Reddit has been generic for several years now. It’s, mostly, addictive trash content. I miss individual subs but the algorithm for popular / front page posts is doing the same thing every other social platform is doing. If that’s your jam, go for it. I value my time enough that I don’t need to be entertained by an algorithm. I hate it. A lot.

Edit:
I mean, I just went to reddit.com and the top post is a 21 year old married woman asking how to tell their 18 year old cousin they stink because they only shower every 3-4 days. THIS is engaging content? WTF is wrong with you people? This is why I’m thrilled to have left that dumbass platform.

Mastodon seems like it could work relatively well.

The other side of the issue though is for social media to feel “social” now, people, consciously or not, want to feel connected to brands and advertising and popular culture. Social media, now more than television or magazines used to, generates our water-cooler moments. It generates the content we sit right here and discuss - it generates memes. These fringe alternatives aren’t popular because the they lack gravity. Gravity comes from investment. Investment comes from potential; typically, potential to make money.

But yeah, group ware, et al, could work for smaller groups. The friction there is getting people to install, and give a crap about, another app on their phone.

What used to be apps for catching up with your friends and family are now algorithmic nightmares that constantly interrupt you with suggested content and advertisements that consistently outweigh the content of people that you choose to follow.

In the case of Facebook, the decline is either reflected in — or directly facilitated by — two specific features: People You May Know and the News Feed.

Yep. I was screaming to bring back the chronological timeline when they pushed out the “beta testing”. I actually stopped using social media regularly because I was missing events that were happening in my neighborhood. There was no point once they chose what to show me. But, I’m not the target demographic for their platform.

Someone who wants to interact with their community and keep in touch with their friends and family is not what social media is for. It’s for selling ads. It’s for maintaining your attention. It’s for engagement and making you feel a way they’ve determined will keep you scrolling.

And honestly, it’s tough to complain. The more successful a platform becomes, the more content is uploaded and viewed. This doesn’t cost them nothing. Without charging to use or upload to the platform, they have to sell ads. The more engaging the ads are, the more successful business are with posting those ads. So they double down and post more ads - they engage more with the audience the platform has directed towards them. It just keeps snowballing from there until the platform no longer represents what it did initially.

The actual problem is that no one is willing to pay for “social media”. They’ll pay out the butt for streaming services and two-day delivery but connecting with real people and getting unbiased investigative news, not so much.

Fair enough. Plex may not have the bells and whistles but it’s simple and intuitive to use. I’ve also tried the QuMagie app on my QNAP which does have all those features but found it to be a bit more cumbersome than it was worth.

I tried Google Photos briefly as well and was very shocked at how bad it is, compared to Apple Photos. It took me several days just to figure out how to delete more than one picture at a time. I have to assume it’s much more robust on an Android than on an iPhone but even their web interface was horrible.

I don’t know why people recommend Immich. I found it to be the most bare-bone photo app I’ve ever used. It feels ten+ years old. I tried really hard to make it work but Plex photos is about 20% better and it still sucks.

Suaaaaa ve

Second sentence:

It has a 4.4mm headphone jack to go with the more conventional 3.5mm type.

4.4mm is for balanced audio output. This audience for this device is audiophiles.

That’s a good one. The photomarket on reddit was the main reason I was hesitant to shut down my account. And eBay is way too expensive and unfair for sellers.

Twitter.

I know this is the “wrong answer” but I had always used Twitter to keep tabs on local government agencies, newspapers, reporters, restaurants, bars, events, concerts, sports teams, etc. Not to mention all the accounts that pertain to my hobby’s and interests.

I’ve used bird.makeup but it’s not reliable if it works at all. Some agencies, like our transit system and streets department, will post on one thing on their website and something else on instagram or twitter (many have stopped using twitter after the api change). RSS is fine for some things but not everything. I haven’t been using instagram for years because of advertising and the algorithmic timeline. I at least need lists.

Really, the right answer here for my needs is that all these groups need to join the fediverse. I just don’t see that happening.

Or maybe I should say I wish the “existing platform” of my city government would start their own instance.

301 terabits = 37 terabytes… PER SECOND.

I found something that was doing that after I thought it was going to actually delete items. I stopped the script and found something to delete. What’s the advantage of editing comments? Just to advertising alternatives?

Keep making feel good about deleting my 15+ years of Reddit content. Go on…

Edit: I’ve done it. I’ve officially deleted my account. For a minute there, I was looking at the front page of Reddit. It’s all rage bait. The content is designed to get you to feel something and engage with it. I could feel that itch to comment and downvote. It’s preposterous; and soon, all about quarterly gains.

I use Bing and Edge daily for work because they integrate nicely with M365 and SharePoint. This Copilot crap does nothing but get in my way.

