Welcome to the classic social media 100m dash. Become a popular dunk target on socials > get people to call such and such choice as a dealbreaker > stop doing such and such > it is now “not enough”, or “they’ll enshittify it later” or “a slippery slope”.
Which fine, whatever. I’m not saying Meta are “good guys” (no corporation is, honestly). What I will say is a) that is not a particularly productive or functional way to engage with pretty much anything, especially when there is no comparable alternative to a product, and b) this is a remarkable incentive to NOT acknowledge criticism. I mean, if I’m Meta and I see this often, what is the incentive to not just force everybody to EULA away as much as possible? People will give me crap for it regardless, so I may as well get to sell some sweet, sweet data.
FWIW, I’m skeptical of the ability of Meta to turn around the VR market as a whole, I don’t like many of their privacy and content moderation practices and I no longer use Facebook, Instagram or Threads. But hey, I do have a Whatsapp account because it’s pretty much mandatory to exist in society, and I do have a Quest headset, which I agree is the best price to performance you can buy and works flawlessly with PC VR both wired and wirelessly.
I’m not reading anymore of this thread, but go move to the EU and request all the data those companies you mentioned have on you. You will see a truly staggering amount of your day to day info from some of them. Facebook and google are just advertising companies trying to get their thumbs in every pie they can convince enough people to buy into. Part of that is designing their products to require phoning home. The issue isn’t signing in. Signing in is just the trojan horse to make sure every bit of data they pull from you is tied to the right advertising account ID. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue to do that, even if they have enough money to lobby for its legality. Even if every single company on earth was freely doing it to the same degree people should still push for a change.
The business world is truly a slippery slope. Google made unethical digital advertising into a major market, and now even if they close shop somebody else will come fill the gap. The only way to put the power back in people’s hands is to regulate them out of existence but that will never happen if most people don’t even know it’s happening because you can’t even fucking complain about it on the internet without a hundred reply thread jfc
No, hold on, get it right, the 100 post thread is about somebody defending something tangentially related to them. Thread was nice and short with just complaining, it was when somebody pointed out that the requirement people were complaining about had been removed that the massive dogpile started.
And yes, by the way, I do know what data these companies have on me. I pulled all my Google data just last week, all 50 gigabytes of it. I agree that regulation is the answer to this. Absolutely. Everybody knows that, nobody is finding that via a rant about factually incorrect anecdotes about Meta’s VR headset, of all things.
But also, I have an Android phone. With a Google account on it. Do you not have a phone? Nobody is saying to not complain about abusive data mining or breaches of privacy, but you don’t have to performatively pretend to never engage with them or that the reason they get away with it in absence of regulation isn’t that they do make things people want or need.
This conversation boils down to whether it’s a moral imperative to turn your chosen cause into your entire personality at the expense of reality and beyond any nuance whatsoever. And honestly, in the current sociopolitical context, and despite being just about the most superfluous demonstration of this imaginable… man, it’s such a bummer.
b) this is a remarkable incentive to NOT acknowledge criticism. I mean, if I’m Meta and I see this often, what is the incentive to not just force everybody to EULA away as much as possible?
how incredibly fucking dishonest. profit motive is more than enough incentive for them to continue to do what they’ve already been doing for close to two decades.
“don’t boycott exceptionally shitty companies or you’re responsible when they just get worse” is possibly the worst take i’ve seen so far on lemmy.
That would sure be a bad take. Let me know when somebody makes it.
In the meantime I continue to argue that if you boycott people on the basis of their reputation without reversing that stance when they reverse their behavior then you’re not “boycotting” anything, you’re just removing yourself from the pool of possible customers altogether.
My issue isn’t with the notion of boycotting companies, my issue is with the moving of goalposts when the companies do cave to the pressure just to extend the online ragefest. I get that it’d be easier to argue with the imaginary opponent in your head, but if you want to argue with me instead I’d appreciate addressing the actual issue.
In the meantime I continue to argue that if you boycott people on the basis of their reputation without reversing that stance when they reverse their behavior then you’re not “boycotting” anything, you’re just removing yourself from the pool of possible customers altogether.
Dude, Meta has been and continues to be fucking terrible. If you don’t understand why then i guess you’ve been living in your closet in a VR headset for the last two decades.
No, I understand the ways in which Meta is terrible.
I also understand the ways in which they’re not because I’m an adult who is capable of holding semi-complex concepts in my mind.
Meta sucks, their role in social media has been a massive net negative for society and they are at best in denial about that, and at worst a deliberate bad actor.
But they’re also a huge corporation, so if their dumb chat app is the standard for communication or their VR headsets are great and dirt cheap I will interact with them, just like I interact with Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and a bunch of other corporations I fundamentally disagree with on key issues.
