YouTube university where you don't need the attention span for reading
I think it's pretty good. Pushes forward ARM support for Steam and possibly better Qualcomm support for Linux in general. Another test platform for FEX and box64 developers. Another platform for Linux to chip away towards being a mainstream software platform. A hopefully price competitive VR headset against the Meta Quest 3 and preventing VR being so intertwined with Meta/Android/Apple. Regular Linux ecosystem now has a solid platform to keep up with the more controlled and/or proprietary operating systems
The part that would have been the river delta in Mexico looked incredibly different a century ago before major population growth in the western US. Mexico really got screwed not just in territory loss when they outlawed slavery and the US invaded to take the west (good ol' Alamo)
No I can't say they won't enshitiffy but I'm not going to bitch all the times they're not being dicks just so you can enjoy sucking your own dick. Go fight a battle that actually needs fighting right now because Steam is a waste of time and energy now. You're fighting your imaginary enemy right now
The common speech of someone willfully ignorant. Get an education
People like you can't seem to differentiate wanting solid criticisms of Valve and Steam rather than just theory crafting all the worst things that can happen with them. The Steam hysteria makes no sense when its a storefront on open software platforms and the ones that are on closed software platforms aren't doing what people are gearing Valve would do whenever Gabe dies or if Valve went public
At least put effort into explaining why Steam will become this terribly blood sucking store on PC where people can download from numerous options as compared to platforms like Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, iOS where you don't have freedom to install anything you want. As a developer you can't just distribute software and have them installable.
If people that wanted to make people concerned about Steam put more effort into their arguments, maybe people on Lemmy would give their concerns more credence. It's surprising that on Lemmy, people who seem to value art and expression so much are so bad at expressing why people should be concerned about what they are concern about
Stop making excuses for every other company that has failed to compete with Valve. It has not been out of the price range for competition of other companies. Big publishers have been making storefronts for about 2 decades and proceeding to underfund and mismanage every attempt.
Steam was not the first digital storefront on PC. They were not a huge behemoth company by 2014. They were not bigger than Epic was by the time EGS launched. Not bigger than EA when Origin launched. Not bigger than Ubisoft when Uplay launched. Not bigger than Microsoft when GFWL launched. Not bigger than Amazon anytime these past 15 years of digital downloads from them. I doubt it took Valve tens of billions of dollars to make 2014 Steam right before SteamOS launched, 2014 because not a single storefront platform has reached feature parity with end of 2014 Steam.
Steam launched in 2003. A single ten billion dollars, I wouldn't be surprised as about the accumulative revenue of Valve 2003-2014.
Already we can't transfer ownership once we die. We can't port out our licenses to anywhere else.
What is the policy of any other store. Of you want a solution here go lobby the government you live under to mandate inheritance of digital goods
We can't even reinstall a game without an internet connection afaik. If I could port my entire library
This is a game by game case as it's up to what DRM is implemented if any. A ton of games you can just copy the folder around and click the executable. We're you not around during the SecuRom and StarForce days. GFWL install limit days.
Call people what you are yourself, a social media warrior, but that doesn't make you any less ignorant of PC gaming markets than whomever you're crying about. You won't be taken seriously when you're making excuses for a bunch of companies historically and a number to this day larger than Valve was when building Steam up
Download fees. Watch this quick 2 minute advertisement to begin the download for free right after!... or just $5 per download / $30/mo for unlimited ad free downloads for your whole family (up to 5 people on the same ip! geolocation restrictions apply. Max 1TB per account per month)
Valve isn't in a vacuum. iOS, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo. All closed software ecosystems unlike a Linux machine or currently a Windows machine. Still waiting for that 2 minute advertisement to begin download or download fees on actual closed platforms. Waiting for public companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Sony, Nintendo, ... to start charging download fees and pre-download advertisements on purchased games.
GFWL Gold subscription for online play is about 20 years old and failed spectacularly against a Steam that wasn't even a tenth the userbase it has today. Now you're losing hair over subscriptions to get advertisement free downloads of games you've purchased. Come back to reality of how the markets gone for PC gaming in the last 20 years
More subscription service pushing. Windows isn't a source of revenue growth for MS, it's a cheerleader. Lost subscription revenue for Windows on servers to Linux. MS SQL couldn't stop MySQL, MariaDB, PostreSQL, etc. Games for Window Live and paid online gaming failed on PC. Windows Store has been a decade and a half dud. Gamepass looks stagnant and Xbox hardware in decline. Windows Phone failed - big reason Windows Store failed and no presence as a TV OS anymore besides the declining Xbox
MS wants products where users are continuously monetized. The software storefronts haven't worked out like they wanted so focus on subscriptions and advertising. Azure, OneDrive, O365, Copilot, Gamepass less focused on Xbox hardware, ... whatever else they can come up with. Windows will advertise them sacrificing user satisfaction for Windows
For MS it may be the right move. Don't think there's political willpower for trying again to compete with Android and iOS for mobile. Don't think they'd even manage TV against Roku let alone Android TV or big TV makers like Samsung with Tizen. Apple would have to screw up hard with MacOS for those users to switch to Windows rather than sticking Mac or go to iPad's. Android has a desktop cooking with an eventually graphics accelerated Debian VM. Linux in general still on the multi-decade nibbling towards the mainstream along with software like Blender, Krita, LibreOffice
OS reccuring fees is a server and enterprise workstation support contract thing. Trying to do that to consumer desktop would kill it pretty quick. Windows is in a hard place of being a mature big money maker that doesn't look possible for growth but still too big to cast aside. It'll straddle the line of advertising where MS tries to not kill its market share but nag users to buy MS subscription services. More telemetry for advertising
https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/vietnam-defense-and-security-sector
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that from 1995 to 2022, Vietnam’s arms imports totaled USD9.162 billion, in which Russia accounted for USD7.471 billion (81.5%).
