• RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      There’s a Triad-backed Catonese place near me that makes crab rangoons with actual crab in them. They are fantastic.

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        11 months ago

        Well, if it’s good enough for the triads, I guess I’m on board I won’t ask any more questions…

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Fun fact, they aren’t called crab Rangoon’s because they’re supposed to include crab meat. That’s called that because when they’re folded up on four sides they look a bit like crabs.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    There used to be an app that was a Dragon Ball Z scouter. You could point it at anything with a face and it would tell you a random power level. Apparently mine is 10,550 (I can barely lift a jug of milk).

          • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            “Power levels” was/is a white supremacist dogwhistle for cryptofascists, as in “Don’t forget to hide your (white) power level.”

            You’d see it referenced on their meme communities on Reddit fairly frequently. At least it was when I still had an eye on what cryptofascists were doing, which I have to say is the best part of Lemmy, not constantly seeing cryptofascist things.

            With that app, and that in mind, there’s a (completely and mostly jokingly speculative) possibility that it was measuring albedo instead of just randomly assigning numbers. I’m mostly being a miserable cynic bringing it up without evidence tbh.

            • Hoimo@ani.social
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              1 year ago

              Bit of context for the power level stuff: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hide-your-power-level

              It only became an alt-right thing because it leaked from /a/ to /b/ and to /pol/, but it wasn’t originally alt-right. /w/allpapers always has a “power level” thread running with anime stuff that isn’t immediately obvious to the casual observer.

            • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Oh, that. Worry not, I’m not a white supremacist (not that I could be, I’m half Pacific Islander half Scottish). It seemed to have a very loose definition of a face, like you could point it at a drawing or an animal and it would work the same. I take it that it was programmed to assign a number to how closely something matched anime pareidolia.

  • cm0002@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There used to be apps in the iOS app store that were nothing but a big “I’m rich” symbol. They would be listed for some shit like $10,000 in the app store and all they did was,at best, have a button that played a sound to indicate that you were in fact rich lol.

    • Albbi@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Those “I’m rich” apps basically tested the app store price limit which was set to $9,999 (don’t know if it’s different now). Brilliant idea really.

      I put this in the same category as the “Million dollar homepage” where some guy asked for $1 a pixel and hosted a page with the results. Something smart that if it gets enough attention could make someone good money for not a lot of work. And generally something that will only work once as copycats won’t be seen to have the same value.

  • Venicone@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not useless as such but a wallpaper app or something that expects you to pay £5.99 a month to use. Fuck all the way off with that

  • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    90% of b2b software. They literally charge thousands of dollars while giving the worse piece of shit software you’ve ever used.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Oof. Yes!

      The proprietary cloud crap usually has worse or non-existent documentation, fewer features, and a terrible or non-existent API.

      But it comes with a salesperson. So there’s that.

      But people with cloud server orchestration skills are terrifyingly expensive right now, so self-hosting a better product can be a very hard sell.

      • wookiepedia@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The Salesperson is incredibly important. They take the person responsible for making the purchase decision out to lunch and for rounds of golf, after all!

      • YonderEpochs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Hmm really? Would proficiency with Terraform and knowledge of the services offered by at least one major cloud provider be considered “cloud server orchestration skills” or do you mean something more/different?

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Yep! My best guess is that maybe 1 in 10 organizations currently has any in-house orchestration skills on staff at all.

          (I’m just annecdotaly guessing based on my professional network, which is actually heavily biased towards organizations that have orchestration skills, but also based on job offers that my peers with orchestration skills are seeing.)

          And the ones that have it get to charge a premium for shitty cloud services to the ones that do not.

          • YonderEpochs@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That’s pretty crazy, good to know. We had a hard time hiring a “cloud engineer” last year ourselves, though for the client in question we were looking for deep Azure chops. I’ve been learning some Terraform for this reason so we can respond a bit better, sounds like I might be well served to focus on it. Feel like DM’ing with salaries / offers you’ve been hearing about, if you have?

    • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They always want to charge per user too instead of just charging a monthly fee. They’d rather have no money than not charge per user it’s actual crazy. Imagine any other industry turning away paying customers when it doesn’t cost them anything to have the customer. Software companies are insane. Can’t wait until their funding runs out.

    • lectricleopard@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sometimes the value add is security, sometimes scaling or uptime. Enterprise considerations aren’t necessarily the same as for individual consumers.

      Sometimes it’s just a dogshit product though, and the sales team pulled the wool over some execs eyes.

    • Godnroc@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oh fuck yeah! So much of my research into new tools is just checking to see if they have a demo, documentation, and price.

      When I’m looking for a new tool, I don’t have the time to schedule a “quick” 20 minute call to do introductions and schedule a follow-up hour long meeting followed by a quote sent over in an email days later only to find out the price is so far outside the range there is no way it’s ever going to happen!

      I’m not some useless middle manager looking for any excuse to look busy; I don’t have that kind of time to waste!

