Vulture capital. They don't really care about what they're buying as long as they get some profit out of it.
Willpower is just an abstraction. It is not a "real" thing, consumed once you do something you wouldn't.
That said yes, you can train it. Or rather, condition your behaviour so you do things that you'd otherwise avoid. The how-to is actually simple:
Eventually you won't need the reward, but the behaviour is still there.
What you consider a reward is up to you. For example, for me snacking on cheese is a reward, but it might not be for you. With the right mindset, even mundane things can be a reward, like taking a comfy shower or playing some games.
In another situation, it would be grim, but having that downwards tendency right after a hype peak (Jul/2023, or ~~Reddigg v4~~ the APIcalypse) is expected - plenty users who'd come with the hype would go back, and plenty instance owners would realise that running an instance is way more work than they planned.
You tried, bot-kun. You tried.
On an individual ("you") level, the data mining is only a tiny bit concerning. Sure, Meta will hoard any sort of data that you share with the Fediverse, and then share it with its "business partners", so everyone can profile you, and then fly on circles around you, like vultures, with targetted advertisement. However:
Even then, I like Macgirvin's take on the matter, on a collective ("the Fediverse") level. It's basically telling Meta "people here ara quite hostile against data vulturing, you won't get much out of it". It helps quite a bit against the actual threat - that Meta might try to Embrace, Extend and Extinguish the Fediverse.
Besides lack of time, a TL;DW is also neat for people who are proficient only in the written language, but not the spoken one.
Hot take: if you want to get rid of the outrage, get rid of the stupid.
Decontextualisation might be the fuel of the outrage fire, but it only thrives in an atmosphere full of stupidity.
And by "stupidity" in this case I mean four things:
Does this remind you guys of any social network out there? It does, for me; all of the corporation-controlled ones are mostly inhabited by users like this. They were tailored for the stupid.
Not my pic, but this is in my city, Curitiba:
I used to visit that specific park (Parque Barigüi) fairly often, as I worked nearby. For me the fun part wasn't even interacting with the capybaras, but watching tourists interacting with them. Not recommended - unlike the ones in the OP, these here are wild and might have ticks, but... well, neither tourists nor capybaras give a fuck.
Just make sure that you don't go full "squeee" and chase them, they'll simply get into the water and you'll be sad. A girl whom I used to date did this.
The issue is that this sort of rule only works against duplicates inside a community; it does nothing against duplicates across communities, that users may or may not be subscribed to. As such I think that the solution should be on the interface level.
On another, related matter: you replied twice. I think that the server itself should prevent it, as 99% of the time it's by accident.
Sorry for the double reply - just sharing a few of the current highlights:
Reddit alien with "spez" on the face, in the guillotine
"fuck spez" in two areas of the canvas
"never forget what was stolen from us! r/savethirdpartyapps"
From the last years, it seems to me that there's less vandalism, and less overall fights for pixels. This might be due to lower engagement.
Take those tips with a grain of salt, as this sort of conventional politeness strategy is heavily dependent on culture, situation, and sometimes even individual*.
I predict that those tips would work poorly with people from cultures where negative politeness ("don't burden the others") is valued over positive politeness ("show appreciation towards the others"). This is fairly common in East Asia for example, but even here in Latin America I got a few people rolling their eyes at "biztalk" like "obrigado pela paciência" (thank you for the patience) over a simple apology.
In special, I can picture the centre advice rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, as it's basically the writer lifting a burden from one's own shoulders (struggling to word something) by creating a burden to the reader ("I expect you to be available offline for a meeting").
*if anyone wants to dig deeper into this subject, check Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson's Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. It's a bit of a technical read for Linguistics (more specifically Pragmatics), but I got plenty laymen who love the book.
I just deep-fried and filled a batch of the thing above. They turned out delicious, so I'm sharing here.
Here's a link for the recipe for the dough; I followed it closely, the only thing was that I subbed the butter with veg oil. The recipe yielded ~20 of them, but this depends a lot on the size that you cut them.
Recipe for the custard filling:
Just mix everything together until homogeneous, then heat it on low fire, while stirring constantly, until it thickens. I didn't use the cornstarch because I wanted it slightly runnier, but do add it if you like a thicker custard.
Musk being an assumer (note how he's vomiting certainty on future events) doesn't surprise me a tiny bit.