If I am unable or unwilling to purchase a game (lack of funds, ethical concerns, etc) and I cannot pirate it or get it heavily discounted then I do something very simple and efficient.

I just don’t play it. There are heaps of great games out there, new and old, that I can put my time into instead.

Many of the games that pack Denuvo these days are AAA trash that I wouldn’t play anyway.

Gamers are not the only people that use Windows. A lot of creative and commercial software either requires Windows or works best on it.

I think Windows is garbage as much as everyone else here, but switching is not that easy.

The scummyness of this company knows no bounds.

The primary reason I moved to iPhones was because I got absolutely sick and tired of my android phones being abandoned by the manufacturer after a year. I’m sure it is better these days, but those earlier days of extremely slow Carrier-based updates completely ruined my trust and I know I’m not the only one.

I kind of want a flip phone for the compact size when folded so it will fit more easily into my tiny pockets. But I don’t want a phone with a screen that likely need regular (and expensive) replacements if I want to keep using it long past the 2 year contract window like I do with most phones.

The price was definitely a primary factor, but it wasn’t the only one. The Vision Pro is a bulky thing with a dingleberry on a string and many reviewers noted the uncomfortable headband situation. It, like may headsets, is also a royal pain in the ass to deal with if you wear glasses and/or need really specialized lenses.

But a really big factor was that it’s an Apple product. Word travelled fast about how limited the software is and how you can’t really do much with it. Apple is going to have a hard time selling these things until they crawl out of their own ass and actually let people use their products how they wish to. One of the biggest appeals of AR computing is how it bridges together computing with your imagination, and that doesn’t really work when Apple says “no, you can’t do that because it doesn’t match our company vision”

I made a Fiverr account once for my art services. I deleted it within an hour of creation after reading how much money they would steal from my commissions.

I put some of the blame on retailers as well. Retail stores just don’t want to carry inventory anymore, especially tech-focused ones with many of those just turning into glorified showrooms. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some version of: “Sorry, we don’t have that in stock but we can bring it in for you.”

We needed a short length of garden hose here for the house so I went to two hardware stores and one garden centre looking for one. Nothing. Not even in their dedicated gardening sections. I had to order it off Amazon. A goddamn garden hose.

Amazon has done a lot of damage for sure but retail is suffering from several self-inflicted wounds too. Home Depot, for example, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and even they have a weaker retail presence now. That’s not Amazon’s fault.

The hardware and bandwidth demands of the first game were why I stopped playing it. I had a machine that could run it (and an even better one now) and internet that could handle it, but it still just wasn’t a smooth experience. I don’t have a cap on my internet data but my speed isn’t particularly high, which meant the 80-150gb per week of data the game consumed was certainly felt.

Much to the chagrin of those of us who can see and are bothered by the colour flicker.

Google and Microsoft would be scrambling to pay off every single person associated with that before it ever hit the first courtroom floor.

Yeah, this too. My dad’s last GPU was AMD and he had to flip flop between versions to fix crashes. I wasn’t as lucky as no driver version was able to calm the crashing.

Anything to help them take on Nvidia and stay competitive is a good move. However, I wish they would also announce a recommitment to driver and software stability. I had to move to Nvidia for my workstation rig after having constant stability issues with numerous AMD cards across multiple builds. I can handle a few rough edges or performance that isn’t top-of-the-line but I can’t put up with constant crashes ad driver timeout errors. It’s annoying in games and devastating when I’m working.

I wish their GPU line received even a portion of the polish and care that their CPU line did.

People do tend to hate theft, yeah.

This. If people really want to buy something they will check all available websites for the item(s) they’re looking for. I still use CL exclusively and refuse to touch FB Marketplace even with a burner account because it requires a phone number.

Meh. They had plenty of time to move to Firefox but they ignored all the warnings.

Simple indeed, but getting people to actually stop using that trash heap website has proven to be very difficult.

I am very tired of Twitter users doing nothing but complaining about site changes and Musk yet they still just sit there… doing nothing about it. You’d think it’d be easy to rip the bandage off when it’s covered in fascist propaganda but apparently not.

This is a given for many kinds of services. Always purchase subscriptions on another device or direct through their website - never use your Apple devices’ app store.

I love how they’re asking him gently as if he’s a toddler having a tantrum and not the criminally liable fascist he actually is.

Large amounts of greed, corruption, and complacency.