In reality, it’s likely a self-preservation move. Microsoft made what appeared to be a monopolistic move to control the entire Windows ecosystem when they added their own app store and the locked down S edition of Windows. If Valve both hadn’t invested in Linux and Microsoft hadn’t halted going down that path, they would have been screwed.
Comment OP appears to have drank the Epic Games Kool-aid.
They have a monopoly on video game distribution.
They have a massive marketshare, but that doesn’t make them a monopoly. Developers are still free to distribute their games through any other storefront/launcher, and Valve isn’t going out of its way to engage in anticompetitive practices like exclusive publishing deals with third-party studios.
Use a library. It’s far too easy for developers or project managers to fuck up the minimum requirements for safely storing passwords.
But, if you are wanting to do it by hand…
Sounds like my bank.
I dont see blocking doing much good there as there is no such thing as being able to stop your public posts being viewed, because they’re public.
My thoughts as well. Someone dedicated to harassing you isn’t going to give up when they get blocked. They’ll just make another account and do it again, but now with the knowledge of what gets under your skin.
An egotistical twat at the helm.
Could be worse. I never liked the idea of blocking “hiding” your content from other people to begin with. It makes it too easy to give trolls the confirmation they succeeded in getting under your skin, encouraging them to make another account to continue harassing their victim.
Come on, this is Google we’re talking about. The ads come before opening the app.
Video content never changes, but the order and content of ads do. Automated browser, record the video 2-3 times. Diff the frames and slice out the ones that don’t match between runs.
That’s quite the biased word blocking list :/
The Sremovedhorpe problem, you say?
For better or worse, the landscape has shifted since then. I can’t imagine people love Steam for being Steam, but rather for being the most consumer-friendly platform on PC.
Refunds? No questions asked if it’s within 2 weeks and 2 hours of playtime.
User reviews and ratings? Yes, and even comments on those reviews.
Community content? Steam discussions, guides, art, etc. Even mods with the workshop.
Bribes development studios for exclusivity deals? Nope! Devs can release games wherever the fuck they want.
Platform support? PC. Not just Windows, but going out of their way to make Linux a first class citizen. They even support Crapple despite its miniscule market share among PC gamers.
It’s pretty straightforward to use, in my experience. There’s a web UI, so you won’t need to worry about the nitty gritty details unless you go beyond what’s supported through that.
Video game grading is a massive scam. Karl Jobst did a series of videos on it, and it’s basically price rigging and speculation investments for profit.
Students would set them up incorrectly and cause a series of problems with colliding DHCP servers
That’s an IT problem, not a user problem. The downstream ports should have been isolated at both the link and packet layers. Configuring a router to share an unrestricted LAN between a dorm full of untrusted users is a disaster waiting to happen.
If somebody goes and causes an outage, I would expect nothing less than a tech walking around and trying to triangulate the offending router.
But in OP’s case, it’s an external ISP that provides internet services to the dorm. As long as nobody gives them a reason to start looking, I don’t expect a for-profit ISP to be sending out a contractor proactively beyond the first week of move-ins. That costs them money, and likely a lot more money than they would recover by catching the handful of people trying to dogde the per-device upcharge.
If they go looking. It’s unlikely they went out of their way to purchase and configure specialized devices in the building to catch it proactively.
Being cautious of a corporation is never a bad thing, but remember: Valve isn’t a public company. They don’t have the same incentives and fiduciary duties that led to the enshittification of most other companies and services.
Ultimately, yes, everything they do is entirely for their own benefit. But, they’re also free to focus on their long-term growth and returns. As long as the leadership doesn’t get changed to a bunch of shit-for-brains golden parachute MBAs, they’re going to want to keep their customers happy. It’s good for them, and it’s not terrible for us. Everybody wins.
I would prefer they were a nonprofit, but I’m not going to complain when the mainstream alternatives to Steam are mostly comprised of shitty sales-focused storefronts created by companies beholden to their investors.