This is the exact same method by which Grubhub/Doordash/Postmates/etc get a large portion of their business: by getting their phone number and/or spoofed site listed as a search result or even in the google maps listing for a site nearest the searcher's location.
Of course Google won't "fix" the problem; it's a source of advertising revenue, and general boost to user engagement.

Barbra Streisand
Woo-ooh, ooh-hoo, ooh-hoo, ooh-hoo

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fthathyp...

The ones with actual users ...

These are the sort of self-generating monopolies I've seen in the past 25 years of the internet.

Effectively, everyone goes there because everyone goes there.

A bit more than herd mentality, but makes any startup something which requires large amounts of energy to succeed and then keep going. Never stop.

Twitter has self-inflicted wounds, thanks Elon, but continues to limp along. I find myself less likely to visit because -- not everyone is there any more.

Not all Venture Capital are angels, some come in and kill the fledgling company and take it's IP, others wring it dry over months or years while skimming money off the top. Never occurs to some investors a company could be the next Alphabet or Meta.

As good ole' Bill Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliette: "A plague a' both your houses!" -Mercutio

Is there anything either of these pox peddlers can provide that is necessary for living my life? The steady drumbeat of serotonin hits from exaggerated clickbait "news" and AI-written headlines designed to make my blood pressure spike? Frothy propaganda pieces posted by sock puppets and nation-states intent on sowing discord? Intrusive messages from people I tried to leave behind in high school and college? Advertisements for crap on Amazon that I paused the mouse over just long enough for the telemetry bots to smell $0.001 of revenue?

No.

Work doesn't use Facebook or TikTok or even Twitter anymore. My family doesn't use it, friends only occasionally, and the rest is just a steady fire hose of crap that makes my life worse when I look at it. Really there's no reason at all to participate in either of these. "Look away" seems like the best option.

That's my point, it's already legally/contractually banned on most devices in the country, so diddling around with discussion of a 100% ban is a diversion from the real issue. The crux is that a lot (majority? plurality?) of people use their work laptops for personal purposes, and their personal mobile devices for work, in contravention of numerous contracts and regulatory requirements -- and this is where the actual risk to data lies. Anyone who checks work email/messages/workflow/chat on the same device they install TicTok/Facebook/Insta/etc is already breaking policies, contractual rules, and/or civil and criminal laws. What we need is better enforcement, and the will to actually prosecute people for illicit behaviors they've grown so accustomed to getting away with that they no longer recognize them as a crime. A new law that mostly restates the old one doesn't solve the lack of will to enforce.

Two things: First, westerners don't generally understand that China is not a country in the western sense of the word; it is a corporation. The whole thing. Ever since the party leaders got right with that whole money thing, it's been this way. Now since the party controls the currency and operates the entire governing framework without exception, and every business operating within China has to comply with the legal framework, that effectively makes all such businesses a subsidiary of the party...corporation. The idea that a subsidiary corporation could have a policy or procedural framework to keep data private from the executive whims of its parent corporation only makes sense in a western context; but when the parent corporation is a totalitarian regime which makes the laws, runs the judiciary, and controls the currency, the idea of such a separation of control or information is laughable. It does not happen. Pure window dressing. Anyone who takes such proposals seriously is a fool.

Second... why? Is there any legitimate use case for non-work video sharing or other social media on a work device, especially one used for sensitive data or national security? No. Absolutely not. Even in a private-sector work context. If I install TicTok on a laptop used for my client's work, I should be fired. If I install it on a personal mobile phone also used for handling sensitive emails or regulated data, I should be fired and then sued or prosecuted. It's disappointing to see so many people fretting over how to accommodate other people's improper or illegal handling of data just so they can get their serotonin hit.

I am an old guy who is supposed to be watching his blood pressure, and people constantly suggest these manufactured products as a substitute for meat. The impossible burger has 370mg of sodium per 4oz portion, while an equal portion of ground beef has about 70mg. The Impossible people like to compare their 370mg patty with the typical ~370mg of a commercial burger but that ignores the 300mg coming from the cheese, bun, and condiments. So a BASIC single impossible burger prepared the same way is going to be almost 700mg of sodium, more than 1/3 of all the salt a typical adult is supposed to have in a day. The impossible patty alone is about the same salt as two pieces of fried chicken. I'm supposed to be on a low-salt diet, and this impossible stuff would give me a damn coronary. My doc (yes, a real GP with certifications in nutrition) specifically warned me away from novelty foods such as manufactured meat because of the sodium content required to make them palatable. If you want to cut back on the meat, then eat a vegetable. But once you've reduced the volume, honestly, the real thing is much healthier at least for old folks.