I hate this notion that money is support. It is not. That is a stupid ass ultracapitalist fallacy to make people feel good for ineffectually buying one brand of cereal over another. I don’t take a political stance on Meta by not buying their cheap stuff, I do so by supporting political actors who are willing to break apart oligopolistic media companies and regulate their role in society.
I hate this notion that money is support. It is not.
Lol, that’s not a “notion” at all, it’s reality.
Even with the case of them providing a cheap headset, they’re betting (and they’re often correct, and always correct in aggregate) that you will make it up to them in other ways (e.g. your data, software purchases, etc.).
Well… yeah. They didn’t invent that scheme, that’s been how most gaming systems are deployed since the Sega of the 90s at least.
And yes, it’s a “notion” that is extremely anglocentric and intrinsically capitalist. It assumes that money is self-expression and speech and puts the onus of holding corporations accountable on individual consumers as opposed to regulators. It’s half a step away from “ban plastic straws” in the list of ineffectual guilt dispersal schemes meant to avoid addressing any real issues.
Hate to break it to you, but corporations behaving semi-functionally as opposed to destroying everything they touch is not down to your brave refusal to purchase superfluous consumer products for your own entertainment. You’re no superhero for not buying a thing you don’t need anyway. It’s governments that are supposed to have the power to hold them to account, not some magic hand bullcrap where the forces of the free market tend to a morally superior outcome. Can’t believe this is so widespread on supposedly leftie circles.
You’re no superhero for not buying a thing you don’t need anyway.
And you’re no superhero for writing several thousands of words on lemmy about how we should make completely optional purchases of products from companies we hate and that make us angry.
There is no circumstance that justifies having any account with anything Facebook owns, and stealing other company’s names to try to trick people into thinking they’re a different company doesn’t change that.
Well, thanks for passing judgement on… let me check here… two billion people, as it turns out.
They have, in fact, reversed the policy that required linking your Quest account to a live Facebook account, though. That is a fact, perceived moral failings of a significant chunk of humanity or not.
But hey, I do have a Whatsapp account because it’s pretty much mandatory to exist in society,
I’ve never encountered a situation in which I’ve needed to use WhatsApp for anything. Today i guess i learned that i don’t “exist in society” or something. 😆
Go find the other response I gave to someone else who made that exact joke.
TLDR, I’m guessing you’re American and just don’t realize to what extent WhatsApp has entirely replaced texting in many, many places around the world, regardless of whether you use Android or iPhone.
Why does a texting app have a network effect for you? Is SMS completely unavailable on people’s phones in your country? Or are you just afraid of seeming a little bit different from the pack?
Because, see if you can follow this logic, sometimes my mom wants to tell me things. Also my doctor. And my government. And the plumber. And delivery guys.
It’s not a “pack”, it’s a society and a family. And it’s not about “being different”, it’s about not having to explain to every single person in my life that they need to talk to me through a different device than they use for literally everything else.
Nobody I know has sent a SMS since the 2010s. You do not realize how detached from reality that sounds. I just checked my phone, the last time I received a legit SMS that wasn’t an automated notification was February 2022, when a seller from an eBay-like service wanted to ask me a thing about a delivery.
So you’re saying sms does work on your phones, but it’s not commonplace so…guess if everyone’s using Satan’s butthole app instead might as well join the pack?
You have no idea how delusional you sound, this is like oh nobody makes phone calls anymore, instead they call through evilcorp ringytimes in my country so i guess i just have to give them all my personal information and offer up my first born, and it’s actually the fault of you guys…who don’t use this that evil corp requires that!
Oh, they call through Whatsapp, yeah. About 50% of the time, I’d say.
No, for real. A lot of my audio calls are through WhatsApp as well, they just show up as normal calls, and since that goes through wifi a lot of people on prepaid phones prefer that, especially if they have relatives in other countries that would trigger roaming charges. After a while it becomes habit.
You really, really, REALLY don’t have a picture of the scale of penetration into society of this particular application. I’m not shocked, I’ve seen it before. The slow realization is kinda funny, actually. If it makes you feel better, I keep hearing “blue bubbles” as something that full-on political parties have opinions about and I don’t see the point, either.
There’s not going to be any slow realization for me. Nobody in my country uses this shit at all and even if they did I still wouldn’t.
Part of the problem with your point of view is that you think everyone gives a shit about controlling or intends to control the behavior of these companies through purchasing and usage patterns. Maybe some people do intend that. I don’t, and I’m sure there are others that don’t either.
I don’t purchase this shit from these corporations or use their bullshit because it improves my life not to.
