That's how lawsuits work. You got after one major target and the ruling results in mandates or requirements for entire industries.

No, that's not how it works everywhere.

It doesn't matter that it is new. It matters that people actually know about it now. Which they do. And they really, really don't like it for many very, very good reasons.

You can thank Meta for announcing to the world that this tech exists.

I disagree. There are mountains of information about a company from its many earnings calls, to open audited reports, historical stock prices, and effects of competition of anticipated buy/sell habits of other investors. This is "investment".

There is minuscule public (non-insider) information about medical trials. This is "gambling".

These two statements of yours seem to be at odds. The existence of gambling markets instigate change by those being gambled upon.

https://www.ncaa.org/media-cen...
https://www.espn.com/college-f...
https://www.ncaa.org/media-cen... ...

And on and on.

I honestly don't care about OnStar or "Super Cruise" subscriptions... and some level of subscription is reasonable.

OnStar probably has thousands of employees and significant hardware/infrastructure expenses. Those expenses likely go up annually. A subscription is reasonable for this service. Also, if you don't even want OnStar in the first place, don't get it.

Super Cruise is Chevy's hands-free-but-eyes-on-the-road cruise control (basically level 3 Autonomous Vehicle). That's an extremely complex system requiring consistent and on-going software updates and backend development. I think it would be cool to have one for a month or so... or maybe to help take the edge off of a very long drive, but I don't want to pay the lifetime expense of it upfront as part of my automobile purchase unless I plan to use it. Again, a subscription here seems rational.

Because comparably few people actually have the time to figure out what their TV (or the TVs from other brands) are doing aside from displaying video and emitting audio.

I give it no more than 2 weeks before it becomes common knowledge that LG is worse than Samsung. Not only do their newer computer monitors automatically install adware on your computer without your permission or notice, but not their smartTVs will stop allowing you access to apps if you use a proxy in your own damn house and on your own damn network.

How financially desperate must they be?

Ya, this is just awfulizing repeating an online mantra. To be fair, it CAN be like that in a non-union, private company *especially*, if you're not a particularly valued worker. But if you work in the public sphere (for a city, county, state, federal government, or public school), it's much, much better because those orgs are MUCH more risk averse.

Ya, I came to say something like this. I remember when the whole concern about AI taking jobs was resulting in daily articles on Slashdot and people were talking about how even the AI of that time could replace accountants... which is so very evident that people don't actually understand the work of an accountant.

It's not just a person managing a simple spreadsheet and putting out a report once per quarter. Accountants are the translators between, law (federal, state, county, city), local policy, past practice, banks, merchants, paper, PDF, Word Docs, good software, crappy software, the lack of software, skilled workers, people masquerading as skilled workers, horrifically understaffed workers, etc. When everything is under control, a seasoned accountant can manage multiple small non-profits and meet all their needs. But when something breaks (such as when the in-house budget analyst of 30 years retired 4 months ago and the position hasn't been filled yet "for the sake of salary savings because we're in a budget crisis"), the contracted accountant has to come in and clean everything up.

AI cannot do that. It may be able to in the future and some of the major firms are acting like they're implementing mandatory AI-usage to get to that point, but no one's screaming EUREKA! yet because they're finding out that AI is expensive, in need of constant oversight, and are trying to hide financial recession layoffs behind the veil of "AI Efficiencies" like everyone else.

Yep. What would more likely happen is that a small developer is selling their game for 3 months at $30, half price for 6 months, 75% off for 3 months, and then fail as a company and have to shut shop. They would then be responsible for refunding $30 to EVERYONE who paid ANYTHING.

That's just untenable.

There is no age verification requirement. It's an age declaration *with no validation* so that vendors know to exclude access or content based on that self-declaration. This was necessary to placate the part of the population that wants actual validation/verification.

I agree with your analysis.

It seems like this bill is a symptom of grievances that people have with federal IP protections, hoping that California might go out on a limb and carve out a weird, one-state exception that might "force" the rest of the nation to follow.

From the SENATE COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921):

That implies a bit more burden than the bill actually requires. From AB-1921 digest (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1921):

From the bill language:

The committee analysis greatly exaggerates the requirements, but the objections are still at least somewhat valid. If a company (imagine a developer-owner, one-man show) stops hosting the only live server for a game because he's taking care of an ill spouse, why should he be obligated to make significant software modifications, host those patches, or create documentation instructing how to create and host a the game via a private server. And if he doesn't do so, then he has to refund everyone at the HIGHEST PRICE for which the game has sold in the last 12 months?

This bill was written like it was intended to stick it to EA or Blizzard, so that didn't help.

Lastly, and certainly not least, the part authorizing the State Attorney General to take legal action on violating developers was just ill-advised in this legislative session. You see, the California Legislature has a rule that no bill that could cost the State more than $100,000 should move through the process without exceptional circumstance. The cost for the State Attorney General to take on dozens of "dead video game cases" would put the bill's price tag way over that threshold.

The bill was asking too much in today's modern financial contexts and might have been asking for too much to start with.

A BETTER bill would have been simple: "The IP-holder of a video game that ceases distribution/hosting ALSO relinquishes both liability and control over software replication and hosting." Basically, if you abandon something, it goes into a special licensing phase wherein other people can replicate it and re-distribute it, but they're not authorized to draw a profit from those actions.

1. Many major universities prohibited (and some continue to prohibit) the use of standardized testing in admissions starting in 2020. This removes the competency check and relies almost entirely on grades that are stunningly inflated nowadays because...
---a. Teachers are pressured not to "ruin the college prospects of their students".
---b. Not fail students because the districts aren't allowed to hold students back.

2. They're ALLOWED to enter the university because higher education funding has been so massively cut in certain administrations that the universities **need** to rely on student tuition to keep the lights on. If you need 25,000 enrolled students to survive to a better time and student quality has tanked... you just lower your standards.

It's not video games. Video games can definitely share some blame for the reduced physical activity of the millennial and Gen Alpha, but scholastic competencies are the result of K-12 schools & school boards being the battlegrounds of political causes for the last 30 years.

The kids are stupid because a generation of nutjobs intentionally screwed up their education.