For me: Cancelling paid subscriptions should be as easy as subscribing. I hate the fact that they actively hide the unsubscribe option or that you sometimes should have to write an e-mail if you want to unsubscribe.
That actually is illegal.
What surprisingly is legal: dating a 14yo.
Weird country.
Which one?
No
Using multiple free trials.
I’ve been paying .99 cents a month for Hulu for 4 years straight because I just use a new email every Black Friday.
Do you have to change your payment method every time as well?
No. I always use the same Paypal.
Taking a penny instead of leaving a penny.
What would everyone be leaving them for then?
Entrapment mostly.
My car insurance goes up as my car loses value. Years ago you could choose to only insure it up to a certain amount. My kids drove an older car and i designated $10k in insurance for it. That cut the insurance price to about 60%. Texas no longer allows that.
Isn’t most of the insurance for liability? I can see a logic where older cars are less safe, and thus accidents are more likely and would cost more, hence the higher costs. But I’m just guessing.
Collision insurance, the kind that pays for damage to the policy holder’s car in the event of a crash caused by the policy holder or an authorized driver of their car often more than doubles the overall cost of insurance. Collision insurance is usually optional when there’s not a loan.
Huh that’s weird. My parents bought new cars and their car insurance basically doubled. Equal-tier vehicles to their older ones, but new.
If the car that totals at $50k costs you $100/mo, that doesn’t drop to $90/mo when the car’s value drops to $45k. It stays the same or goes up.
That is not universal at all. There are so many factors at play. I’m sure it happens but again, not universal.
Your car may lose value, but the cost to repair goes up. Hence the insurance increases. Also the likelihood of a total loss goes up as well.
The insurance will never pay more than the value of the car, so if the repair cost goes too high they’ll just declare it a total loss and pay the “fair market value” of the car. And yes, a total loss is more likely, but that doesn’t mean the insurance pays more, on the contrary, they use that to pay less.
torrenting Wikipedia
oh and crypto mining, like ur actually printing money, how tf is that legal
It’s because crypto isn’t actually money. It’s just something somebody might give you money for.
In theory, you can walk to your nearest forest and collect pine cones and then sell them to people.
That’s about the same as crypto, only pine cones are actually useful.
Fiat currency like the US dollar is just as intrinsically worthless. It has value only because people accept that it does, they trade with it, and it has legal status as tender “for all debts, public and private”.
People trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for goods all the time, without converting it to USD or anything first. I mean, yeah, usually the thing they’re buying is drugs or something but it’s the same as handing your local dealer a $20 bill.
Hey now. In harsh3466 land only I have the authority to mint pinecones!
You’re printing the promise of money using your actual money to pay an increased electric bill. Assuming you don’t get scammed, forget your pass, lose your key, etc.
Also destroying the planet for literally no reason (particularly PoW coins like Bitcoin) because difficulty is completely artificial. It’s what makes mining so absurd - the more miners, the more power/silicon wasted, but the output is exactly the same because the release rate is set. More adoption = less efficiency. It’s completely back asswards.
Also destroying the planet for literally no reason
Not necessarily.
Solar has a problem where, if you install enough capacity to meet demand during short, overcast winter days, you have twice the capacity you need in spring or autumn, and 4 times as much capacity as you need during long, clear summer days.
That excess production tanks the value of the power produced. Itnis already regularly driving power prices negative, making it impossible to recoup the value of your installation. Since it’s cheaper for you to just buy electricity on the market than to install solar, you don’t install solar. Nobody does. Solar installation never expands enough to meet winter demand.
Unless we can monetize that cheap summer power. If we have some way of profitably consuming that excess power, we have every reason to maximize solar rollout.
Crypto can do that just as well as anything else.
yeah well unfortunately techno bro fascists/crypto bros aren’t exactly the most progressive minds, and let me tell you: they are fucking hostile to renewables.
And before you start lecturing me about how it’s about the tech or whatever, let me also tell you: I was mining literally over a decade ago. I know what crypto is, I know what mining is, and I know how this shit works. It is concretely unsustainable and back asswards, as I said. It will not be what the evangelists tell you. It’s been 15 years. It’s a casino, it’s a desperate attempt at getting rich because people are losing faith in traditional economic mobility (rightfully so).
Remember when everyone was all about Argentina’s grand experiment? Fucking crickets now.
The issue is monetizing the excess power produced by adequately-sized solar facilities for 9 months out of the year. Getting enough people to point giant lasers into space would solve the overcapacity problem that comes with solar generation outside of the tropics. Crypto has a slightly higher ROI.
Desalination, fischer-tropsch synfuel production, hydrogen electrolysis, demand-shaping of conventional industries like steel production and aluminum smelting, widespread adoption of electrified parking garages are some other options. Even other maligned, power-hungry technologies like AI can address the overproduction problems of solar better than conventional grid-scale storage solutions.
Man it’s amazing how every 5 years there’s a new solution that doesn’t solve it.
You having a bad day? What can I do to make your life better?
Fair enough. I was flippant with you, turnabout is fair play.
Anyway, I just think ultimately this whole enterprise doesn’t make sense so long as the majority of cryptos depend on a system that requires more and more computing power the more people get involved. The math is simple here to me, you disagree.
Have a good one
Why would you torrent Wikipedia?
torrenting is faster than usual downloading, its actually an incredible technology. i dont know the exact percentage of how much faster, but it makes sense that it would be because it puts less load on the server with the file because everyone downloading it is also sending it to each other
Torrenting can be faster than normal downloads. A file server with a fast connection that’s not overloaded can easily be faster than a P2P download that doesn’t have very many peers, or the peers all have slow connections. There’s no fixed percentage speed boost that you get, because sometimes you don’t.
