but per play is a rotten metric.

Payout works the same (all subscription fees are pooled, then paid out according to total plays) so music services are "punished" according to the payout-pet-play metric for connecting people to the music they will listen heavily to.

The best services on on this metric, will be services which most subscribers don't even use - maybe because they don't even know they have it because they got it bundled with their cable TV etc. Obviously this is not sustainable or desirable.

I have sympathy for artists, and little for Spotify. But it's also artists who are primarily responsible for the authoritarian copyright mess we have today, from Sonny and Cher to Jean-Michel Jarre to Metallica. Not sure I like the revolutionaries more than the old regime. Especially when they push garbage metrics like payout per play, and their most usual solution boils down to "you should pay me, not all those others you listen to" or "you should listen to less music besides me".

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

That's right! Trump and his administration are certainly seeking control over media with more hamfisted, overtly threatening means.

But do you remember project jigsaw?

Back in the glory days, the government didn't have to threaten Google. They leapt at the opportunity to please them. They pretty much came to them asking, "where do you want your people installed?". In neoliberal philosopher Tim Snyder's terms, they certainly obeyed in advance. The aggressive punishment of people with even mild takes like "you should take the vaccine but we shouldn't force people to take vaccines" was probably not even government's idea, but the idea of small people eager to show which side they were on.

Are we better off now that the velvet glove is off? Not by much, honestly. But there's no way ahead where you don't come to terms with how damn bad the Biden-era responsible centrist consensus was.

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

No, communism isn't mentioned there either.

I don't see a mention of communism in the post you're replying to.

And where do the lines go?

Answer: Wherever we make them. It's us who make the rules, not nature. Nature doesn't care about the difference between you and a rock, because nature doesn't care, period.

So the question isn't what's the "correct definition", whether it's of man, woman, mutant freak, whatever. Definitions aren't right or wrong, they're just useful or not, to the people who use them.

> you will never breastfeed an infant with your body

It's a bit disturbing, but that one is a "maybe". Or maybe a "hopefully not". Men have the biological machinery to make breastmilk, just not in very large amounts.

That's not even the real story here. What's the real story is that someone got tasked with making stylized thumbnails, made a really good job of it, then some middle manager got a bit jealous and decided that guns in a James Bond thumbnail was not Guideline Compliant, and put their mark on it by scissoring it out. Who do you think you are, coming here and making art on the job? Corporate dysfunction 101. News for nerds, unless you've all grown into jealous middle managers yourself.

And this was pointed out immediately, but media seems to have decided WE'RE GOING WITH THE FOREIGN DESTABILIZATION PLOT AND THAT'S FINAL!

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.