https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/the-art-of-bending-without-breaking-vietnams-quiet-power-play/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/us-lifts-decades-long-embargo-on-arms-sales-to-vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_strategic_partnerships_of_Vietnam
https://www.reuters.com/world/chinas-xi-visits-vietnam-after-biden-seeks-boost-ties-2023-12-12/
https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/1728310/viet-nam-china-trade-poised-for-new-record-in-2025.html
https://en.nhandan.vn/viet-nam-china-strengthen-bilateral-trade-cooperation-post154650.html
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/vietnam-continues-four-nos-defense-policy-4637076.html
I will not answer what country I'm from. Same way I don't expect most Americans to understand their country's foreign policy, I don't expect that of pretty much any country's people. This person has given me no reason to believe they have much knowledge of Vietnamese politics let alone historical if they think friendly relations between Vietnam and Russia and Russian arm sales to Vietnam is going to cause some social unrest in Vietnam.
I don't rely on my friends in France to tell me the foreign policy leanings of France. Not Germany, not Spain, not Australia. People generally don't follow politics beyond their bubble of information. It's not their job. The guys whole arguments are just he travels to a country and get's the feels from his friends.
If I based my whole understanding of nations on the people I'm friends with, every country in the world would be composed of leftist and filled with scientist and filmmakers. National Rally wouldn't be rising in France. AFD wouldn't be rising in Germany. The UK wouldn't have anti-immigration rallies attended by over 100k people. Turkey and India wouldn't have purchased S400 systems. Egypt wouldn't have HQ-9B. Decades of diplomacy and outside of India and Pakistan people keep being surprised by the warmer relations that the US has with Pakistan over India. Friends are an ignorant way to determine the operations of a country. My friends are a bubble
China sells military jets to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia. They've sold naval vessels to Thailand. China's navy appears to have a significant presence in Cambodia with frequent extended dockings. It's a rapidly changing region of the world for foreign policy currently.
I didn't push on what the cultural differences between Vietnam and China are that make relations difficult anymore than like the Phillipines which is what I would guess is the person being from stemming from their interest in the disputed South China Sea. Tensions in the South China Sea exist but from my view, that takes a backseat to economic oppurtunity. It'll take a backseat to global warming and issues with their coastlines and weather patterns. Money and industrial capabilities is going to be incredibly important to deal with global warming in that region and that will factor into what Vietnam or the Phillipines can afford to do in the future for the disputed islands. I'll even avoid the linguistic approach as I know depending on the political leaning of a Viet person you are talking to, it can be a touchy subject in regards to nationalism and pedagogical policy.
The history of China and Vietnam is very long. There's a famous historical Chinese general thousands of years ago that also happens to be a famous northern Vietnamese general. It's a very long history. Many wars. About a millennium in total of the northern part of Vietnam being a part of China though not continuous. Many successful independence wars. Historic vietnam and historic china relations stretches back to the neolithic age. There's syncretism that stretches back thousands of years before even getting to modern governmental structure, holidays, traditions, religions, music/instruments, film, clothing, cuisine, ... etc. It's not so simple as "Vietnamese people hate Chinese people." A lot more nuanced than that and a lot of migration over the millenniums though even limited to the last century that make the claims I hear of that a bit ridiculous. For the handful that actually have strong broad opinions on Chinese people from Vietnamese people, there's a solid chance they may have a differing opinion on Chinese from the north vs the south of the country. Same with the simple takes I hear in regards to China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan relations and what they will all certainly do to each other in the future
Non-alignment is difficult to comprehend when living in countries fully embracing of the diplomatic polar world but for Vietnam there's a famous song from the unification war era. This is the rendition I'm familiar with. All that matters is independence. Vietnam is not only an ally of any or combination of the US, China, or Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0h2YgM9KRk
Vietnam's non-alignment is possibly more impressive than Pakistans since Vietnams economy has come out as a lot more robust while playing every major side. While it's in a period of industrialization making parts of the country having poor air quality to support manufacturing for export to countries like the US, the cities are very clean as compared to like Bengaluru, city in another non-aligned country, India.
