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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • Yeah, this post started as a reassurance that Tailscale wouldn’t enshittify. But it turned out to just be an argument about how to avoid enshittification that boiled down to two principles:

    1. You shouldn’t make your product worse because it’ll eventually harm the company; and
    2. Founders are magic and need to never turn over control of the company to others (be it new CEOs or VC) to resist enshittification.

    Both are partially right and partially wrong.

    For #1: Yes, making your product worse eventually harms the company. No, you can’t expect CEOs to accept that as a reason to not make their product worse because even if it harms the company, short-term incentives that lead to enshittification are eventually going to become irresistible. His comment about reaching “zen” with leveled growth and profit will never stop VCs from calling in demands and favors.

    For #2: Yes, founders typically “get it” more than their VC- or failure-initiated replacements. No, that doesn’t mean founders are uniquely resistant to enshittification. This is your point too, and it’s why I don’t believe this person - they lose credibility here because they don’t acknowledge they aren’t special. Every tech bro out there thinks they’ve cracked the code to permanent tech hegemony. That exceptionalist thinking turns into enshittification, since the product-worsening or overcharging is easier to justify as temporary/necessary/not-a-big-deal (until it isn’t).

    And all of this doesn’t explain why Tailscale specifically gets immunity if the principles are true.

    So interesting post, and a lot more self-awareness than most founders which is still a little reassuring, but a lot of warning signs too.

    Edit: clarity






  • Senator Thune will receive an Industry Champion Award for his work on policies that encourage innovation and competitive choice for customers. We’re not aware of any pioneering copyright policy the Senate leader was involved in, but he did extensively advocate for consumer freedom, including the Filter Bubble Transparency Act.

    The MPA hasn’t mentioned Thune in any communications on its website before, aside from the fact that MPA’s Senior Vice President of Federal Government Affairs worked for him previously. That said, the award shows that the movie industry group values his work and achievements.

    “Here’s an award!”

    “What for?”

    “For what you’re going to do!”




  • They are at best a one-person propaganda shop, and at worst part of a targeted influence campaign by other actors.

    I’ve written many times on this user in the lead-up to the US election, when there was cumulative evidence they were spamming content meant to split the left vote. I welcome moderate or right-leaning good faith discussion, but this user is not that. They sealion any responses with canned / apparently-LLM-assisted non-answers to legitimate constructive comments and debate, apparently to drive up “engagement” on their posts. I’ve read probably 30 threads where this happened - they do not answer direct questions or engage in actual debate, but immediately go into “I’m a victim” mode and turn the debate into a performative martyred “oppression” by everyone else. Effectively every response by them I’ve read is a misdirection and nonsense.

    My strongly held opinion is that they are a bad faith actor, no matter what their motive or tools actually are. They are literally the only Lemmy user I’ve come across that I can say, without reservation, deserves a perma-ban.







  • My good faith response to your good faith question: because having a DRM-free copy on your own server or hard drive is the only way to be sure you will be able to play it tomorrow.

    Streaming services are a complex collection of licensing deals that are by design temporary. You may not hear beforehand when your favorite artist’s label’s parent company’s conglomerate’s CEO decides to pull their content because they’re going to start their own streaming service, or another service gave them a lucrative exclusive deal.

    And while you’re never going to have a hard time finding Taylor Swift, that one 70s esoteric album may become instantly impossible to find once it drops off a streamer.

    In the end there are no promises with a streaming service. On the other hand, you put in a small amount of work to grab MP3s or FLACs, set up your own Plex server (or Emby, etc), and you’re good for pretty much forever.

    Similarly, support artists by buying their direct merch, going to shows, and so on, but they are barely seeing any Spotify money. Between Spotify and the labels, they are cleaning the plate and artists are getting whatever crumbs fall off the table (unless you’re Taylor Swift or another global artist).