Big Tech doesn’t run social media. It runs algorithmic advertising platforms.

The majority of people using algorithmic advertising platforms are not content creators, they’re consumers (if you’re reading this, you’re probably not in the majority). They have no interest is active participation in “social media”. They’re in it for the entertainment, the distraction, the memes, the algorithm telling them what they should care about. You can’t remove this feature and expect these users to find content for themselves.

You can argue the pros and cons all you want, your reasoning may be factual and altruistic, but you will not get a substantial portion of content consumers to migrate to platforms that require more effort. They know what they’re signing up for. They have no interest in “reclaiming social media”.

Bluesky and Mastodon are fantastic platforms that, in my opinion, revive some of the core tenants of social microblogging. But this is like comparing a bulletin board system (BBS) to the Yahoo! homepage. Some people want to be involved, some people want to be told.

One of these platforms offers a greater profit making opportunity than the other. If one allows people to make money and another does not, what’s the motivation for the most influential of creators to embrace the latter? And then what’s the motivation of the consumers to embrace a platform that lacks the most influential creators? (Again, if you’re reading this, you likely aren’t a member of the majority.)

This is not Microsoft. I haven’t updated my plex software in over six months and it runs fine. Still, yes, I would expect updates to any software I purchase as new patches are needed for OS updates, etc. That shouldn’t be more than two updates a year for a given OS - if at all.

Selling a product, generating revenue, using revenue to improve products or create new products is how we used to run businesses.

If they’re unable to maintain software updates with the revenue they get, then they should discontinue support of less popular products.

As I’ve stated on the plex forum, plex is no longer a media management and consumption platform. It’s a video on demand service. That’s their prerogative and that’s fine. The issue is that they’re discontinuing a product that people have purchased and use on a regular basis. I paid money for a product and that product can no longer be used if I change the device I use that product on. They should have left the existing product alone and released something wholly new.

I bought a media management and consumption platform running on my own server using my own clients. For what reason do I need a relay service to watch content in my house on my server?

So what is the move for them?

Plex has a two-pronged VOD service. They have ad-supported “live television” and they have content to rent.

I don’t know if that’s enough to sustain them but I don’t really care. I’ve been a PlexPass owner for over ten years. I have only asked that they resolve bugs and made requests for things like proper organization of classical music (which they’ve explicitly stated they will not consider).

You do bring to light something I hadn’t considered; that they see Plex as a business model. From my perspective, I want to buy a fully developed product with the expectation of bug fixes and security patches etc over time. I genuinely can not think of a single thing the developers have added to the service that I’ve used in the past ten years.

So, what kind of business model charges money to do things that don’t have an apparent impact on the user experience?

Plex has been one of my most used applications in the past decade. However, it has its limitations and they are actively imposing more limitations on the experience in favor of “a sustainable business model”.

The issue is that their sustainable business model is interrupting the users’ sustained use of a platform they’ve already paid for. I’ve had to go through all of my devices and disable all auto-updates to ensure I do not get the “New Plex Experience”.

What we should be asking is why “selling a product” is no longer a business model.

Assuming you read my whole comment, it would have taken you less time to read the source material to get your answer.

It would have taken you considerable less effort to read the article and you would have actually obtained some knowledge from a source.

You’re genuinely better off avoiding the internet entirely if your intent is to go about your life waiting on people to give you the answers to questions to topics you evidently do not care about.

The laziness of the average person continues to amaze me. You’ve chosen to ask and wait for the answer to a question which could have been answered by reading the article you’ve commented on. “Why” is the reason journalists pen these articles.

Rich people don’t care about their privacy as much as they have their own IT department to do the work for them (source: I’ve been their IT department).

Their devices are just as secure as you would imagine any high profile CEO. Their home networks can cost up to $100k and are super secure with constant monitoring. They all have “normal” devices but they’ll usually have a VPN tunnel.

But, stuff like their Facebook logins, etc they’re still pretty bad with passwords, from my experience. I’d say less than percent of the people I’ve worked with have asked serious questions about their cyber security.

