Most of those things were products of earlier times, when our economic system and industries were more regulated and had a larger number of competitive entities. “Innovation” now is just more cupholders in the RV to put your chicken fries in. All flash, no substance. Everything is an AI wearable tacked on to something else we’ve already had for years.

EV battery tech, there’s some decent work being done there. A few other niche cases like that. But the rest is one big fucking con game. It’s all a race to find out how much money you can gouge out of people before the system just breaks.

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

1. Regulatory capture and market control.

2. New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

Seconded.

I’ve got a pair of Skullcandy Mods. The sound quality is decent but not stellar, battery life is good, charge time is good and they feel pretty solidly made. Pretty good deal for $40 on Amazon.

I previously had some of their ANC overears that while not spectacular, were much better than I expected given the price point.

I switched in 2021 and I thought the same then.

Yup, it’s easier for a user to justify a small purchase and lose track of how much they’re spending and that’s exactly why they do it.

It’s the same with in-app currency, they sell you 100 coins or gems or whatever for $2.99, then charge you 75 for the shortcut to the progression required upgrade. You don’t want to let a quarter of your money go to waste, so you’re more tempted to put another $2.99 down to utilize it and buy the next upgrade. Cue the leveling treadmill.

It’s a sort of weaponization of the study of human behavior IMO.

Yup, and as I said, it’s possible that I’m attributing these design changes to the wrong thing, but it’s hard not see them as greed driven when you consider what’s happening in other parts of our digital lives.

It was more due to the way a lot of the games I liked to play started to make changes to gameplay to try and push players to spend more money. Unnecessarily long grinds with subscription based paid shortcuts, freemium/premium BS, game modes that started to require you to be online for a certain amount of time each week to progress.

Gaming was always more of a social thing for me, and once it started to feel like an unpaid, part time job for me and my friends it stopped being fun.

EDIT: I may be projecting dark patterns onto something that’s just driven by market forces these days, but I kind of doubt it.

I do muddle around a little bit with indie games, and I’ve honestly let some of this make me a little too cynical, but it just feels different these days.

True, but I don’t think it’s due to a lack of faculties for most people, it’s just not an area of interest or a primary concern. It should be, because this sort of consumer and media manipulation is being used to enable some very dangerous things at present, but it’s really hard to make headway when you’re telling people how fucked up and unhealthy the one thing that’s providing them with a little escape and joy is.

It might be easier to lead an addiction intervention.

I try to reframe privacy concerns with the idea that if someone was stalking you and recording your every action in physical public spaces that you’d be pretty disturbed. Most people get it, they understand the idea and can view their internet activity through the lense of that metaphor.

But they don’t really feel it, and that’s where the disconnect comes in. How do you get people who don’t feel the Internet is part of “real life” to understand how invasive this is on both and intellectual and emotional level? Because of digital privacy and user rights don’t hold some sort of emotional significance for them, it’s going to stay a back burner issue in their lives.

This may honestly be it for me.

I quit playing games because of all the greed and hype, I went back to piracy when streaming started to fracture and greed set in, I left non-federated social media because of the enshittifaction and invasiveness, and I go to fairly extensive lengths to block ads and protect my privacy as much as possible…

And instead of moving to any number of fair, non-exploitive business models, they’re just going to force ads down my throat like that episode of black mirror.

If this goes through I’ll be sorely tempted to wipe everything I can and start over as best I can. Only interact with the Internet when I need to.

You’ll find me paying cash at the local used bookstore, at least until all the major publishers make that illegal.

EDIT: It’s honestly depressing, I genuinely enjoy technology and the internet, but when companies like Google are able to force garbage like this it just sucks all the joy out of it for me.

It’s like everying is becoming a shitty mobile game. Do the toolsheds that develop Candy Crush clones not think we can understand why in app currencies are sold in bundles of 100 but every thing we purchase with them requires amounts that end with a five? Does Google not think we know the real motivation behind a system that strives to prove ads were delivered to your browser either?

I know a lot of people may not see the real driver here, but I’m tired of being underestimated and infantalized by a bunch of dorks trapped in a corporate echo chamber. I think I’d prefer it if they just straight up said they’re going to sacrifice our privacy and user experience for a quick bump in stock value.