Hangouts was so close to perfect before they blew it all up.

Now I’m using a mix of Chat and Voice and it’s terrible for everyone. Voice doesn’t even support RCS from what I can tell, and all my messages with iPhone users are full of reactions. It’s so annoying. I’ve had the same Google Voice number for over a decade, why is this so frustrating?

“When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you’re busy.”

• George Costanza

I’ve lived by this advice my whole career and it’s never failed me.

I feel like this is necessary, given modern media literacy levels.

I feel like I’ve seen enough to say that this is likely real and you are probably correct. I’m struggling to figure out how to prepare for this though. Are there companies or industries that we should be investing in or something?

I joined a hotel company a couple of years ago where they offered stock options, which is good and I appreciated it. But there were a lot of people that had worked there for decades just because they felt invested in the company. Meanwhile, working conditions were absolutely awful and the culture was the worst I’ve ever experienced. And I kept thinking how crazy it must have been during COVID as the stock tanked and everyone was staring down the barrel of layoffs. Like, if your employer is your entire retirement plan then you could be in huge trouble all at once.

I get that, and respect it very much. You care about others and the community you’ve helped create. But Reddit is now actively exploiting that care for their own profit. Reddit draws value from your community and the advice it offers others. If that advice is poor then yes, people will suffer, but that’s on Reddit for allowing this all to happen how it has, not you.

Exactly. And it’s driving me crazy how many mods are caving. Like, I get that you care about the community and want it to continue on, but will it even be the same now that you know how little control you actually have? Will it survive the next insane, profit driven decision Reddit makes and refuses to negotiate on? Just rip the band-aid off now like /r/interestingasfuck and others did and let them remove you. We’ve seen that they can’t actually replace what was lost, so let them try.

The first part of your username had me thinking you were wrong, but the last part checks out.