But damned if we’re gonna do anything about it.

I think these days most people use their video card as a sound card because monitors/displays generally have audio out as well.

But yeah. I remember having endless problems getting one of the Splinter Cells to run (I want to say Pandora Tomorrow?). After literally weeks of googling and discussing the issue on forums with others with the same problem, we found out that it had issues with the onboard sound for certain motherboards. Went out to Best Buy, bought the cheapest soundblaster they had, and no problems.

I mean… yeah.

We’ve seen this exact pattern happen in other industries. Bookstores were largely massacred by amazon et al. Which meant that the major publishers no longer controlled what we could buy (at a reasonable price). So rather than stand in an aisle and skim the Warhammer 40k books or see what had a cool cover, we read online reviews and even started reading (gasp) self-published books… in large part because other aspects of technological advance meant those self-published books could still be professionally edited.

And… that was awesome because it meant we got a constant feed of new voices rather than just the people who had enough connections to get a publisher’s “slot”.

And while there is very much something to be said about a nice crisp hardcover (just look at how ride or die I am on Michael Sullivan’s kickstarters…), the vast majority of my books are ebooks that I read on my (as of late) onyx boox. Which is basically the hardcover and mass market paperback model of olde.

And we saw the exact same happen with PC gaming. I don’t know the exact steps that led to it (and now realize I really want to) but in the late 00s/early 10s we rapidly noticed our stores that had became aisles were rapidly becoming single shelves on a rack that was mostly the latest Warcraft expansion.

And at first that sucked. I remember rushing to Gamestop the day that KOTOR 2 released only to have to basically fight the goblin at the counter to get the one copy they had and the number of times I had to explain that I did not want Halo instead. But, once we no longer had the ability to browse in stores, we saw various digital distribution platforms rise up and we started to have games like Warlock that shockingly launched at 30 USD instead of 50. And, much like above, we started to see a lot of new voices in a way that was reminiscent of the golden age of the 486 where you might buy access to an FTP server on a BBS because you liked a game that dev/studio had put on one of the 101 game CDs.

And we are seeing the same with film. COVID took away theatres. So a lot of people either started focusing on tv/netflix for a more convenient version of the big budget stuff. Or they went basically “indie” which led to the massive youtube/twitch boom. Or they realized that they could get “good enough” with a medium sized TV, some blackout curtains, and a soundbar (or a 5.1 setup if you are fancy). It wasn’t quite as good as a movie theatre but you also had fewer people screaming along with the movie or ordering grubhub in front of you.

Which is why I very much think that movie theatres as we know them are going to be gone before 2028 (maybe even 2026). And it will be replaced with a very limited selection of “alamo drafthouse” level theatres that people rent for events and watch parties. Instead of “Hollywood” deciding that everyone wants to watch Mission Impossible 20 in theatres, it will be enthusiasts deciding they want to buy screen time to show the new Sailor Moon OVA and either selling tickets on their own or crowdfunding it.

I am less convinced that alternate voting models will make a significant difference (especially when we look at stuff like France actively unifying the left-leaning parties to fight fascism), but cool.

Unless you are going to implement that by early October, it isn’t the topic at hand. The topic at hand is harm reduction and preserving human rights.

Yup. The problem isn’t you not giving the slightest of shits about human rights. The problem is people not showing you the proper respect .

Anyone who is that much of a monster was never going to be an ally.

If you can look at women losing basic human rights over the course of a single workday and not care because the guy you liked that had spent literally decades actively dicking over Democrats in Vermont (seriously. Look it up. It is hilarious) didn’t get the full support of the entire party instnatly?

You are a monster.

Anyone who ACTUALLY cares about human rights should understand the importance of voting for harm reduction. They should have fucking understood it in 2016 but they better fucking understand it in 2024.

Because, here is the thing: I’m Chinese. Both parties use my family as the bogeyman the moment it is convenient. AND we have been indoctrinated to let people step on us if it helps others because we “are the model minority”. You give me a candidate who actually gives a fuck about 7.2% of the country and I am gonna scream from the rooftops in joy.

Doesn’t matter. Because I also give a shit about women and immigrants and LGBTQ+ folk and so forth.

And if someone is throwing a hissy because they didn’t win in 2015 at the expense of those folk? They are horrible and SHOULD feel bad.

You do both.

I am not as focused on ranked choice as others (I very much argue we basically already have the outcome with the primary system) and would rather a focus on getting rid of the electoral college entirely to allow for a popular vote. It doesn’t matter

What matters is making sure we have a country where we can push toward that in a few years. Since, especially in 2024, one candidate is outright talking about dismantling democracy entirely. And, because of 2016, we have a supreme court that is basically “what do republicans want us to do?” at any given moment.

Its great that you liked Sanders. I… have very mixed feelings about him and mostly am angry at how much influence he pissed away.

But here is the thing? If you don’t think you are being represented by the party? Then work with it. Even Sanders learned that after he spent most of his career actively dicking over the Democrats and it resulted in him becoming a household name.

Contact your local Democratic party. The Internet loves to paint them as bogeymen who actively hurt any good candidates and… some do. But the majority are the idealists who joined up because they gave a shit about Obama or Hilary or even Sanders. But they support the people who run because… they understand that the goal is harm reduction. Someone who gives a crap and is willing to do outreach work? You have a LOT of influence and can work on seeking out those candidates who DO represent you. And as you shift the local party, so too do you eventually shift the bigger party. Because as much as people hate ol’ Genocidde Joe: he is ridiculously left of Clinton and, in some aspects, even Obama.

I am glad we got The Squad, even if they are sometimes idiots. But Sanders should have led to a mass shift in the party as a whole.

