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Comment the unstoppable march of enshittification (Score 5, Insightful) 70

Why can't we be allowed to keep nice things? I've been using bitwarden for years now, and I will never use anything else (other than a similar 3rd party password manager) again. Yes, there are plenty of competitors with similar features, but bitwarden is consistently top-ranked by actual security experts, and the interface is great, especially now that it can do passkeys. But that ranking comes 100% from *transparency*. The instant that goes away, nobody sane is going to keep them around.

"Always free" is nice, but not a deal-breaker. I only have free now because I don't really need anything at the premium level. I refuse to pay subscriptions for things that I should be able to buy once, but they do provide an actual service (keyring syncing), so I will grumble, but it's a valid reason.

Everyone will now chime in with how awesome their setup is with custom rsync scripts running on their home server, and that's fine. I have plenty of stuff like that. But I don't want to *have* to just to replace an already-working solution because some dipshit CEO thinks he can squeeze an extra profit this quarter. And when they hemorrhage customers instead, dipshit will still get an awesome golden parachute.

Comment Re:Um...so what? (Score 4, Insightful) 90

No wonder we only get endless political crap on here nowadays. We actually get some "news for nerds" for once, and the main reaction is "well that's just dumb." It's an impressive feat of engineering even if it has little to no practical application. Not much practical in getting Doom to run on a toaster either.

If you absolutely insist on practical applications, how about better prosthetics? Powered "exoskeletons" for paralyzed people or those with severe neuromuscular disorders? Or (and sadly much more likely) combat robots for terrain like dense jungle where neither wheels nor flying works?

The inventor of the transistor was convinced that it had no practical purpose whatsoever.

Comment Re: It's the economy, stupid (Score 1) 393

Before MAGA, the two parties were indistinguishable if you take two steps back. But they at least had the decency to try to keep their corruption behind closed doors; now it is naked and blatant. Never before has a party amassed power, not just in spite of, but because they repeatedly tell blatant and repeatedly disproven lies. Anti-intellectualism is nothing new, but this is the first time in history the federal government has actually enacted anti-science policies. No prior president has refused to accept the legitimacy of an election, tried to coerce states to illegally alter their results, incited a violent riot that was almost certainly intended to be an insurrection, and then pardoned all of those violent offenders, including people who murdered police officers.

I fully agree that the average republocrat is no better than the average demoblican, but anyone who tries to argue that this administration is no different is either a deluded moron or part of the cancer.

Comment but at what (actual dollar) cost? (Score 2) 61

Let's set aside all of the displaced costs from datacenter operations and just focus on direct costs. AI increases productivity by 4%. How much did these companies pay for premium licenses (or, how much will they pay once we are past the "first taste is free" period)? And how does that compare to hiring 4% more people? The article does not include any information about cost. But if you spent more on AI to get that 4% bump than you would have by hiring more people, you are not only failing to run the company efficiently but also screwing over people who could benefit from those potential jobs.

Of course, if anyone actually had to pay for all of the externalized costs, the net benefit would be negative.

Comment Re:Letting apes... (Score 5, Insightful) 149

Would you get on a plane that only had 6 months on the draft table?

No, but I would get on a plane where the frame, fuselage, engines, control systems, and electronics had been studied and deployed for years, and the avionics software was being upgraded after a 6 months review. Nice strawman disguised as an analogy though!

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