I don’t know if I’m typical, but neither desktop or laptop are ever fully off for me under normal circumstances, sleep mode is the default

Tax is the compromise

The French have a good historical case for what should happen if that fails

Kinda

In a normal transaction without a phone you use a plastic card issued by MasterCard/Visa/Amex (or a local processor). The processing company charges a merchant a small percentage fee on that transaction to the business. In some places they might add that processing fee to the bill, but that’s illegal in my country nowadays.

When you add Google/Apple into the mix, they’re importantly not replacing anyone, they’re just adding themselves in to basically just replace the “plastic” part with “virtual” in what I said before. So the payment processor still takes the same fees they always have, it’s just a phone talking to the card reader rather than a chip in a card.

So how do they make money? I believe Apple just charges the bank a small percentage, which I imagine they reconcile out of the payment processor fees. Google, on the other hand, I think offers it to banks for free, because as is tradition, they’re more interested in the data.

Why is it somehow so much worse that this is a train?

Like it’s feral behaviour wherever you are, but somehow very slightly more expected this was on a plane IMO

UK/EU has had contactless payments via our bank cards for about 2 decades now. America caught up eventually some years later

When phones got the ability to act as our bank cards, it made sense for them to use something compatible with the same technology that was already deployed

Funnily enough, America (and I guess also Korea, given the companies) dragging their heels on standard contactless is one of the main reasons why Samsung/LG briefly put out a couple of generations of phones that had a magnetic stripe mimicking payment feature in addition to standard NFC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_secure_transmission)

I just grip the box closed after I’ve pulled what I need and yank it free

I think it’s usually the bottom side of the opening with the serration, so probably that side

Johnstones Trade Smooth Metal Paint (Tinted) 0.8L - True Blonde

https://www.brewers.co.uk/product/AF12506690N/ppg12-12-true-blonde

You need to define what you want

“Set up an ISP” is meaningless

I could probably set one up tomorrow, that doesn’t mean anyone is going to pay me money or experience my (apparently meaningfully different from the competition) product

I’d have to first set up (or pay someone to set up) a load of infrastructure to handle the actual connections, but also all the customer support and initial sales stuff to get people signed up.

Assuming you figure all that out you just need to convince a load of people to go from their currently “no complaints” life to a new unknown

Remembering we’re in 2026 where a large percentage of people’s jobs happen via the internet

Basically, money isn’t really the problem

Money and sales charts

Being top of a sales chart was a big deal a couple of decades ago as it usually meant a product got better placement on the shop shelves

So then marketing budgets could be focused on different areas at different times, meaning greater chance of getting higher in the charts

That and localisations generally taking time and studios not wanting to cannibalise sales of a local version with imports

Also regional pricing, they could sell more in poorer countries for lower prices, but they didn’t want to give up the greater amount they can ask for from richer countries

Most people seem to go for either codeberg or gitlab as alternatives

Barely used doesn’t mean useless

They’re not for regular people making regular transactions, it’s kinda intended for high value transactions

Wealthy people selling things (semi-)privately to each other is one obvious one, things like those £50k watches. Sometimes these wealthy people want to do their spending with utmost discretion, so cash is king.

Another is pawnbrokers, private currency exchanges and similar kinds of business that just have to deal with a lot more cash than is typical.

Don’t get me wrong, its usage will definitely be in decline, but I don’t see them taking it out of rotation any sooner than the fiver

see people […] spent $25…$45…$30 on gas

I spend $7 ~ $13 […] three times a month

3 x 13 = $39

it’s not nearly as close as what I’ve seen other people spend.

?

Way to get out of it? Lawyers

Why are people afraid? Lawyers

Lawyers can get very expensive, and don’t have a guaranteed result. Also a company Vs an individual usually has disproportionate funds for legal fees

Only if it’s intentional, it can easily be caused by ignorance/incompetence too

I was originally gonna say Sigur Ros but that’s already been covered

My shout out goes to Niteworks then, who sadly did their farewell tour last year. One of my favourites:

https://youtu.be/GY7q1DjmsiE

Honestly I remember someone telling me and I’ve never seen it myself so I went looking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycling_records

Turns out there’s even faster now

A dude got up to 90mph on a bike just off his own steam before

I remember all the adverts when I was a kid telling me that if I got hit by a car at 30mph there was a 90% chance I’d live (this was the happy path of the advert). This is also cars ostensibly driven by licensed people.

E-bikes with a 25mph limiter are not a risk if we allow cars in the same space as pedestrians

Well it’s more of a perk for a donation the way I see it,

But hey, it also breaks even after 25 years…!

I think I’ve had one my current email addresses for about 20 years

The hell are you on about?

Someone who basically just uses their screen to pull up a recipe to make dinner with is not going to have any problems. Similarly for someone who uses it to keep in contact with friends (directly, not via a social network).

Someone who only spends a half hour a day using their phone, but that usage is scrolling on twitter or some bullshit like that? They’re absolutely going to have problems. It only takes a few seconds to read a post and then a shitty idea might lodge itself in their head.

Focusing on just screen time rather than the content on it is expressly not focusing on the root cause, and we’re not going to fix anything if we focus on just the symptoms. It’s like trying to ban hammers because someone is smashing your windows with one. The hammer isn’t really the cause of the problem, and the person doing the smashing will continue a different way if they aren’t stopped.

Why do people focus on the screens and not what’s on the screens? That’s what needs to be regulated

There is no time limit that will render propaganda ineffective

The screen isn’t the problem, it’s the antagonists on the other side