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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 24th, 2023

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  • Well kind of yes and kind of no. I never closed my R account, and I still check there maybe once a week. So in that since “yes”. But on the other hand, the quality of posts and discussion is pretty low. It feels like a lot of the content there is posted to meet some goal, such as selling a product or influencing opinions - rather than just sharing thoughts and ideas. I find that pretty off-putting. Despite the very high comment counts, genuine discussion there is almost non-existent. But the one bit of value I do sometimes get is it often has some piece of niche news that I’m mildly interested in.









  • It’s pretty standard to play both extremes simultaneously, and people just pick whichever they want to relate to at any given moment.

    eg.

    • (such-and-such group) are lazy, but also they are taking all the jobs.
    • They are stupid, but also have secret organisations that control the world, with mind-control, and lasers that control the weather, etc.
    • They are snowflakes obsessed with inclusiveness, but also they want (target-minority-group) to take over.
    • They are against free speech; and we must silence them.

    I’m sure others can think of more, and variations on those.


  • The full list: https://code.gouv.fr/sill/list

    Hold on. That page does not list VLC or KeePass. Is there more info about this other than the list? Or is the info in the title of this post incorrect?

    [edit]

    I see now. The page does not list VLC or KeePass, but those two both do come up if you put them into the search box. The software listed on the page is a very long list, but it is apparently on the ‘most popular’ stuff - not the entire list. (Although it is strange to see a heap of niche stuff, and stuff I’ve never heard of on the ‘most popular’ list while VLC doesn’t make the cut.)

    I’m not sure this list is a very strong endorsement by the French Government. It seems to just be listing free software options, and then asking other people to sign up to say which ones they use.



  • My point was that “lose money on every prompt” would be true in a technical sense regardless of how much people were paying for a subscription. The subscription money is money in, and the cost of calculations is money out. It’s still money out regardless of what is coming in.

    As for whether the business is profitable or not, it’s not so easy to tell unless you’re an insider. Companies like this basically never make a ‘profit’ on paper, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t enriching themselves. They are counting their own pay as part of the costs, and they set their pay to whatever they like. They are also counting various research and expansion efforts as part of the cost. So yeah, they might not have any excess money to pay dividends to shareholders, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t profitable.


  • I find the dynamics of lichess.org vs chess.com very interesting.

    They are similar in terms of features. Both have decent interfaces, puzzles, matchmaking, live viewing boards and broadcasts for tournaments, training programs, etc. But chess.com has ads, and features locked behind subscription paywalls where lichess.org does not. (Everything is free on lichess, except for the little logo next to a user’s name to say they have supported the site with donations.)

    But on the other hand, chess.com seems to have a higher number pro players; and probably a larger number of players overall.

    I think its very interesting to think about why that is the case. Why would more people choose the version that is more expensive, but does not have more features?

    I’ve thought of a few reasons, but I think probably the biggest effect is that chess.com has more money to splash around (because it sells ads, and asks for user subscriptions), and it uses big chunk of this money to advertise itself. eg. by sponsoring players and streamers, offering larger prizes for its own tournaments; etc.

    And although I definitely think lichess is better, since it is generously supplying a high-quality product without trying to self-enrich, I do sometimes think maybe what chess.com is doing is ok too: in the sense that it is not only self-enriching, but also supporting the sport itself a bit by paying money to players, events, and commentators. Lichess does this too - but less of it, because they have less money.

    (Note that chess.com also does some really crappy stuff, such as censoring any mention of lichess in the chat of their twitch broadcasts. That definitely does not help support the sport.)




  • blind3rdeye@lemm.eetomemes@lemmy.worldIt's no contest
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    3 months ago

    I watched one random episode of BBT after it was recommended to me by a few people. That one episode was enough for me to decide that I never want to see that show again, and also that I should disregard all recommendations from the people who said I should watch it.