It's because they're assumed to have a somewhat more progressive- and liberal-leaning member base. You'll notice that the CEOs of X, Meta, or TikTok haven't been called.

He wasn't even painting Kirk in a bad light. The people he criticised were those who impiously try to gain political capital out of a young man's death. He barely touched on the political aspect of it, just the hypocrisy and lack of morals.

Wasn't there a recent post (may have been on HN, though) about how Fiverr is seeing a surge in people selling "vibe code cleanup" services, and creative works to those who want to have their stuff not look identical to everybody's AI slop?

"Show me the shovelware". People keep claiming they're successful with this shit, but barely anybody wants to show their results. The few who did, tend to be hilarious.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the evidence I see.

> There is no abandoment here. You can still buy Sinatra on Amazon.

There very much is. I don't know the percentage off the top of my head, but a large part of the 78 Project is music (especially the specific versions) that has never been digitised before, and isn't for sale anywhere, except if you can find a copy of that original shellac. That was pretty much the point.

Since the archive doesn't seem to be completely inaccessible, I suspect the deal they reached is that the labels can make entries inaccessible that they have decided to reissue.

> If it were anything to do with preserve, they wouldn't be streaming it and only keeping it on file.

Nothing is truly preserved if it can't be shared with the public. Having the revords preserved at the IA would be better than preserved in a publisher's vault -- but only slightly so.

> All we do know, is that the "archive" acted in a napster like pirate fashion by dl'ing copyright works

Entirely untrue.

> and depriving the rightful owners of those copyrights royalties from those works.

As mentioned, the labels were not looking to sell copies of most of these records in any way. There were no lost royalties due to those. Even in the case of those tracks still available from the rightsholders in some way, it would be very difficult to argue how a crackly 78rpm recording is eating into the sales of an official, maybe remastered release. I assume the labels knew this well, which is why they didn't sue for a more ridiculous amount, and now settled for less.

> There is no lawful public benefit to its existence.

I'm sorry, but what? Do you know how many people rely on the IA, including professionals? They're how journalists, lawyers, actvists etc. are able to work despite the transient and fickle nature of the web. They're the only custodians of much of human history of the past 3 decades. Without the IA, future historians would just see a black hole of nothing when looking back at our times.

> And I know I am a lone voice on this platform, but lets hope this is the beginning of the end for ia.

I'd say I'm pretty much on the extreme opposite end of that spectrum. The IA might be the only website left that I truly consider worth preserving. If I could save just one website, it would definitely be the IA -- I probably wouldn't shed much of a tear if the rest of the web disappeared. Not much of value has appeared there in the past decades, and the IA has the good stuff from before it all turned to shit.

No-good kids! That would never have happened back in my day...

That reminds me how as teenagers, a friend and I injected a self-written "trojan" into the image which all classroom computers were reset with weekly (Norton Ghost, I think). It allowed us to put messages on the screens, open the CD-ROM drives, etc. of other computers during class.

I was pretty scared when they found out and I got a letter home, inviting me to a conversation with the head of the computer lab. I was sure I'd be kicked from the school.

Instead, he told us that he appreciates our interest and creativity, but that he'd prefer if we expressed it with more productive projects.

It wouldn't work. People won't even open the listing of a business with a poor rating, let alone click through to their website. If you're looking for a restaurant in the area -- if you aren't already filtering by 4.5 stars and up -- would you not first look at the ones with the best ratings?

This is overwhelmingly untrue.

Take restaurants, for example. Most of them can't survive on regular customers alone. They need the spontaneous guests and tourists. The majority of those check Google Maps for where to go. If you're not active enough on Google Maps, or your rating is too low, you're invisible to them.

These aren't "horrible customers". They're just non-locals, or locals wanting to try something new. And they can't consider places they don't know exist.

The influence Google Maps listings have on such businesses is insane. A friend of mine opened a food take-out place, and was struggling to build a customer base. I figured out a mistake he had made in categorising his Google Maps listing, which made him almost never show up when people looked for food places in the area. The week after it was fixed, his sales practically doubled.

Review bombing can totally have a massive effect in the other direction. And I know from other friends in the restaurant business how much of a hassle it can be to have obviously fake reviews removed. The threat of this extortion scheme is real and can make small business owners fear for their livelihoods.

A major one I know about is that they're tied to the device. You can't change your SIM to a cheaper phone for going on vacation, or swap it with a replacement if you lost or broke your phone. Every switch means having to ask your provider to provision a new SIM.

I don't see them as in the same league. Schwarzenegger looks old now, obviously, but not out of shape and one donut away from a clogged artery.

Otherwise, agree. And despite finding zero things to defend about Trump and his politics, I also hope he makes it through the term -- Vance being president is much scarier than Trump, mentally present or not.

Nobody apart from you cares.

I'd wager that if we held a poll about banning either rsilvergun or you from this site, you'd be kicked out in a landslide vote. People are tired of your bizarre, petty obsession. You're a spammer, plain and simple.

If I observe some of the politics and social dynamics happening in "superpower" countries like the USA, Russia, or China, I feel quite happy to live in a calm, boring oblivion country. If the standard of living is good, and there is good food, natural landscapes, culture, healthcare and social cohesion, I don't see a big problem if others consider the place irrelevant for some reason.

Well, I'm European (Swiss) and can kind of relate to that last part. I often find people who take their hobbies too seriously unpleasant to be around, so I actively seek out other company. Even if it's a hobby I share.

There's no deep reason behind that. I like doing things I enjoy to enjoy myself. Actively aiming for some goal makes me enjoy it a lot less. And the people who go about it that way make me feel like they're always trying to prove something, which I find exhausting.

To give a concrete example, I really enjoy cycling. On a free day, I often just hop on and go explore in a new direction, stopping at places I like. Some of my friends and co-workers also cycle, but they're "serious" about it. When we talk about it, they genuinely seem to try but don't get me. But if you ride like that, you're not even getting in a decent number of kilometres! Why would you ride there when there's no elevation? And what do I mean, I'm not practicing for something?

I would not go on a cycle trip with them. We wouldn't get along.

Out drinking? I do that, but not too regularly, and not excessively. I just really enjoy my spare time more if I do relaxing stuff with people who also just like to enjoy life and don't overthink stuff.

It's it a European thing? I don't know, but I guess I fit your stereotype quite well.

... it's a small additional hurdle, but every bit counts.

However, from personal experience, Microsoft don't seem to be the biggest problem. For about half a year now, more than 95% of all phishing mails I get, across dozens of hosts, privately and on honeypots, have been coming from Google Cloud and Firebase. They don't seem interested in doing jack all about that. Google servers are on fire on blocklist, and I'm sending automated abuse reports by the boatload, but nothing ever changes. The same Google servers keep churning out the spam by the millions for months on end.

It fits my impression with web blocklist. Obvious phishing sites I report to Microsoft Defender are usually blocked within a few minutes to hours in Edge (I retest automatically and regularly after reporting). When I report "sekure-coinbase-10gin.biz" to Google Safe Search, they often still haven't blocked it a month later (some phishing sites are genuinely up for that long).

Well, at least there's one good change: more customisation for the Start menu. Speaking from purely a UX perspective, the new "our way or the highway" taskbar and Start menu are the most abominable part of the overall abomination that is the Windows 11 GUI.

There's still no way in hell I'd ever migrate my Windows 10 desktop unless they allow moving the task bar to the side of the screen again. It's not 1995 anymore. People use something called "widescreen monitors".