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 🏆@yiffit.net
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    1 year ago

    I remember when the iPhone was new and my friend paid money for an app that simulates a mug of beer on the screen so you can pretend to drink it.

    That, but the entire genre of those fucking things cuz there are assloads of them now.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Novelty apps were practically the majority of what was out there in the early days of Android and iOS. I remember a lighter app, and an electric shaver app.

      My favorite novelty app was that marble maze game on iOS they used the accelerometer. I got really good at finishing those mazes in seconds, which upset my cousin because it was his phone and I demolished all his best times, lol. Only video game I was ever good at.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      I’ve never really understood the imitation app developers. Like your first little run of the novelty, sure, makes sense, minimal effort that might pay itself off or even go viral, but why do the imitations think they have the same shot?

  • Like the wind...@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Spotify and apps like it. Imagine paying a subscription to a subpar selection of music when you could just download mp3s. Imagine having skipping a song being a privilege. Are you an abused kid? Is drinking water a privilege too? I paid once for BlackPlayer simply because it’s my favorite music player app. The most important features were free.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      What if you want to listen to something you didn’t have the foresight to pirate locally first?

      Music streaming is very convenient, even easier than piracy.

      • lengau@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        I agree with you in theory, and in practice for most people. I have weird enough tastes in music though that I haven’t found a single streaming service that has what I want.

      • Like the wind...@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        If I like the song, I download it when I have internet or mobile data. I support the creators in other ways if possible. $1 from one fan is the equivalent of like 13 million streams from them. I’m not paying to avoid ten minutes of obnoxious ads every time I want to listen to music. Anyway, they found Like the Wind, and it absolutely slaps so I’ll download it on my phone.

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I sail the high seas quite often. I also pay for spotify because it’s stupid easy.

    • forrgott@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Downvoted for hating on Spotify. That’s just sad.

      I don’t care what crap Spotify offers; it’s well known they go out of their way to avoid paying royalties to the artists. They’re a leech, nothing more, and I will never support them.

        • wookiepedia@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Sometimes it does. Piracy drives up sales of traditional media (think: vinyl), as well as increasing crowd size at live performances. Also, merch sales scale with awareness of an artist. All of these things equal the payout of millions of plays on spoffy.

          • sour@feddit.org
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            11 months ago

            Except that using spotify does all of that as well.

            I’m not saying that spotify is good. But thinking piracy is better for the artist than spotify is delusional.

            • wookiepedia@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              I’m delusional, then. Spotify hasn’t paid me a red cent, but piracy has indirectly put money in my pocket and food on my table.

      • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        I down voted them for the weird tirade about privilege and being an abused kid. Idk wtf that has to do with hating spotify, but lemmy would look much better without that garbage in the comments.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Imagine paying a subscription to a subpar selection of music when you could just download mp3s.

      Imagine having to go through the hassle of being at a computer and using whatever program you need to use to find the correct songs and then transfering them to your phone, when you could just find the song instantly, no matter where you are.

      I used to download tens of thousands of songs back in the day, Spotify is way more convienient, a price I’m perfectly fine paying.

      • Like the wind...@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I forgot I time traveled to 2006. The politics never changed so I thought I was still in 2025.

        Anyway in the future we have a thing called cloud storage where you could upload your whole music folder and download it on any device.

        As someone who makes music and listens to my own nonsense, I set a onedrive folder as my default location so I can export an mp3 while I’m showering and getting dressed and download the mp3 on my phone when I’m outside.

    • punkfungus@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Subpar selection? I can count on the fingers of one hand the songs I have found on other sources but not Spotify.

      I don’t even pay for Spotify, but I still use it to find new music because it’s hands down the best way to do so. I create a playlist of all the new songs I want and then purchase them all when Bandcamp Friday rolls around. I’m getting all the benefits of Spotify without paying them a cent (my ad blocker even works on it too), plus being as supportive as possible to the artists themselves.

      • Manalith@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        What adblocker are you using? I got to the point where on FF with uBlock Origin Spotify just fails and mobile apps are 50/50 with NextDNS

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I like Spotify. I don’t often want to listen to an album. I want to listen to a vibe. It’s good for that, and for introducing me to new bands and music.

      But yeah, if you’re just using it to listen to one album at a time, and you know which album you want, then you’re using the wrong service.

  • ramenshaman@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I recently tried out an “LED banner” (called LED scroller in the google play store) app that lets you scroll text on your screen. Pretty cool, I would totally pay $5 or maybe even $10 for it. In the free version, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many ads in such a short period of time. The paid version was $15 PER WEEK. That’s $780 per year. To scroll some text. It’s the only app I’ve ever bothered to post a review for.

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I remember writing one of those using a bitmap font from some Arduino LCD driver program and publishing it for free on the Android store. Someone offered £50 for the source code and I wonder if they’re related.