In fact, Microsoft pushing Copilot in our faces only results in a disruption of productivity. It took months (which is break-neck speed for MSFT) for them to add the option to disable Copilot in PowerPlatform. Why it was forced upon users in the first place is beyond comprehension.

Improvements in technology are great. Options are great. Getting out of my way and getting shit done is even greater.

I don’t know about everyone else but, whether it’s a major corporation or an indie app developer or an automotive manufacturer, the way they all keep changing things so quickly (mostly for the worse) is pushing me away from using tech on a whole.

Without getting too off topic (too late?), there’s just so much consumer frustration from streaming services, cars, phones, wearables, vr, delivery services, etc., that I have to imagine / hope that in the next few years we’re going to start seeing an anti-tech movement pick up more traction. I mean, how many people really want a voice driven AI assistant?

Do I want AI to give me better search results? Sure - if it can do so intelligently. It still gets things wrong sending me down a rabbit hole losing hours of productivity. I don’t have time to train your AI for you so just get out of my way and let me know once you’re smarter than me.

Sounds like you’re comparing a small town to a major city. We do have places in this country that meet your demands. And then there are smaller communities that don’t. And because lots of people prefer suburban sprawl over the convenience of living in a city, they may need to commute to where big business is.

If your small town is near an interstate or train track, and has open land, you may be lucky enough to have a decent size business break ground. Now more people can live closer to work. And now more people move to that town. And more small businesses open to support the growing community. And not far down the highway a mega strip mall opens. And within a few miles you have more homes and schools going up and now that train track has a train station. Congratulations, you now live in a small city. You got any sidewalks? Did they save any of that open land for parks? How’s the infrastructure holding up? How’s traffic?

That’s exactly what happening in the town I grew up in. I hated it and moved to an actual city. Life is relaxing and convenient and full of life. I have no car and use a bike public transportation. I more often walk to the stores and restaurants (those that haven’t closed yet). I engage with people (minimally) and find little joys in my daily life.

Now, imagine all of this if everyone just worked from home. There would be no need for a large corporate building or more homes or stores or schools. You’d have to drive further to the places where people live more densely for your everyday items. Or just rely on the miracle of the internet for someone to drop it at your door. Because as much as lots of people like suburban sprawl, they love not having to interact with anyone IRL.

Outside of Philadelphia is a region called The Mainline. It gets its name from the regional rail system that connects affluent suburbs with the city. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken with who complain about living in the suburbs and having to drive one of the worst highways in the country for their morning commute. When I ask why they simply don’t drive a few minutes to the station and take a train in to their place of work, they look at me as if I had two heads. Because people don’t want to interact with anyone IRL. They rather waste hours a day in the confines of their own vehicle and scream so no one can hear them.

It’s not the cities that need to be fixed. It’s the American mentality of individualism and false security in isolation. This needs to change and then the cities will naturally follow in revival.

So, while I greatly appreciate the work from home perspective, there’s more to the story than real estate losing value.

grand plazas, city centers, districts to walk/shop/eat/live life

Yes. That’s called a city. I don’t know what cities you have in mind but this is how I would describe my city of Philadelphia.

How come no one wants to talk about all the small business closing and people losing their jobs. This is a real tangible impact that shouldn’t be dismissed. I live in a big city and we’re all feeling the impact of people not returning to office work. Lack of revenue (small business, real estate, retail) is going to play a huge role in city budgets in the coming years. I work from home so I understand the appeal. Still, I don’t know how we, the city, come out of this.

Thankfully, this part of the Fediverse is working…

I’m curious if this is a “Cyber Truck” issue or an electric vehicle / drive train issue. I mean, do the electric motors in these vehicles have “gears”?

FWIW, this has been around for about twenty years.

I’m not getting into how long a copyright should last. I don’t have a meaningful opinion on it.

What it seems people are overlooking (or forgiving?) is that the guy published a book about characters (IP) he doesn’t own. Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is theft.

Whether or not Amazon should option his material is irrelevant if he didn’t get permission to use it in the first place. I mean, fan fiction is one thing. Creative license and educational purposes could be argued. But he published a freaking book!

Do you think Zack Snyder should get to put out a Rebel Moon and call it “Rebel Moon: A Star Wars Story” without getting permission or paying for licensing? Is this the reality this sub believes we live in? If you write a novel and I read it and soon start writing better more successful stories based explicitly on your characters without crediting you or sharing in my profit, how would you feel? Should your work be public domain? Is that what you (collective) feel is best for “the public”?

I don’t really have an opinion on what should happen with the work either. I could see some cases where it would be a major loss for the public to have the work erased. This could be catastrophic for classic literature. For something so new and not having any established cultural significance (as much as you wish it did), I’d go with whatever a judge believes is best under the law. You’re welcome to argue the validity of the law, and I may agree with you, but that’s a different conversation.