I'm not sure they're smart enough for that.

Amen to that.
They won people's hearts by giving the user power over their browser functionality and looks. And they lost it by taking it away. I still like and use Firefox too but they'd do so much better if they stopped trying to be Chrome. They're already small enough to afford acting like a 'niche' browser for power-users again.
Why cater to users who 'might get confused because of complex features' when all those users are already using Chrome anyway?

Now now, it seems we've achieved high enough a level of misanthropy to skip it and move straight to humans. All you really need the right political environment to indemnify you of all legal consequences and you can test just about anything on humans. I mean, we were already doing it, but back then, we had to factor in the cost of lawsuits and fines into the economic planning. That investment in better PR really paid off, we can even get people pissed off at anyone who points it out.

If you invent something and somehow manage to patent it, pray it is just useless enough that the cost of buying you is lower than the cost of completely ruining you financially while trying to defend it in court against MegaCorpX.

The usefulness of your invention should be its own payout and you don't need a patent for that. Most patents nowadays are used as weapons, defensive or offensive. They don't have a whole lot to do with compensating individual inventors. Instead they're about crushing anyone who comes up with a similar way of solving their problem.

Irony is that one of those shows called Black Mirror shows pretty well where we're headed... Or in many cases, where we are at this point.

They're trying to make a product and they're always going to be out-coded and out-budgeted on that front. Chrome/edge have teams and teams of people deciding "this or that decision is going to work" with god knows how much market research to back it up. They can and are much more successful at imposing their vision of what a web browser should be.

Mozilla is foolishly trying to do the same thing when they simply do not have the skills, or market clout to do so. They should be giving their users the tools to decide for themselves what a browser should be like, which is what is sorely lacking in the market today. This is where they used to shine and still could if they stopped trying to copy the bigger players.

In ye olden days, we made paper from the sawdust and wood chips too.

To be fair, while we do have years of followup data on other vaccines, I don't think we have as long a history with mRNA vaccines. Honest question, anyone knows about them being used on any significant scale besides COVID? Assuming there isn't one, I suspect 1 and 2 aren't as relevant to this case.

I'd love to know who taught you economics.

A free market economy is a system by which every exchange of value is voluntary. It is an ideal that may not be practical, and certainly not what we have today. That being said, if you're going to build a cynical view of capitalism, I suggest you consider the ideal it is based upon and more importantly why and how we stray from them.

Since compulsion is not allowed within the market, it is relegated to the state through force of law. Hopefully via democratic processes. As such, the free market cannot take property, effort or value out of anyone's pockets who doesn't want it taken, only the state can do this. If you're complaining that evil capitalists are making everyone else poor, start looking at the laws that force money out of some people's pockets and and into others. You will find no capitalism there, just criminals and useful idiots willing to legislate themselves and their friends unfair access to the state's monopoly on force.

Yeah.
Besides, I bet all those pictures are photoshopped anyway.

What I find most horrible is that if I *pay* for Netflix or Prime (and I do), I cannot watch high-quality (1080p/5.1 audio) with my computer or any device that isn't Widevine L1 super-DRM approved.

It's odd that if I were to pirate those same shows, I'd get the better quality ones without fear that they'd get removed upon catalogue refresh. I have yet to hear of an instance where Widevine restrictions actually prevented a pirated copy from being available.

I agree with you. I was mostly just pointing the problem with the concept of a protect class other than 'human' when it comes to law. Because regardless of it being done for good or ill, it makes laws apply differently for certain groups of people. As such are contradictory to their stated purpose, if perhaps in a more socially acceptable way.

As a gross oversimplification. Member of group A breaks law by punching member of group B. Penalty should be the same as if A and B were reversed. Having A be penalized differently whether because they're part of a different class or B is part of a different class is wrong, plain and simple. Be that because of social/cultural norms or poorly written laws. Slapping extra penalty on A because B is a protected class is no different from slapping a lesser penalty because A is part of a protected class. Trying to counterbalance that by swapping A and B just makes sure it's wrong both ways.

The only logical solution is to have a single protected class and put everybody in it. We'll call it 'humans' for simplicity.

Just to clarify here. Are you saying that there are classes of people who don't have to follow the same rules as everyone else? If so, how would you reconcile that with ideals of equality? Because that would sound like some animal farm 'more equal than others' bullshit to me.

I'm technically part of a minority, do I have to wait until they make best-selling documentary about how oppressed we are to get my special treatment too? Should we hire a PR firm? What's the threshold? What happens if a protected class starts oppressing another protected class? Do we create a new level of super-protected class?

How dare you!? That only applies to competitors!

Someone just as deluded as you on the other side will argue the same about CNN. You're both being played and it stopped being entertaining a long time ago. Qannon pots, meet antifa kettles. Keep fighting each-other and be sure not to notice the people who are laughing at you while billions get poured into their industries.

"Oh but our new president is going to put an end to that! If only the assholes on the other side didn't get in his way", you will claim, just as they have. Replace the impotent racist cheeto by the half-senile guy wrote what became the patriot act. Drink all that false hope kool aid until the failures start stacking up and blaming the predecessor isn't enough.

The only real change this time around is that both sides are entirely convinced the other is absolutely irredeemable. Good luck fixing that one. I'd recommend a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but nobody's going to actually read it.