SMS is still expensive in other countries, internet access is cheap and WhatsApp is free. For example, it’s the only way my mom can keep in contact with her family in South America.
Call it what you want, but this requirement prevents me from buying their products too. I use no Meta services. Don’t wanna start.
Welcome to the classic social media 100m dash. Become a popular dunk target on socials > get people to call such and such choice as a dealbreaker > stop doing such and such > it is now “not enough”, or “they’ll enshittify it later” or “a slippery slope”.
Which fine, whatever. I’m not saying Meta are “good guys” (no corporation is, honestly). What I will say is a) that is not a particularly productive or functional way to engage with pretty much anything, especially when there is no comparable alternative to a product, and b) this is a remarkable incentive to NOT acknowledge criticism. I mean, if I’m Meta and I see this often, what is the incentive to not just force everybody to EULA away as much as possible? People will give me crap for it regardless, so I may as well get to sell some sweet, sweet data.
FWIW, I’m skeptical of the ability of Meta to turn around the VR market as a whole, I don’t like many of their privacy and content moderation practices and I no longer use Facebook, Instagram or Threads. But hey, I do have a Whatsapp account because it’s pretty much mandatory to exist in society, and I do have a Quest headset, which I agree is the best price to performance you can buy and works flawlessly with PC VR both wired and wirelessly.
I’m not reading anymore of this thread, but go move to the EU and request all the data those companies you mentioned have on you. You will see a truly staggering amount of your day to day info from some of them. Facebook and google are just advertising companies trying to get their thumbs in every pie they can convince enough people to buy into. Part of that is designing their products to require phoning home. The issue isn’t signing in. Signing in is just the trojan horse to make sure every bit of data they pull from you is tied to the right advertising account ID. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue to do that, even if they have enough money to lobby for its legality. Even if every single company on earth was freely doing it to the same degree people should still push for a change.
The business world is truly a slippery slope. Google made unethical digital advertising into a major market, and now even if they close shop somebody else will come fill the gap. The only way to put the power back in people’s hands is to regulate them out of existence but that will never happen if most people don’t even know it’s happening because you can’t even fucking complain about it on the internet without a hundred reply thread jfc
No, hold on, get it right, the 100 post thread is about somebody defending something tangentially related to them. Thread was nice and short with just complaining, it was when somebody pointed out that the requirement people were complaining about had been removed that the massive dogpile started.
And yes, by the way, I do know what data these companies have on me. I pulled all my Google data just last week, all 50 gigabytes of it. I agree that regulation is the answer to this. Absolutely. Everybody knows that, nobody is finding that via a rant about factually incorrect anecdotes about Meta’s VR headset, of all things.
But also, I have an Android phone. With a Google account on it. Do you not have a phone? Nobody is saying to not complain about abusive data mining or breaches of privacy, but you don’t have to performatively pretend to never engage with them or that the reason they get away with it in absence of regulation isn’t that they do make things people want or need.
This conversation boils down to whether it’s a moral imperative to turn your chosen cause into your entire personality at the expense of reality and beyond any nuance whatsoever. And honestly, in the current sociopolitical context, and despite being just about the most superfluous demonstration of this imaginable… man, it’s such a bummer.
how incredibly fucking dishonest. profit motive is more than enough incentive for them to continue to do what they’ve already been doing for close to two decades.
“don’t boycott exceptionally shitty companies or you’re responsible when they just get worse” is possibly the worst take i’ve seen so far on lemmy.
That would sure be a bad take. Let me know when somebody makes it.
In the meantime I continue to argue that if you boycott people on the basis of their reputation without reversing that stance when they reverse their behavior then you’re not “boycotting” anything, you’re just removing yourself from the pool of possible customers altogether.
My issue isn’t with the notion of boycotting companies, my issue is with the moving of goalposts when the companies do cave to the pressure just to extend the online ragefest. I get that it’d be easier to argue with the imaginary opponent in your head, but if you want to argue with me instead I’d appreciate addressing the actual issue.
Dude, Meta has been and continues to be fucking terrible. If you don’t understand why then i guess you’ve been living in your closet in a VR headset for the last two decades.
No, I understand the ways in which Meta is terrible.
I also understand the ways in which they’re not because I’m an adult who is capable of holding semi-complex concepts in my mind.
Meta sucks, their role in social media has been a massive net negative for society and they are at best in denial about that, and at worst a deliberate bad actor.
But they’re also a huge corporation, so if their dumb chat app is the standard for communication or their VR headsets are great and dirt cheap I will interact with them, just like I interact with Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and a bunch of other corporations I fundamentally disagree with on key issues.
