fun fact - lately russian govt started testing out protocol blocking (through dpi), several days ago there were reports of xmpp blocked for everything but jabber.ru.

warrant was likely received to bust some cybercrime org, jabber is pretty popular in ex-ussr in these circles, the usual question is what happened with this mitm channel after.

it’s like this to eliminate competition, any alternative has to fund marketing costs + unsustainable pricing, while Spotify will be running their ponzi scheme, effectively leveraging their market position.

I get where you are coming from, however it’s important to remember that big players are not equal - they have really, really different people in the leadership. Elmo is just a too-big-to-fall clown with insane ego, spez is a manchild who took VC money like there’s no tomorrow and in the end had no idea how to provide ROI, but youtube is ran by very competent people with solid track record and deep pockets.

Maybe they are not too innovative business-wise recently… but they are good at catching up (except live streaming - screen layout is dogshit and nobody wants to get hyped in their tiny chatbox from a fucking google account with family photo as an avatar) and at leveraging what they already have, which is quite a lot, tbh.

Yt makes a series of bad decisions

It’s not like it’s making any bad decisions right now. Pretty calculated, I’d say - they feel safe market-wise, so they can increase amount of ads/fight ad-blockers/push people to buy subscription.

MAC address

nope

yes, he bought it, now the question is how he will ruin it. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my network traffic, Elmo is the type of guy to run Musk-in-the-middle for shits and giggles, even without any other possible incentives.
And before any tls or e2e discussion starts - it’s still possible to learn quite a lot if you are sitting on the channel level if you don’t run vpn on your gateway constantly.

the funny thing is actual ability to pay is varying from business to business. AAA development with in-house engine is simply inferior as a business compared to mobile gamedev or producing shitty battle royale clones with Unity. If some business can’t compete with big tech or low-effort money grabbers, does it mean it has to go?

Just because you’re paid well doesn’t mean others are not being mistreated

FTFY
without unions there could be a huge salary disparity between devs in the same role, in the same company, even in the same project. I’ve personally witnessed more than 2x, heard about even more.

Sometimes it’s more than justified with individual’s performance and impact, sometimes it’s not. Some people are just better skill-wise, some people are better at applying pressure on their employer, holding business-critical knowledge hostage or simply negotiating.

Point here is - while unionizing might make things better on average, there would be a very real pushback from people who are benefitting from current system and this is not necessarily management. For management in some cases it would be even a net benefit, since they don’t have to deal with primadonnas and someone tying things to themselves just for leverage.

Dubai is much cheaper

safe and sanitary space in Manhattan can cost the same as mansion with a pool somewhere else.

With current global world simply existing in attractive locations could be luxury.

zuck’s ego fueled endeavors cost money, actual services upkeep and development is a small fraction of it.

this lizard already has insanely profitable business at hand, but it’s hard to combine steady performance for shareholders and shit like metaverse at the same time, so he needs to milk users for even more money.

how do you bump it into something enough to break the latch without messing up bumper, number plate and bonnet? all of it looks intact