Yeah, no. I might not be in the exact center of the target demographic, but I'm definitely in the group. This whole notion of avoiding interaction with other humans even for basic tasks like getting food... why? I mostly work from home, and I can avoid people by staying home, and ordering shit from Amazon. If I leave my house, part of the reason I walk out the front door is to get a break from the silence and to interact with other people. Then I find they've been removed from places where they're expected... without lowering of prices or actual improvements in service. On top of that, why should I participate in the demise of the lower half of our economy? When you shove people out of low-level jobs like this it's not like they magically get some other better paying job, or simply die off and disappear -- no, they become poorer and more dependent on aid, which in turn jacks taxes and costs for everyone. So the smooth brains at McD's and YumCorp decide they need to cut corners even more, and it gets worse. Race to the bottom.

I'll pay more for my damn cheeseburger. I'm ok with that. But I'm not shopping at any brick-and-mortar that is eliminating entry level jobs, still delivering crap service, and charging me the same. I've walked out or ditched my cart when I've been refused service by a human, and that's ok. (Kroeger and Lowe's, I'm looking at you 15-watt geniuses.) My shopping and cooking at home probably won't really slow this damage to society, but at least it won't be on my dime.

Former member of InfraGard here. I went through a long and silly hazing/vetting process to join, and then came to the realization that it's organizations like this that are part of the problem. You know that weird sensation of being an actual old person in a crowd then listening to what they're saying and thinking "oh my god these people are old" even if they're younger than you? Yeah, that. That was almost every InfraGard session and meeting, with olde dudes in DC and Redmond giving powerpoint presentations about vulns known 18mo prior, grossly mis-attributed threat actors ("the APTs are comin for yew!! Fancy Bear!!1!1!!!"), 101-level errors in data gathering and basic analysis, hopelessly outdated kill-diamond malware circle-jerks, results from clustering algorithms they'd picked but couldn't explain, and other wheezing exhortations to vague action made by people who smell like mothballs and coffee with too much cream.

Seriously, we need an organization LIKE IngraGard to share information as a coordinated community. But running it with the organization of a stereotypical frat combined with the speed of the feds ... there's no there there, and even if there was or will be, that org moves too slowly to be useful, by at least an order of magnitude. But hey, if you like a dependable flow of disappointment with absolute consistency, there they are.

From ethics.org.au: "The Panopticon is a disciplinary concept brought to life in the form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of prison cells. From the tower, a guard can see every cell and inmate but the inmates can't see into the tower. Prisoners will never know whether or not they are being watched." https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fw...

Now imagine that instead of just building a watchtower in the center of the circular prison to see your movements, it can see your eyes. And everywhere you look. And it can see those things too. And it fits on your head. And you *paid* for it.

This is the beginning of some true horror. "Orwellian" doesn't even begin to do this justice.

I live very close to this bullshit, and none of this is a surprise or even worth a raised eyebrow.

Comcast rates are usurious, and anytime any infrastructure work is necessary they want the first user to pay the full load... even if Comcast will then turn around and charge the next customers the full rate for new service as well. Their investment philosophy is that the customer should invest. It would be like requiring an apartment seeker to pay for building the apartment, and then expecting them to pay full rent. There's no slack at all. On top of this, they continue to roll out old copper-based tech where it saves them money, instead of fiber or wireless. Aaaaand on top of that, they make it extremely hard to NOT run their dual-mode wireless base stations to provide cellular service that they sell to other people. So yeah, double- and even triple-dipping, using other people's money to shift the risk.

The homeowners should have done their homework, and expected to get wireless in that area. For example, T-Mobile home base-station service is available there for $50/mo, and the "up to 100Mbps" service actually averages 30Mbps, which is sufficient for at least two people working from home and watching a moderate amount of fhd-4k video. There are other options as well, they just have to let go of the notion that cable is king. It's not.

IMHO, it's kinda like when you take your car to the shop and they quote you $1k for a tuneup or $8k for transmission work, --- you are supposed to understand they want you to go elsewhere; they don't actually want the business. The failure here is not really on Comcast, it's the homeowners' failure to recognize when they've been given "the fuck-you price."

Broadly speaking, use of the word "cringe" or "problematic" -- especially ad-hominem rather than against a position, action, or event -- is an indication that it's safe to stop reading or listening to the speaker, as nothing of significant use or meaning will follow.

Outside of the first world economy, lots of people buy a sim and have a pay-as-you-go account, for which they prepay in cash. They might go to a store and buy a prepaid card to load onto the account, they might buy credits from a broker or reseller and redeem them via sms, etc etc. Paying in crypto would be a trivial change from the way payments are made already. Things work rather differently over there.

This would then block the future as depicted in Minority Report.

"Hi there! Would you like to buy another [highly personal and embarrassing item]?"

There's a relief.