While I’d have no real problem with meta being banned for those under 18, or just their business model somehow made illegal

They weren’t selling drugs. They weren’t killing opponents. Making a product so good that people find themselves addicted to it isn’t something you get fined $1.4 trillion for.

Quick google says Tolkien co. allows fanfiction, but not if the authors are trying to sell it at a profit. That a fanfiction author did self-publish his fanfiction book, then sued Amazon and Tolkien for ripping off his plot, and lost the suit because he didn't have rights to publish in the first place.

Isn't that what you'd expect? Is there more going on?

Even without PlayStation doing this, nobody is buying disks anymore and the 2nd hand market for games made recently barely exists.

And digital downloads / disk isn’t the deciding factor. I can still play KOTOR on a modern Xbox whether I have the original disk from 23 years ago or the $5 download, but my jet set radio future disk won’t run on a modern machine.

That was quite a rant. You put quite a bit of time into defending your brand. U mad that a phone with .5% market share doesn’t get more recognition?

Sounds like you should learn how to make better tests.

Lots of non-gamers here? Nobody buys disks anymore. Games don't play directly off the disks, they need to be installed. I guess having disks helps with the install process, but between how fast the internet is and all the inevitable updates, it's basically the same install process, with or without a disk.

Buying the game on disk basically just means that if you want to play the game, you have to dig out the disk.

For those who don't know:

1) 21 years ago, Sony Music bought BMG, a company which put a rootkit if people tried to listen to music on computers, which nobody actually did. Theoretically it could helped spread viruses, although no it actually didn't.

2) 16 years ago, Sony gave Linux access on a device, although nobody actually used it, and there was no possible reason to use it besides "oh that's kind of cool I guess." Then rescinded it.

Anyway, minor quibbles and they happened forever ago.

I'm also a teacher...and how do you figure? They're imperfect, there's issues around them...but useless? Ultimately, if you create a test that's even semi-decent, students who know the material well will get an "A," students who have no fucking clue what's going on in the class will get an F, and other students will get somewhere in between. Isn't that what you'd want?

Making money is more valued than making strangers happy.

But car batteries are quite large. Even my shitty Honda Prologue that was less than $35k new has an 85kwh battery. Yeah, you might not want to give up 50% of your battery. But giving up 20% of your capacity? That's as a Tesla home battery, which is a decently substantial amount. And you'd still get hundreds of miles of range.

USA average house consumes 30kWh/day. That and solar power and a little care not to run the AC or clothes dryer and you could probably run off the grid indefinitely.

You're right, claiming that "a product made by Apple is the cause of all this is silly." But that's not what the article did, did you read the summary? They argue 33-52%.

That is a feeling you have. You aren't supporting it with any evidence, just feels. There's obvious counter-examples - why are birth rates down even higher in places where there's socialized medicine, no student debt, heavily subsidized childcare, etc.? If you're going by evidence, rather than feel, that clearly suggests there's more going on.

Furthermore, you seem to have read the article, but you dismiss it with "it is still not magic." What a meaningless statement! Scientific method requires some kind of counter-argument, not just hand waving away the parts you don't want to be true.

I mean...isn't that what people use computers for? browsing the web, simple games, and maybe a word processor? What else would they do with one?

"Taikonauts" is not a word.

$10k subsidy went away, of course vehicle sales went down! Next year Ford is releasing a $30k electric pickup truck, the Ranchero, then it will go back up!

If batteries and EV components were to stay the same, then I could totally see American car manufacturers sticking it out with ICE cars, despite EVs having advantages in some ways. But we all know the technology is getting cheaper and better, and not having EV plans would be tantamount to giving up on being anything more than a niche company.