    • cashsky@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Sounds like a front for either blatant adware or malware with botted reviews/downloads to bring it to the top in search results. I can’t image there isn’t a free app that does this.

        • pory@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s just fishing. For every 10 users that notice the deceptive “free trial then bills per week” model, there’s a guy who doesn’t notice until he’s been charged $15 and cancels. And for every ten of that guy, there’s a guy that doesn’t notice for a month, and for every ten of that guy there’s the rare whale who looks at their $700/mo “google bill” and goes yeah that sounds about right.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    it’s not an entire app but, discord profile decorations.

    The fact it costs money isn’t surprising, but the amount of money charged is hilarious.

    17$ for some graphics that some look like they took about 20 minutes to make. Just to make your profile look different than everyone elses. Then the “discount” given for having nitro for it is even more laughable.

    Whats equally insane is that people fall for it. I know some people that have easily spent 60$ on profile decorations. Spending equal or greater than the cost of discord nitro is insane to me, even if the decoration doesn’t expire.

    • The thing that I find insane is having to pay for Nitro to have an animated .gif as your profile pic.

      …The animation is played client-side, so literally costs Discord nothing to do this, and as a matter of fact it’s actually more effort for them to intentionally block animations from playing until you pony up than just letting the browser container the app runs in natively do its thing. Given that the Discord app itself is basically just a glorified webview container with some stuff bolted onto it.

      • randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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        11 months ago

        I don’t want to sound like I’m on Discord’s side (I dislike nitro too), but that’s honestly just how a lot of paid add-on features on free apps work. They take away some functionality from the free one to incentivize people to pay.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      On a similar note, skins and other cosmetics in video games that do nothing to help with camouflage—or worse—make you stand out more. Never understood why people waste money on that.

      • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Early days of of micro-transactions did help you blend in more, but I noticed they started diverging away, leaving the more natural camos to be unlocked by gameplay, and the obnoxious/distracting ones as a premium.

      • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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        1 year ago

        Difference is that that shit sometimes looks cool as hell and you see your skin constantly while playing(at least if you play in third person). You won’t stare at your profile picture for hours.

    • alaphic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Holy fuck, as if I needed more reasons to hate Discord… back when I thought it was just a new iteration of xFire I still hated it but could at least see a purpose for it, but it doesn’t even do all the shit xFire could

      • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Xfire was the shit. I’d have paid a couple bucks a month for it, instead of it just dying. It was so crazy ahead of its time. Text chat, voice, game detection and tracking, clans, server browsing, broadcasting, pic and video hosting…

    • Oberyn@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Also how discord dœs stickers . Like custom emojes , they’re tied to discord servers , unless you have nitro then you can use them everywhere . Such BS system , shoulda done them how LINE dœs them : you only need to buy the sticker pack once then you use them anywhere , no shitty subscription needed !

  • Writerly Gal@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Sims freeplay. Haven’t used it for a long time but it sure asks for a LOT of money for a free game 😂

  • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Paid calculator apps.

    Not only are many of them paid - but they are subscription as well. Imagine paying a monthly fee for your goddamn calculator.

    • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Pretty sure I paid for some Ti and HP calc emulators at some point. Only a couple bucks each, worth it at the time. Would not pay to subscribe though.

    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In a sense this is great news. If you ever need to earn some money (somehow, anyhow) you now know that there are people out they who willingly pay a subscription for their calculator.

    • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Money laundering? Or just going kids download on devices with their parents data to go unnoticed for months at a time?

      • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        They 100% bank on people forgetting cancelling

        Also, Apple gave iOS a default calculator just a few months ago. When I had an iPad I had to download dozens and dozens of calculators to find one that didnt have ads or subscriptions

    • Opisek@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      After a long time of using CalcES on my android phone and cheating the ads away with PiHole, I finally spent the very little fee for the pro edition. The app is amazing and the creator absolutely deserves it.

    • _vote@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Calculator emulators are the way. Wabbit for ti-84 and similar, and hp prime (official) for a full CAS.

    • lengau@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      I have mixed feelings here. I legitimately paid ($1, once, a decade ago) for a calculator app and feel it was a great value (I still prefer it to this day). But then again the free version was fine too and the one-time payment was essentially a donation to the developer for a great app that unlocked… Themes…

      • AnAustralianPhotographer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I like that model. You get to try the software for free and have a way to thank the developer and get something extra, rather than just a pure donation.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        F-Droid has an Android port of the Unix maxima, which is a whole free and open-source computer algebra system, that handles all my heavier lifting. And I’m pretty sure that every phone that I’ve ever seen ships with at a software package that can act as a five-function calculator, if someone is just looking for something simple.

      • garretble@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, I paid for PCalc because someone put in effort to make it, and it’s good. Don’t feel bad about that.

        But I wouldn’t subscribe to one.

  • harc@szmer.info
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    11 months ago

    Microsoft Sharepoint has a Wiki. The Wiki can not generate a table of content.