Yeah. My father is a REAL piece of shit and said it in the context of “I hate that <homophobic slur> Bush” but it still sticks with me:

In primaries? Vote for who you like. When it is time for the real election? Vote for the platform you hate the least. Bare minimum, it gives you the right to bitch and moan come February. Because if you don’t vote? You actively chose to not have a say in the government.

… well, you also may have been disenfranchised by a bunch of republican shitheads. But it is the thought that counts.

Also, if you are putting all of your energy into telling people that the election is rigged and the candidate is unelectable and your vote doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter if that particular moron is “just venting” and still plan to vote. You are actively discouraging others from voting.

And those tend to be the same kind of idiots who think you vote once every four years. Rather than every single year. Because your representatives in congress matter a lot. So does the god damned local comptroller in your town. Because “grass roots” is not a bunch of people online deciding they like the c-span meme guy. “Grass roots” is about shifting your local party in the direction you want so that you can get those good candidates in office and turn a red state blue and so forth.

And THIS is why you vote for harm reduction every fucking year.

Yes, this has been part of a plan going back to even before reagan. But one fucking election of people whining that the wrong person won the primaries extra fucked the supreme court for the foreseeable future. And we have the same clowns trying to pull the same shit going into this Fall.

Have you ever tried to torrent something less popular? One seed with shit upload getting ganged up on by ten leeches. Five of which disconnect the second they hit 100%.

Regardless, a torrent-like approach would work for large creators like Michael Reeves where thousands of people are going to be willing to act as seeds indefinitely. Someone like Matt Yuan might be lucky to have enough seeds for the latest two videos.

And it also doesn’t work for anything live. And becomes a huge mess for premiers where people need to wait for the upload to propagate. MAYBE the latter could be handled with pre-seeding with an unlock coming at the release time but… it is a matter of minutes until a kick level creator nopes out by uploading CSAM “for the lolz”

He is a human trafficking serial rapist. End of story. Anything else is just spewing his own propaganda to legitimize the very real hurt he does to the world.

Please, do not even pretend that a human trafficking serial rapist gives a shit about “the role of fathers in a child’s life”

A lot of smaller multiplayer games and older live games. Also a not insignificant number of fighting games.

If you ever noticed rubber banding or games straight up being broken if the wrong player is the host: That is your friendly reminder of how shitty most people’s internet setup actually is. People piggy backing off the starbucks on the first floor is a meme for a reason.

Were the ad companies interested in increased profits? Of course they were. But they also aren’t a charity. And when they are buying ad space for a web comic but having zero impressions, they are going to be pissed. They aren’t running a charity (well… some actually ARE but that is a different mess).

Again, this has been going on well before subscription models were even a thing.

That said, I do agree that it is a generational “problem”. Youtube has been around for almost 20 years and, arguably, in its current form for almost 10. Significant parts of the internet have no memory of anything else. Like, my niece and nephew literally throw tantrums when they see tv commercials when their father is watching a football game. Whereas my sister and I remember the fights over who got to use the downstairs bathroom during the second commercial break in The Simpsons that week.

But… I am an old. I remember heartfelt blog posts from some of my favorite webcomics and gaming news sites that were basically “Look. Hosting costs money. Especially as we are getting a lot more popular. I go out of my way to curate what ads we run on this site and have an inbox set up in case a company sneaks a bad one in. Please whitelist me in your ad blocker so I can keep doing this in the evenings”.

And… I dunno. It is just REALLY frustrating to watch people pretend they care about… anything all while dicking over “the little guys”. Because Google is going to get their cut. The pewdiepies of youtube will also get their cuts because they have literally been doing this for years in the form of sponsored videos. But the low/mid tier creators? They aren’t getting the massive sponsor deals (unless they want to do raid shadow legends or better help) AND are going to not be getting their ad revenue or youtube premium money because no ads were run.

Yeah…

How often do images “not load” when browsing lemmy? How often do sites get hugged to death even now? And that is kilobytes of data.

Video is a mother fucker. It always has been. Those of us who are old enough to remember will understand WHY youtube was such a revelation (or why so many porn sites still have a huge thumbnail archive…).

And it is why the various “youtube alternatives” like Nebula or (sex pest adjacent) floatplane don’t have free video. EVERYTHING is paywalled because free video would make their hosting costs increase exponentially.

And yes, in theory, distributed hosting can lessen that burden. Anyone who has played a listen server heavy online game will already understand why that is a pipe dream.

I mean, it is great that you have very specific rules in terms of what kind of ads you will tolerate. You should write a letter to John Google about that.

But also? We have been through all this before. Back in the day, ads on websites were incredibly unobtrusive. A small png at the top of the page that everyone skimmed past. But people still wanted to block those because only the evil sites were sellouts who needed to pay for hosting and blah blah blah. Which more or less started the ad war we have going to today. First they were simple jpegs. Then they were animated gifs. Then they were annoying animated gifs. Then they became flash ads. Then they became flash ads about how this shitty age of empires ripoff totally has boobs. And so forth.

Because if people aren’t looking at ads? The people who buy ads know that. So we get ads that are harder to look away from. Until they are ads we can’t look away from because they are embedded in the videos themselves.

And, until we live in a post scarcity society where energy is infinite, it is going to cost money/resources to host web content. Ads are still the closest thing to an “effective” way to pay for a lot of that. And that means a war to have ads that get past ad blockers and ensure eyes get on them.

There is nowhere else. The only other companies that can consider a YouTube scale product already noped out.

I mean… that is the point.

Pay for premium, watch ads, or don’t watch at all. You and Google are both in agreement.