steam came at the exact right moment to prevent region locking regulations for online gaming. granted companies and special interests still want to de-globalize gaming for licensing cash, but that's never going to happen as long as steam is a monopoly. any company taking a cheap shot at steam such as epic or discord or EA can go suck it.

As long as Gaben is alive steam will be the good guy. Even if they charge 30%, and I thinm it's why things are actually pretty neat on steam on the consumer end, because they can either choose to bill the consumer or the developer, and I'm personally always pro-consumer first - albeit for small indie publishers they should (if they already don't have); a means to launch a company with their game and not give 30% to Valve and be kept from much needed resources to grow their business, much like Valve would benefit from such deals long-term if the developers do a good job and bring in a lot of buyers with their next title in the future. AAA companies is a whole different matter, no passion, no soul, just money-milking-bullshit, should charge them 50% to 70%! they get off easy with a measly 30%.

But yeah, as for the overall topic itself, I do not understand why anyone would want another netflix situation. I don't want 300 game libraries and accounts installed on my computer, eating up resources, time, and email space - if I could have just one, super convenient and nice place where all is collected and no foreseeable concern that it will suddenly go bankrupt and die and take my investments with it (like some of the game libraries already have). If that ever becomes the case (e.g. when Gaben dies one day), I'll be the first to sail the high seas out of spite and convenience. I'm fine with monopolies as long as they benefit the end-user first, like Valve.

nah, it's basically my experience with flatpak and snaps on ANY distro on ANY machine. the fact that everyone's moving to this crap is beyond me. Am I the only person on the planet that expects a modern computer to run snappier than a PC from early 2000? sure seems like it sometimes, especially when pretty much any software released since 2018 runs electron. Hell, now every manufacturer is moving to ARM like it's some revolutionary hardware - no, it just vastly improved energy usage AT THE EXPENSE OF PERFORMANCE. we might as well stick with what we have and just pump less energy into the damn thing and have the exact same results.

blimey.

I get the convenience; I do ...but it can't possibly be worth the sacrifices?? sigh.

the day of coders who knew what they were doing is long since gone. now it's just click and play frameworks to pump out garbage and oversaturate the ecosystem.

yes. they're "censoring" algorithms designed to create engagement=profit, which are causing massive harm to society. i don't see anything wrong with it at all. and like you, i'm on the fediverse because there isn't an algorithm, our exposure is curated by us, not by engagement-bot-5.

bs. discord is absolute trash for anything but live chatting. it does nothing different from plain old irc with a bnc and bots. they just took irc and made it easy for stupid people to use and slapped voice comm on top; which also already existed. using it as an archive, broadcast and support system is like trying to use a hammer to screw in a screw. people just use discord because people use discord. just like people just use facebook because people use facebook.

if you want to manage a community, you should use discourse. it's the most modern alternative. if you want a public chat, use any chat you want that supports public chat, the only difference between all of them is what level of privacy they provide.

we have phones that don't break easily and we can repair them and replace the battery; with long-term support.

what we need are laws that makes it mandatory for all.

except in theory they can borrow from the bank with their stock as leverage and would never actually need to liquidate anything (and they do just that).

it was already made public in the lawsuit some weeks ago that they are indeed slowing down youtube for firefox.

eh? do people still use reddit even? last i heard they have employees actively create threads now to try and keep engagement going.

they got the warp drive from the hur'q.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hur%27q

discord literally having a concurrent controversy (the name change); and they feel it good to go there?

besides. discord is useless as a reddit replacement. discord is not indexed and you cannot retrieve the data publicly; much like facebook groups which would be the same thing. i mean; who doesn't (or didn't) use +reddit in their google searches for the past 2 years?

discord has also been bleeding users lately.

and, it's another corporation. worse than reddit. with a poor track record.

but sure! let's move to there! sounds brilliant! i'm sure all will be well!

...what's next, facebook groups?

they'd never do that. then they'd be killing the housing bubble as well. think of the investors!