I live in a building where these contactless and cashless washing / drying units are provided for residents to clean their clothes.

Thanks. Hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Above these

Another longtime user here. If you haven’t already, you might want to disable autoupdates on all your devices. The “new experience” is not without its controversies.

…the company had crafted a pitch deck for advertisers bragging that it could exploit “moments of psychological vulnerability” in its users by targeting terms like “worthless,” “insecure,” “stressed,” “defeated,” “anxious,” “stupid,” “useless,” and “like a failure.”

As much as there’s an opportunity for selling a product, there’s an opportunity for extending support. Maybe there’s a sliver of a silver lining in that this surveillance could be used for good. It’s disheartening though that of course this will never happen.

I mean, if you wanted to be the good guy, you’d develop AI chat bots that could reach out to people seemingly in distress.

I’d be interested to hear from the youngest generation (15-20 YO) to hear if they care about this at all.

I’m approaching 50 years old and had been an early adopter most of my adult life. Growing up from the 1980s through 2000s, there was a near-mainstream narrative that we were living in a unique era of emerging technologies. It was exciting and we were anxious for anything new.

It seems to me that nothing is really new and there is nothing exciting, if not interesting, about technology today.

I’ve actually been stripping down the technology from my life as it’s become too distracting to get things done and has prevented personal growth and the formation of memories. For one example, I recently subscribed to a print magazine because I prefer a tangible object that I can associate with in and of itself (and choose to own and collect).

Looking at analog trends like vinyl records and film photography and cassette tapes, it seems like people are at least trying to incorporate tangible objects into a modern lifestyle. Then you have the trend of the dumb phones which indicate people are becoming more aware of the detriments caused by an always connected lifestyle. Thankfully, some car manufacturers are returning buttons to their cars in response to owner feedback about everything being a touch screen.

I mean, I’m not a multi-trillion dollar organization with different departments studying the feasibility of future products but I do wonder if something like AR glasses are already more of our past than our future.

I think there’s a more than reasonable desire for a device to help you through your day - especially in foreign countries. But do you think you want that to be glasses or something else?

Lastly, this reminds me of the prediction from Michio Kaku in Physics of the Future about augmented reality contact lenses. Should we at least accept AR glasses as first step towards contact lenses? Do you think society would accept these 20-40 years in the future?

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As a major shipping artery, Panama makes far more sense than Greenland. What are you talking about?

In a way that he has ulterior motives he’s not telling the public, I’d agree with that. It turns out that he’s the most politician-y politician.

I don’t know how much weight I put into this piece, given that we’re talking about Trump, but I appreciate the perspective. From my understanding, the US has always had a good relationship with Greenland and could have easily worked with them to increase defenses and security. There could certainly be another objective like mining natural resources or, I dunno, building crypto mining facilities. The whole thing should be offensive to all Americans, especially conservatives.

I think we’re well past people becoming apathetic to privacy concerns. Either they’re ignorant or they prefer the advantages.

You, along with everyone else sharing this soapbox, aren’t convincing anyone that their data privacy is a concern. Your example about using private communications against someone is becoming increasingly valid but the vast majority of people are going to ignore this until it’s too late. Maybe not even then.

If you haven’t heard about human beings before, they’re a species that rarely shows concern for their immediate future (never mind long term). If and when they do, they point at and blame the people whom they’ve elected to ensure pending catastrophic events don’t impede upon their freedom to be stupid.

Our reality is the frog in the pot of water. Things are happening at such a slow pace that we accept the incremental changes despite their known ramifications. Before you know it, the water is at a rolling boil but we’ve already subscribed to boil-proof clothing so we can enjoy the pleasure of the sauna.

Because, contrary to what you may think you’ve observed over the past ten+ years, copying and republishing anyone’s content without their permission is a US copyright infringement.

So yeah; if you want to get their permission, ensure all their links and such are migrated over, and do all the work for them to mirror content they’ve created without the benefit of making any money on it, have at it.