All over the place in Europia. From train station to public parks, in multiple countries, it is somewhat common for a turnstile with a coin slot for a small charge. Doesn’t bother me if it allows for cleaner, safer facilities and keeps the riff raff out.

Doesn’t matter what is easier or the numbers involved. Fact is power lies in the money spent by millions funneled to a dozen, making them so potent. Millions don’t even need to change their ways, even a significant minority can start making bottom lines bleed like a mf.

Hot take but I blame gamers stuffing the pockets of these sort of publishers by lapping up early access and pre orders. It gives publishers no incentive whatsoever to change their ways because they still have the only thing they truly care about: money.

Apologies for the late reply, still getting a hang of this!

By multiple devices issues I meant the following. Sometimes for example, I am on a Teams call on my phone but want to use my laptop to view screensharing stuff and join the call there too (without hanging up the phone). Teams will insist that my audio switch over to the laptop too and I have to manually disable the audio on the laptop and re-enable it on the phone. It shocks me that such a mature offering from a massive corporation still cannot figure out that I may want a screenshare/audio split onto two devices and ask me at least. Another smaller nag, if I want audio only on the phone, it will constantly bug me to tell me the incoming video is switched off. I kind of understand this however, I get that they want to let the average user know why there is no incoming video, but surely there ought to be a “leave me alone” setting for this.

It has indeed improved a lot over the last 2 years or so and is now actually quite a mature product, as much as I hate to admit that about an MS product. My biggest gripes with it are its refusal to acknowledge you may be using multiple devices (to this day) and MS’s insistence that a person only do one thing at one time (can’t edit calendar items while checking a chat, for example). Their Linux app is a joke and I’m better off running it from Chrome. The phone app makes the WiFi interface crash constantly and I have to run it off 4G; it is the only app I have this issue with.

Which brings me to another gripe. Teams documentation insists that screen sharing on Linux is not supported, and sure enough you cannot see the option for it while on a call with someone. However if you are in a meeting (with however many people), the option magically appears and works absolutely perfectly.

That is possibly the most thoughtful thing I have ever heard!

I recently signed up for YT premium. Don’t get me wrong, I still used ad blockers and ReVanced like a mf, but considered it only fair seeing how much YT and music I have streamed.

You are more than welcome! The chapter is called Unification of Humankind for anyone else interested, here is a little excerpt:

“Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby created artificial instincts that enabled millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instincts is called ‘culture’.”

It’s literally Sapiens, the first book. The chapter is called the Unification of Humankind, from the quick look I had online.

Sharing, and believing in, fictions is how distilled units of information are efficiently passed down generations and is one of the bedrocks of our development as a species. This is what allows us to have laws and corporations and agreeing to drive on particular side of the road.

Yuval Noah Harari covers this more eloquently in his book Sapiens. You would definitely dig the relevant chapters.