On the point of US-China-Taiwan and RAND Corp
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4107-1.html
It's a very interesting progression of RAND Corp's suggestions compared to their history of opinions. If you're unaware of RAND Corp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation
One interesting field to study is trying to understand the whys for the difference between Vietnam's international relations compared to Japan, Taiwan, and Korean peninsula. They all share so much cultural traditions. China has more history of control over Vietnam than Taiwan so why far far more tension there than Vietnam. Far more history with Vietnam in general. A much longer history with Vietnam than with Japan but internationally people don't think of relations of Vietnam with China like they think of Japan and China. And even that Japan/China relation is a lot more nuanced than most of my friends anywhere in the world would believe. Even the Taiwan/China discussion is a lot more nuanced in Taiwan than outside. It should be. In the event of war, they're the ones that would suffer the most casualties and loss of infrastructure and potentially water import issues
You've been attacking me. I'm not saying there's not tensions. I'm saying the tensions are cooling. Probably heat up again in the future but it's not 2015. A lot has changed just this year in terms of governmental agreements between the two countries
Congrats you're a tourist to Vietnam. The US wasn't elevated to a similar diplomatic level as China until 2023. 2 years of solid diplomatic relations compared to at least 15 years with China. 2 years until the Trump tariffs. The war with the US may have ended in the 70s but the bulk of sanctions didn't end until towards the end of the 90s and US arms sales being made available the last decade have not even been close enough of high volume to displace Russian equipment in the Vietnamese military.
Factions within the party that either favor the US, Russia, China or neutrality. According to your article they just purchased Russian fighter jets. They've been buying Russian military equipment damn near every year for a long time. Vietnam and China have been signing new trade deals just this year. They held their first joint army drills together just this year.
Geographic neighbors are your worst risk for war but the ones that also end up your primary trade partner and the power imbalance so very much favors China that being a China hawk in Vietnam may as well be suicide. Right now Vietnam is progressing towards a Mexico relationship with China but a lot more prosperous and safe than Mexico
The tension in the South China Sea is far more tense with the Philippines. If any war is happening in the next 20 years it's with them and I doubt that happening too. Past 20 years and at that point any 4th gen fighter is even more outdated than today.
The US didn't even attend the most recent independence parade in Vietnam, China did with their military in the parade for the first time this year. Vietnam participated in victory day parades this year in China and Russia. Those were likely planned before Trump 48% tariff threat.
It seems to me you're more outdated in your views. The current 4th gen fighters are not going to be useful in the South China Sea. Not this decade or the next. The military gap between Vietnam and China is growing rather than closing and it'll be a long time until that changes. So right now it makes sense that Vietnam continues to increase trade, tourism, military cooperation with China while balancing with Russia and the US. Vietnam isn't close to war with China. Vietnam is shaping up to be neutral between whatever conflicts China may be in the next couple decades
Your a tourist to Vietnam. You probably want war between the two countries so whatever your country is has the opportunity to have better relations with Vietnam or for China to be preoccupied with them in war rather than your country. But for Vietnamese people in Vietnam, I highly doubt they're as jingoistic for war with China like people that don't live in Vietnam. They're the ones that would die. Vietnam balances relations with China, the US, and Russia and the US is late to the modern Vietnamese diplomatic party compared to China and especially compared to Russia. That's the prevailing foreign policy of Vietnam and this year has been a year of China and Russia gaining in Vietnam, not the US.
Things change. Just this year. Like read the latest RAND Corp policy opinion report on China-Taiwan. Crazy shift in strategy opinion for a historically influential think thank in the US. Countries you see as potentially strong counterbalances to China aren't going to be so hawkish with China when the US and EU are getting skittish. The South China Sea conflict will continue but Vietnam won't have much ability there for decades and economic growth will prioritize over military so continued improving trade relations with China will be priority over very small islands in the South China Sea. A compromise that they'd rather be more in their favor but can't be for economic and military reasons
I've regretted my Pixel 7 over an S22 for a couple years now. I bought into the Pixel hype and not needing a good SoC. Overheats worse than any phone I've ever had. Eventually Switch and PC gaming emulation took off which 8 Gen 2 phones can enjoy way better than a Tensor G2. Battery life is mediocre. I still had hope for the Pixel 10 with the TSMC fabbed chip. That was a bust too. Whenever I buy a phone, it's not a Tensor phone. Snapdragon at the top of the list. Then Dimensity unless the next 2nm Samsung fabbed Exynos chips are good too. The AMD GPU is supposed to have pretty solid drivers
It may be that my standards for cameras on a phone keeps recalling back to like 2015 so cameras on any smartphone like $300+ is pretty good to me