You make a good point, when it comes to technical matters, to you and I he looks like a loony. So, hear me out, what if other matters, such as politics, he looks like a loony to experts who study that, or virology, or economics. What if we only see his technical buffoonery and recognise how stupid he is. What if he is stupid across the board?

To me it reads like locating the bugs takes time and effort away from the part of the project they enjoyed. The last known one they had located is now patched, so there's less time to work on the the fun parts of the project.

The annoyance I suspect is the asymmetry of effort required.

Nope, the malware is and has been, in control for a long while

What if LG becomes Fecebook, in the sense that they're selling you to the advertiser. What if LG start putting eSIM devices into the screens so that you get a free picture box in exchange for your preferences to sell to the advertiser? You might not notice it in the menus, but you might get product placement of some sort. It's a horrible future which I foresee.

It looks more to me like a marketing stunt. If they were to operate as Twitter, it would muddy the waters for their cleaner brand image.

Your last line answers your unasked question, because selling tokens is their business, AI chat bots are sales analogues.

So between the lines, you gave real estate for sex with a human, how much real estate is robot sex worth as a monthly maintenance fee? That's the economics that the vendor wants to work out. Just how shit does the service have to get before you stop paying.

I think that's some wishful thinking if you believe those success stories aren't just shills.

ignoring all other aspects, the actual shoplifters don't go near the tills, and don't get deterred by anything. They'll walk in, probably with a face mask, pick up what they want, and walk out. The door attendants don't intervene. So who does this actually target? Who does it police? Not the shoplifters that account for the majority of "shrinkage".

It's penalising the customers only.

So long as they say plays on Linux, be that wine or native, it puts some "supported"-like element into it. I think that's really what matters as it makes people a bit more confident in using Linux as a daily OS.

Which is good as it has better everything.

Have you ever tried to get a Windows refund? Virtually impossible. The problem with the PC price going up is that the OEM bundles it, so unless you're on eBay and there's a windows/no-windows competitive marketplace you're going to have to suck up the OEM pricing.

The costs of switching to Linux are indeed low, and switching away are comparably low as you don't have to pay the entrance fee to Linux or the exit fee from it.

Switching between the other platforms will obviously have a cost.

If you don't scrap your hardware for an upgrade cycle, you can probably start a migration/trial plan.

Obviously, what would likely be worthwhile would be self-hosting the cloud services that go along with Windows/Mac/Chrome.

...but we got there, Google is finally doing what ask.com was doing in the 2000's.

Mob justice is often applied when they go in for this crime. Much like a death penalty.

Where is DOGE that one time you need 'em?