I hate this notion that money is support. It is not. That is a stupid ass ultracapitalist fallacy to make people feel good for ineffectually buying one brand of cereal over another. I don’t take a political stance on Meta by not buying their cheap stuff, I do so by supporting political actors who are willing to break apart oligopolistic media companies and regulate their role in society.
Lol, that’s not a “notion” at all, it’s reality.
Even with the case of them providing a cheap headset, they’re betting (and they’re often correct, and always correct in aggregate) that you will make it up to them in other ways (e.g. your data, software purchases, etc.).
Well… yeah. They didn’t invent that scheme, that’s been how most gaming systems are deployed since the Sega of the 90s at least.
And yes, it’s a “notion” that is extremely anglocentric and intrinsically capitalist. It assumes that money is self-expression and speech and puts the onus of holding corporations accountable on individual consumers as opposed to regulators. It’s half a step away from “ban plastic straws” in the list of ineffectual guilt dispersal schemes meant to avoid addressing any real issues.
Hate to break it to you, but corporations behaving semi-functionally as opposed to destroying everything they touch is not down to your brave refusal to purchase superfluous consumer products for your own entertainment. You’re no superhero for not buying a thing you don’t need anyway. It’s governments that are supposed to have the power to hold them to account, not some magic hand bullcrap where the forces of the free market tend to a morally superior outcome. Can’t believe this is so widespread on supposedly leftie circles.
And you’re no superhero for writing several thousands of words on lemmy about how we should make completely optional purchases of products from companies we hate and that make us angry.
You’re just a corporate apologist.
They haven’t reversed any behavior.
There is no circumstance that justifies having any account with anything Facebook owns, and stealing other company’s names to try to trick people into thinking they’re a different company doesn’t change that.
Well, thanks for passing judgement on… let me check here… two billion people, as it turns out.
They have, in fact, reversed the policy that required linking your Quest account to a live Facebook account, though. That is a fact, perceived moral failings of a significant chunk of humanity or not.
I’ve never encountered a situation in which I’ve needed to use WhatsApp for anything. Today i guess i learned that i don’t “exist in society” or something. 😆
Go find the other response I gave to someone else who made that exact joke.
TLDR, I’m guessing you’re American and just don’t realize to what extent WhatsApp has entirely replaced texting in many, many places around the world, regardless of whether you use Android or iPhone.
Who cares?
Why does a texting app have a network effect for you? Is SMS completely unavailable on people’s phones in your country? Or are you just afraid of seeming a little bit different from the pack?
Because, see if you can follow this logic, sometimes my mom wants to tell me things. Also my doctor. And my government. And the plumber. And delivery guys.
It’s not a “pack”, it’s a society and a family. And it’s not about “being different”, it’s about not having to explain to every single person in my life that they need to talk to me through a different device than they use for literally everything else.
Nobody I know has sent a SMS since the 2010s. You do not realize how detached from reality that sounds. I just checked my phone, the last time I received a legit SMS that wasn’t an automated notification was February 2022, when a seller from an eBay-like service wanted to ask me a thing about a delivery.
So you’re saying sms does work on your phones, but it’s not commonplace so…guess if everyone’s using Satan’s butthole app instead might as well join the pack?
You have no idea how delusional you sound, this is like oh nobody makes phone calls anymore, instead they call through evilcorp ringytimes in my country so i guess i just have to give them all my personal information and offer up my first born, and it’s actually the fault of you guys…who don’t use this that evil corp requires that!
Oh, they call through Whatsapp, yeah. About 50% of the time, I’d say.
No, for real. A lot of my audio calls are through WhatsApp as well, they just show up as normal calls, and since that goes through wifi a lot of people on prepaid phones prefer that, especially if they have relatives in other countries that would trigger roaming charges. After a while it becomes habit.
You really, really, REALLY don’t have a picture of the scale of penetration into society of this particular application. I’m not shocked, I’ve seen it before. The slow realization is kinda funny, actually. If it makes you feel better, I keep hearing “blue bubbles” as something that full-on political parties have opinions about and I don’t see the point, either.
There’s not going to be any slow realization for me. Nobody in my country uses this shit at all and even if they did I still wouldn’t.
Part of the problem with your point of view is that you think everyone gives a shit about controlling or intends to control the behavior of these companies through purchasing and usage patterns. Maybe some people do intend that. I don’t, and I’m sure there are others that don’t either.
I don’t purchase this shit from these corporations or use their bullshit because it improves my life not to.
SMS is still expensive in other countries, internet access is cheap and WhatsApp is free. For example, it’s the only way my mom can keep in contact with her family in South America.
See this makes a bit more sense than the weirdo wall of text I got.
It was three sentences, don’t be dramatic.
Your response was paragraphs of bullshit.