I have a near complete control of a market segment.

I want to monetize that control further.

I release slot machine mini games into my most popular games.

I have contributed to the gambling epidemic that plagues modern society.

I am not a trust worthy entity.

I am Steam

Does that make sense?

Loot boxes are not a monopoly.

Its a bad thing they did to abuse their monopoly stance

Insane to think an in image attribution is advertising, but a direct link is fine.

And didn’t you learn a valuable lesson about scrolling socials when you should have focused on those KPIs?

Maybe the difference is effort versus objective reality.

You and OP are concerned with whether or not they became a monopoly maliciously when I think the previous commenter is concerned with whether or not they simply are a monopoly.

In my view they are a monopoly and they have abused that. I’m thinking of their loot boxes and silent support of skin gambling.

We should be mistrustful of institutions with this much power, regardless of if they’re actively abusing it.

You will say his silly name with respect! Dr. Glaucomflecken

I think it’s “eye spot”

Tax stamps (recently repealed)

For the longest time, if you wanted certain types of weapons, you had to pay a $200 tax to own that weapon. These include surpressors, full auto guns, short barrel rifles, and short barrel shotguns

The point wasn’t to ban these things it was to make them prohibitively expensive because “its the poor’s who vomit violence”. And this tax was implemented in the 1940’s where $200 was off 2 or 4 times the cost of the gun itself.

A different example is gun registries and concealed carry license databases. I don’t trust the police to act calm when interacting with me when they know I have a gun. There are special classes that CCL holders take often so that they know how to read a cop and keep them calm during a traffic stop or a welfare check because cops are trained to shoot first and are very scared of the masses.

Think of Paretti here. Shot dead for having a gun. People blamed it on the ICE agent being a violent fascist thug trained like that. I don’t see it that way. I think he operated like a cop who was told no consequences.

We have videos of cops approaching black men, committing the crime of being in white people spaces, who ask them if they have a gun, the man says yes, the cop tells them at gun point to pull it out and drop it, and then shoost the man when he touches the gun.

I don’t trust police to use surveillance state information like who owns what guns in a way that won’t get me killed. Its why I’m still hesitant to get any tax stamp items. I’d love an SBR, but then I am legally required to let the ATF “inspect” my home if they ask me to. I have to tell the ATF when and where I’m moving to if I change states.

Gotta say it homies.

I think I finally found a kink I don’t get.

This video by Northridgefix always stuck with me because most of why his business grew is because he spent so much Google ads that he made enough money to then move to a strip mall by a major road all while making YouTube videos and taking mailed in work.

He has another video looking for new employees because he had too much business.

What’s even crazier is he freely admits to this.

He continues to freely admit that the best way to get views is to be seen as rich and generous because kids love that stuff.

He only knows how to YouTube and Market and he says this all the time.

Mildly related.

I have a Native American friend. Her tribe is small so they only have a relatively small plot as their reservation. So they slapped a casino there and she makes bank by simply being a tribe member.

I asked if she’s okay with that since I would feel bad making money off of peoples gambling addiction and she said

“I don’t feel bad for white people.”

And honestly

1. I don’t think that’s a completely shocking take consider all of american history

But also

2. Its certainly a similar sentiment among sex workers I’ve met so its not an unfounded accusation.

This is very much a “if your eye is causing you to sin, pluck it out” moment, but still

I run stock Pop OS and I’ve only recently wanted to give a shit about macros.

You should only care if you’re running a specific software. By and large its AS SEEMLESS as using Windows.

Note that its not really BETTER its mostly just DIFFERENT.

He is after all a humble man.

Prior experience was probably a plus

I’m probably just stupid.

Yeah that’s what’s going to happen with the main blog.

Forgejo action > static HTML site > Cloudflared tunnel

This separate idea is to have a Lemmy instance to host pictures and federate the blogs comment system so people ideally won’t have to sign in or make an account to comment.

As a guy who’s cleaned far too many smoker fucked PCs.

99% Isopropyl and a tooth brush is what you need. It won’t be fast, but you need that kinda precision and attention to make sure you got everything.

You might also consider just replacing any fans. I don’t know if you have a laptop or a desktop, but a laptop fan is a bitch to clean

Oh was the ice cream machine broke? I hear he gets mad about that

Only ones who dissapointed me were Star Trek: Voyager actors. Its the only thing I got attached to as a kid.

Robert Beltran - Commander Chakotay

Roxann Dawson - B’Elanna Torres

Both transphobes and trump supporters who won’t shut up about no one wanting to invite them to Star Trek stuff anymore.

I used to feel bad for Rob because he got such a shit treatment in ST:V in terms of writing and because his character fell victim to Jamake High water’s grifting (look him up if you want to see why 90’s native american characters kinda suck).

Seems he’s just an asshole about being famous. Doesn’t like being recognized in public.

TBH, I don’t blame him. I’ll take it over everyone else in this thread.