Don’t know about Teamspeak, but you never HAD to pay for Mumble. You could just run the server on any machine you wanted, including the same one as your client.

I assume you still can, for that matter.

That was always part of the enshittification formula. The final stage after exploiting users is to exploit business customers to the breaking point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

From reading the article, it sounds like Spotify itself doesn’t get directly affected. Instead, the record companies and advertisers are upset. The record companies, because the shared pool of royalties that gets paid out is now getting split with white noise creators, leaving them a smaller share of the pie. The advertisers, because most people listening to white noise are using it to fall asleep or just keeping it on in the background, and therefore nobody will be listening/paying attention when the ads come on.

Tough titties for them, you may say, but if they don’t like it, they may take their respective balls and go home. That would seriously impact Spotify, since without the music, most users will quickly lose interest, and the advertisers are a large part of their revenue stream. If they don’t do something, they could end being a streaming service predominantly for white noise, which would be far less profitable.

It should also be taken into account that a lot of the white noise hits were not organic, but the result of a problem with how Spotify set up their algorithm.

You wouldn’t download a meme.

It wasn’t up the whole time. I went looking for it a few years ago after a new OS install, and found that, at the time, the site was in limbo with some message about coming back eventually, but no official way to download it. Glad it’s back, hope they didn’t turn it into enshittified bloatware.

I agree in general, but search feels like an odd example. That space has been dominated by ad companies since even before the internet (e.g., Yellow Pages).

That’s a good way of putting it. Reminds me of how the technology behind gorilla glass had been around for decades, but its use suddenly exploded when smartphones came along and needed something like it. Wouldn’t surprise me if Blockchain ends up existing as a niche thing for a long time until a killer app for it comes along.

I could have sworn I read about it shutting down years ago. Did someone bring it back up, or am I just mistaken?

Now that’s putting the “shit” in “shitpost”.

It’s tubular!

Came for the decentralization, stayed for the nonconsensual lemon party redirects.

I got a similar effect by constructing a purpose-made monitor shelf. It’s not as good for having a wide area open for large items, but it allows multiple levels for stacking, which works out great. It has one low shelf inside, just high enough to fit a keyboard and hands underneath, and then the top surface to put the actual monitors on. Keeping the bottom floor clear makes it easy to slide the keyboard in to make some temporary room in front of the structure, and the inside shelf provides a large general-purpose cavity for papers, mail, snacks, or what-have-you. There’s also some room on the top to pile things up next to the monitors.

The original goal was just to get the monitors up to eye level, but I ended up enjoying the extra space at least as much.

I prefer to believe the cleaner did know english, but he didn’t think to try.

Taking it out, more like

That’s the neat part, you don’t!

IIRC, that was even formally discouraged by rediquette - the idea being that such a reply is not meaningfully different from just giving an upvote.

If you’re talking about tracking cookies, I’m sure Reddit has plenty of them.

Makes me wonder if that’s what Digg was doing…