GOG has managed to put out DRM free games though on a digital distribution platform. I can have my entire library backed up and it isn’t possible for them to nuke it in any way, as far as I know. It really isn’t a problem inherent to digital downloads, only the way some are trying to do it.

Valve gets away with it because you can get games for dirt cheap there.

I suspect if we were looking at the same image as above except buying Dead Space for $6 like you can on Steam, we’d be seeing a lot less pushback. Part of the excuse they had was physical media having a way bigger distribution cost compared to digital. They’re kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too, here.

And yeah, GOG is DRM free so that’s a pretty big difference.

I’m still a couch and controller gamer primarily, I just use a PC to do it lol. Honestly, with Steam, it’s really easy to just change Steam Big Picture mode as the default shell for Windows, so even if you don’t want to install SteamOS, you can still have the console experience of just turning the machine on and booting right into your games menu.

I’ve been predicting for while we’re going to see two parallel Internets develop, the “new” net running on the old infrastructure that’s basically run by the big guys and a new infrastructure modeled after the old internet that’s decentralized. We’ve been seeing a bunch of different pieces from Fediverse to LoRa communication, Meshtastic, Matrix, increased hobbyist interest in old ways of connecting computers (even saw a guide on how to set up your own dial up ISP for fun), etc. I’m not sure exactly how all those pieces are going to come together, but a locked down internet is only going to increase demand for what was lost in its creation. And its already been trending this way for awhile.

Text based CLI browsers also seem to get around it often. I’ve used w3m to good effect, but there’s still a few that just won’t even talk to you without js enabled…

There would need to be major structural changes in how investment works in Europe IMO. With markets so fractured, you just can’t muster the kind of capital you can in the US, so companies that get successful in Europe often end up bailing to the US to get traded for the greater availability of investment capital.

I’d love to see the EU really put up serious competition to American tech services, but I just can’t see it happening without that getting addressed first.

? I mean, I’m replying?

I’m willing to hear the argument, I just haven’t heard one yet aside from what I summarized above, which seems to me very weak. I think it’s worth talking about because this line that keeps getting repeated by a small but vocal minority led me to believe that this guy was something like a JK Rowling that’s pumping lots of money into groups that tangibly harm people, or is out there changing minds towards a very negative ideology or something… but he literally only took up the gauntlet regarding anti trust, which is pretty not-fascist. He isn’t pushing anyone to the right with that.

I could ask the same… why participate if you aren’t willing to consider maybe you were too hasty in judgment?

Again, you’ll need to explain to me that if his real goal here is “align[ing] with fascist talking points”, why is the only actual issue he jumped in on anti trust? Where was he regarding the election moves? Where was he regarding the ICE policies?

A decent anti trust pick isn’t aligned at all with fascism, yet it’s that issue that he spoke up on. Why only that when there have been countless issues that are aligned with fascism he could have commented on?

This screams the kind of now typical online left purity testing way more than fascism, to me.

Sure, but he was also perfectly willing to encourage him towards what he could frame as being a win for Trump, too.

I’m in no way saying Mamdani isn’t principled. I’m saying he also has an eye for strategy over performative politics. There was, probably is, a small left cadre that was really giving him shit for meeting with Trump at all for fear of “legitimizing” or “normalizing” him… this strikes me as very, very similar to the dynamic around Yang.

Again, there has been ample opportunity for this guy to go to bat for fascism. Why only anti trust?

So in 2024 he is praising the republican party about anti-trust, which even you admit he is wrong about.

If I divested from everyone I thought was incorrect about something, I wouldn’t be able to do business with literally anyone. And I explained why I think he said this, which implied it’s quite possible he doesn’t even think this is true.

How is this any different than what Mamdani did?

Again, if he was out here stumping for fascist positions I’d have a little more pause. But the issue he picked up here, of all the political issues in the recent years, was anti-trust. Sorry, this doesn’t scream crypto fascist to me. Certainly not enough for me to worry about.

I also didn’t say I’m surprised. I’m arguing that I think it’s wrong and the vast majority of even those on the left aren’t going to care about this.

It’s always nice when people let you know to block them for juvenile and petty behavior that would make a redditor blush before they actually manage you get to you.

You can’t remove the context this statement was made in though, which was about the appointment. And let’s be real here: he is not wrong about corporate capture of the Democrats at all. Yes, saying the Republicans are any better is ridiculous, but this strikes me far more like stroking the ego of a guy that likes having his ego stroked and made a rare decent pick for anti trust. This is no different than what Mamdani did visiting the White House… do we cancel him too for appeasing fascists? Or can we acknowledge choosing to try and engage with and manipulate a guy that’s shown to be easily manipulated is probably a strategic choice more than ideological?

And the thing he’s praising here is anti trust. Sure, I think it’s wrong to say Republicans are better on this issue, but literally the thing he’s praising is very much antithetical to fascism. How can we really say he’s supporting fascism then? Where are his posts supporting his ICE policies? Where are the comments supporting overturning a democratic election? He makes one comment supporting anti trust efforts and suddenly he must be a crypto fascist because it came from Trump? Not buying it, man.

I really think trying to portray Yang as something like the My Pillow Guy, which is the level of discourse a lot of this has had around it, is really, really disingenuous and I think only serves to make people take these accusations less seriously even when they’re levelled against people who truly are fascist sympathizers at the very least.

The big difference, of course, being that you’re paying a not insignificant amount of money explicitly for privacy, not a “free” service like Google. While Enshittification can happen everywhere, they’ve got a pretty direct incentive not to just start selling data and that sort of thing compared to the incentive Google had. The bigger concern is the security risk of all your eggs in one basket, but that’s a convenience vs security tradeoff we make all the time. Each user needs to assess for themselves that tradeoff. But just the encryption at rest alone along with seemingly not reading your emails already puts an average Proton use way ahead of an average Google one, and moving them to a complete suite is a lot more likely than to 6 different services. That’s a hard sell for an average user.

Also, I think the framing of open support of fascists is frankly ridiculous, personally. The way people were talking about it I was afraid we were talking full maga here, but the guy literally just praised a single appointment in anti trust… and she did have some actual bona fides that made her surprisingly (for this administration) qualified for that job, she has actually worked blocking mergers. This wasn’t a Robert Kennedy appointment, this appointment could have been under any admin in the last few decades and nobody would blink, if anything might also have been praised for the pick. Broken clocks, guys, broken clocks, they’re right sometimes.

Everyone can make their own choice here, but praising a rare decent pick from a shitty politician doesn’t nearly reach a divestment bar for me and I think probably all except the most militant.