And to me, that is the point. Anyone can set up their own reddit/subreddit and run it however they want. Yes, it makes things more chaotic, but that is the trade off. Reddit will always be there, but people have to play by their rules. What's nice imo is that if anyone doesn't like it, they can go do their own thing. It may or may not be better but at least there is an option now.

It has enough users now that many of the main communities are relatively active, news/politics/technology/gaming/porn/memes etc. The niche communities are still not quite there. Sync for Lemmy was just released so the app situation has really improved. The interactions I've had have been mostly friendly. It'll take awhile to get out of its beta phase, but that's with any new social site/community.

Same here. This whole binary winning/losing thing is so odd. What the reddit/twitter/facebook issues did best were to get enough people to look for and come up with alternatives. Lemmy, Mastodon and other federated services are giving alternatives to people who like the social concepts of twitter/reddit/facebook/Instagram but who don't like the providers. These alternatives are just that, they are not there to "win" but to be developed a different way for a different audience. People are free to decide where they want to spend their time, it's just nice to have choices now.

Could be like others said that people use their phones for internet a lot more now.

Another reason may be that T-Mobile, Verizon and Starry are all currently offering no data cap wireless home internet plans for around $50 with no contracts or equipment fees. With 5G being rolled out, charging $50 a month is a good deal for 100Mbs or more speed unlimited plans. In the rural areas, Starlink and OneWeb are going to compete with these companies as well in the near future. This long running internet monopoly is about to be tested with wireless 5G and satellite internet. Hopefully the price fixing/gouging will finally end in this horrid industry.

Blackberry have had BBM as a messenger longer than anyone in the mobile phone business. I know it's easy to make uneducated snap judgements, but in this case it may be wise to wait and see what the findings are before we jump to conclusions on this lawsuit. Since people are piling in Blackberry already without even knowing what patents are in question:

http://variety.com/2018/digita...

Patents:

U.S. Patent Nos. 7,372,961; 8,279,173; 8,209,634; 8,301,713; 8,429,236; 8,677,250; and 9,349,120

Titles I can find:

System and method for silencing notifications for a message thread

Transmission of status updates responsive to status of recipient application

Handheld electronic device and associated method providing time data in a messaging environment

Previewing a new event on a small screen device

User interface for selecting a photo tag

Method of public key generation

While that was true at the time, that issue has been mitigated with wifi calling. I think that is the direction that this is going, not toward using cell tower signals.

So people having the right to eat and being paid in a timely manner is bad for business? Unfortunately to counter your point, California has the largest economy in the US, so these laws are obviously not bad for business.

I think we need to be careful lumping fake news with left and right leaning bias. Bias is a narrative based on facts. Fake news is fabricated facts to fit a narrative. Many times, the two are difficult to tell apart. Any news site that leans predominantly one way or another is suspect of one or the other. CNN and Fox news will many times have the same stories which report facts, but with the difference being their narrative. Fake news will not be on either website but will still have a left or right leaning narrative. Most news is unfortunately opinion pieces to fit a particular echo chamber depending on the audience. Fake news is a form of fraud in my opinion, and the only place for it is The Onion. While there should be fact checking of all stories on the internet, I'don't believe that it's the job of the government to police the content. Sadly it doesn't seem to be the job of corporate owned news anymore either. It's up to the readers now to sniff out the bullshit and call news sites on fake news. It's the price we pay for getting free news instead of paying for it. We now get the quality of news that we pay for. Free means click bait that prays on fear, echo chamber and entertainment, with little time spent on fact checking or depth of content. Someone has to pay the bills of journalists, and it stopped being the readers awhile ago.

Let's play this narrative out out with Democrats "rigging" elections. 32 governors are Republicans. House and Senate have been and continue to be both controlled by Republicans. This equates to the most failed rigging ever by Democrats. The House has 239 of 435 seats as Republicans, 55% control. The popular vote was 60 million for Republicans and 57 million for Democrats in the House equates to a 51% majority for Republicans. The facts do not fit the rigging narrative. Republicans handed the Democrats another ass kicking in the elections. Crying foul after winning is like playing a victim when you win. It just does not work.

That's great that you can watch DirecTV on your phone without data charges. However, this is also the reason why Antitrust laws exist. It means someone on T-Mobile and DirectV doesn't have this option and has to pay extra. This does not promote competition, nor is it beneficial for net neutrality. If this merger happens you will probably be able to watch HBO too at a discount. This merger is exactly what antitrust laws are meant to curtail. It may be convenient for the consumer in some ways, but it is anti competitive. "These Acts, first, restrict the formation of cartels and prohibit other collusive practices regarded as being in restraint of trade. Second, they restrict the mergers and acquisitions of organizations that could substantially lessen competition. Third, they prohibit the creation of a monopoly and the abuse of monopoly power."

Good news is that it was not a fault of the ground system and the launch pad so launching from Pad 39 where the falcon heavy is supposed to launch from is an option. The bad news is that it's a second stage issue with the falcon rocket again. This second mishap will make it much harder to qualify the rocket for manned NASA missions and for critical payload Air Force missions.

I was reading this as The Plague from hackers.

... Said "Just say no to drugs". Why is it not working? Oh, the problem is more complex than the over simplified political drivel. Treatment and education is much more difficult to implement than incarceration, albeit cheaper and less profitable ...

There are many people here complaining about not getting content anymore or not having enough content on Netflix. But many forget that it is as easy as a few clicks to suspend their Netflix accounts and move on to other avenues. I distinctly know that if I want to unsubscribe from BBC for example with my content provider because I don't watch it any more, I have to cancel their service all together. Which, by the way takes days of talking to customer support and sending or taking back the cable box. I understand that people have complaints about Netflix and some have moved on from it, but let's take a step back for a second and realize that getting Netflix or getting rid of it is such an easy choice now, and we don't have to subscribe to a hundred useseless channels to get it. Yes the number of titles shrank, but I can subscribe for a month to watch house of cards and daredevil, unsubscribe, and subscribe to HBO for game of thrones for a month, and not have to deal with Comcast and pay 100 a month to do this. Things can be always better, but I know they are already much better than ten years ago.