Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's such a great service, and such a shame. I cough up my $4 a month, but they could never onboard people. Unless you're enterprise software, as soon as you make the sales pitch, people click out. The distaste for big data evaporates over the price of a cup of coffee... very weird. I wonder why this is.
Kinda sucks they made you pay to use it even though you were working for them, no?
 

Leo

Well-known member
Nah, I'd just stop reading it. I don't need to read the news.

and that's how a free press disappears.

nothing personal, but how is it that we don't feel we have to pay for someone's work? actual reporting ain't easy, or cheap.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I used Reuters as an example of a valuable media source, it's not about them. all we do all day here is post interesting, important or troubling articles. how are those sources not worth supporting? don't take for granted that scandals or horrendous political behaviors will just magically be uncovered. we'll end up relying on a bunch of cranks on twitter, that'll surly work out just fine.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
I don't think it makes any difference at this point. What's come of all these scandals that have been reported? Nothing. The people responsible are still in power, millions of people actively support them and there's nothing we can do except vote every few years in elections which they openly rig.

I don't want to drag this out but c'mon, really? didn't Nixon resign after the Washington post exposed the Watergate scandal? wasn't constant media pressure the reason Harvey Weinstein fell from grace from the most powerful man in Hollywood to a jail cell? same with Epstein, the coverage got so persistent over the past few years that new accusers felt comfortable coming forward. how many oppressive regimes have crumbled after the true depth of their corruption was exposed?
 

sus

Well-known member
Kinda sucks they made you pay to use it even though you were working for them, no?

I consulted for them, & afterwards was too abashed to ask for free premium, given that's the whole pitch of the program, that you pay for the service, eh?
 

version

Well-known member
I don't want to drag this out but c'mon, really? didn't Nixon resign after the Washington post exposed the Watergate scandal? wasn't constant media pressure the reason Harvey Weinstein fell from grace from the most powerful man in Hollywood to a jail cell? same with Epstein, the coverage got so persistent over the past few years that new accusers felt comfortable coming forward. how many oppressive regimes have crumbled after the true depth of their corruption was exposed?
I get the argument, I just don't have much faith in the public and political class. You can have the best scoop in the world, but it doesn't do much good if too few care.
 

version

Well-known member
My hope is eventually people will have to contend with reality, but that moment doesn't look to be coming anytime soon. The populists have been able to keep the plates spinning for a while now.
 

sufi

lala
I worked for Are.na, a really cool alternative to sites like Pinterest or De.lic.ious, somewhere between a bookmarking tool and a way to save collections of images, media, text. The perfect tech for Wikipedia rabbitholes, you just clip as you go. Everything super minimal; no data collection, no ads, a ton of work put into an ethical product model. Making sure users had control over their data. It cost $4 a month for this service, and we couldn't make it happen. People seem to prefer free sites with ads and data collection, empirically.
what about open source?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
And when they do have to contend with reality, it will likely appear to them as such an insurmountable scenario as to warrant some drastic response, no? Or else further denial?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
what about open source?
Not sure how much open-source software or hardware has really entered the mainstream, but do you think people would launch critiques against it similar to the critiques launched against, say, Wikipedia? That, because anyone can work on it, it isn't as high a quality as something that only the higher few could work on? Meritocratic or not?
 

version

Well-known member
And when they do have to contend with reality, it will likely appear to them as such an insurmountable scenario as to warrant some drastic response, no? Or else further denial?
I meant contend with reality in the sense of not being able to deny it. The point at which they have to concede. They're already in denial.
 

version

Well-known member
Not sure how much open-source software or hardware has really entered the mainstream, but do you think people would launch critiques against it similar to the critiques launched against, say, Wikipedia? That, because anyone can work on it, it isn't as high a quality as something that only the higher few could work on? Meritocratic or not?
A lot of stuff runs on Linux. Servers etc. People are using open source software all the time without realising.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Nice, wasn't aware of that. But how do you think "open-source" would fare, in terms of marketing? Would it be met with skepticism similar to that which Wikipedia is met with?
 

version

Well-known member
But has the denial already reached some point of no return, or does the critical mass await? Just asking your gut, really.
I think deep down plenty of Trump supporters know it's a shitshow, but acknowledging it isn't yet a priority. I very much doubt any of them would privately admit to thinking the country's in a better place than it was four years ago. Likewise Tory voters and the Brexit contingent.
 
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