• 0 Posts
  • 16 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 11th, 2023
  • nefarious@kbin.socialtoTechnology@lemmy.world•Google tries to defend its Web Environment Integrity
    49·
    1 year ago

    I think this article from the Verge explains it pretty well.

    tl;dr:

    • The Fed kept interest rates low from 2008 to 2021. Low interest rates made it easier to borrow money and meant that debt-backed investments like bonds had a low return, so investors favored stocks for a better yield on their investment.
    • This meant tech companies could borrow a ton of money at low interest rates and raise a ton of money from investors through stock sales, allowing them to build services that weren’t profitable in order to grow as rapidly as possible. This basically defined the internet as we know it today - big companies offering free/cheap services with minimal restrictions. Companies could afford to charge low fees and look the other way on things like ad blockers.
    • However, now that interest rates are going up, borrowing is much more expensive and investors are less motivated to buy stock, so all that easy money has dried up. Companies are having to raise revenue by increasing prices, adding more ads, blocking ad blockers, etc.
  • nefarious@kbin.socialtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Why do most gaming laptops have vents on the bottom?
    2·
    1 year ago

    I have a Targus cooling pad that works pretty well for that. It’s like a thin plastic tray thing with vents and a USB-powered fan to provide extra cooling, but I mostly use it without the fan to elevate my laptop off my lap and allow for extra airflow. Something similar might work well for your use case.

    That said, I’ve noticed my laptop’s fan will start to make an obnoxious rattling noise if I use it on my lap for too long. Fan rattle is a known issue with my laptop and it goes away once it’s sat on my desk for a while, but it can be annoying so YMMV.

  • nefarious@kbin.socialtoTechnology@lemmy.world•How reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history: Did it, though?
    125·
    1 year ago

    This feels short-sighted. The odds of the protest having a major and immediate impact were always low. It’s not like the suits were going to have a sudden change of heart and realize they were alienating their users. The majority of Reddit’s userbase weren’t going to suddenly leave the site forever. But that wasn’t the point.

    Here’s what’s changed since the API changes were announced:

    1. Reddit’s responses to user concerns and protests have alienated even more users than the initial changes themselves, showing users exactly how Reddit’s administration sees them.
    2. A whole bunch of mods, devs, and contributors who put in a lot hard work improving Reddit for free are now much less motivated to do so (if they’re still willing to do it at all).
    3. The protest raised awareness of federated Reddit alternatives, which have grown substantially as a result. A lot of those people who helped improve Reddit for free are now turning their attention to kbin and Lemmy instead.
    4. Reddit is on a clear trajectory. They’ve shown they will continue making user-hostile decisions and antagonizing their userbase in pursuit of further growth.

    We now have an established alternative to Reddit that has reached a critical mass for growth. A lot more people are now working on making the fediverse better, and communities are forming that will attract new users on their own. From now on, every time Reddit makes another move like this, more people will move over (or get closer to moving over) and Reddit will drop in quality even more as a result. If there’s ever a Digg V4 moment (maybe when they kill old.reddit), the fediverse will be much more prepared to take on the mass exodus that results.