That said, for things like Linux ISOs or archives of stuff that people just keep seeding forever but aren’t hosted on fast file servers (if at all), it’s great and typically the bottleneck is your own connection.
I mean, artisanal gold mining is still a huge thing in certain less-than-awesome areas. The basic way gold works is what inspired it.
Leaving a supermarket without buying anything
Sometimes I get so pissed they don’t have the main item I came for, that I go put everything back on the shelves, exactly where they came from.
That largely depends on what you take with you as you leave.
Biden administration was working on making that unsubscribe bullshit illegal last year. But then Trump so those tactics will probably be mandatory pretty soon…
I thought that happened? I’ve noticed unsubscribing is generally like 2 clicks now. I almost always see a link at the bottom of emails.
Click to Cancel was put in as a rule, but it requires active enforcement. It also had a 180 day grace period from last October, so it hasn’t even gone into effect yet.
I think email unsubscribe was an existing requirement from a few years ago. Biden’s thing was about unsubscribing from paid services, like Netflix.
Ahh misunderstood
stealing food from the grocery store
Damn, where you live at where this is legal because shit is about to get ROUGH where I’m at and I’m trying to get free groceries.
They write in Finnish in other comments, but I don’t seem to be able to confirm or deny the law there, at least not with a quick search.
I did find an article that suggested that it’s been ruled legal in Italy, but only if you’re homeless and hungry. I can imagine that if you tried it and had any assets whatsoever, they’d find a way to put a lien on those assets rather than let you get away with it.
Move to the EU.
No don’t we’re fine since you’re isolationist now please kindly unfuck your country yourself
Corporations that don’t pay taxes being allowed to make millions in profit while their employees qualify for welfare because they pay them so little.
They should just make it so that whatever they announce as their “earnings” to their stockholders should also be the amount that they are taxed for.
What’s worse is those same organisations get corporate welfare (tax breaks) but fight tooth and nail to prevent their workers from getting it.
Political parties sending you a reply-paid envelope that says it’ll enrol you to vote postal ballot, with a return address that sends your information to that party, so long as they eventually do forward your info on to the Electoral Commission to register you for a postal vote.
I have no idea what any of this means
In Australia, one way you can apply for a postal vote is by sending an application form by mail to the Australian Electoral Commission—the nonpartisan government agency responsible for overseeing federal elections.
Political parties like our centre-right–to–far-right LNP and centre-left–to–centre-right Labor will often send you a letter, in the lead-up to an election. Inside that letter will be an application form, and a reply-paid envelope addressed to the party headquarters. But the address doesn’t say “LNP party headquarters”, it says something like “postal vote centre”.
If you fill out the form, I believe the parties are obligated to send it on to the AEC. But there is no law preventing them from harvesting your data to use for marketing purposes before they do so. Because political parties have exempted themselves from a lot of the usual privacy laws.
There have also been accusations that they might delay sending your details on by a few days if you’re from an area less likely to vote for them. Increasing the chances your postal vote doesn’t arrive in time for you to actually use it. Not sure how founded that is, and I doubt it would be legal, but it also may be difficult to prove.
Huh, I’ve not heard of this, though it doesn’t surprise me.
In the area where I grew up (waaay out in the sticks, with no easy public transport access to the closest AEC office), the AEC tended to send people out to your home on your 18th birthday (or soon after it) and enrol you on the spot. This was decades ago, though, before you could do any of it online.
That’s enrolling to vote. This is about requesting a mail-in ballot for people who are already enrolled.
Voting/speaking against fascism
Yet…It’s not illegal yet.
I like that growth mindset!
Fun fact: There’s technically a right to free speech in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China. But we all know how that goes.
Just like with any rule in any society; without enforcement, they are nothing but merely the words of people. ahem USA ahem
Which is the reason the right to bear arms is the second amendment.
The founding fathers anticipated and understood that without the ability to defend it, the right to free speech only exists while the population and propaganda are in agreement.
Advertising. At what point did we as a society decide that it was perfectly acceptable for companies to manipulate us - especially children - into buying shit we don’t need and didn’t even want until the ad sold us on it? It’s fucking wild.
Ordered food at Sonic on their app. After I ordered, it popped up with ads for travel, various credit cards, etc. Completely crazy to me that they’re triple dipping on monetization now (sell me food, sell my data and then sell me other shit while trying to sell me food.)
I recently went to Sonic, didn’t use the app, and ended up with norovirus for free.
And the fact that a lot of children’s TV shows are nothing but thinly veiled toy commercials. Hilariously parodied in Dinosaurs
Oh yeah, I grew up in the 70s/80s when that shit became rife. I loved Saturday morning cartoons until I got old enough to realize that they only existed to sell me toys (and to sell ads for other toys.)
Worst part is, those are usually the best ones.
Adblocking feels to me like it should be illegal, but isn’t. I have adblockers on all my devices and haven’t seen an ad for years; it feels like a secret super power and stopped the web from looking like a trashy back alley.
It’s weird they don’t put more effort into stopping them, TBH. I’ve heard it’s because they’d rather collect extra analytics than do any foolproofing that might interfere with it.
Nah, I pay for my bandwidth, I get to decide what it does and does not get used for. Even if that’s not nearly as big a concern as it used to be in like the late 90s, it’s the principle of I’m not going to pay for you to shove your garbage down my throat.
And yeah I haven’t seen an ad in years and years on PC. People complain about youtube ads and I’m like ‘What’s that? I watch a lot of youtube and I’ve not seen an ad in like 10 years.’ Sadly on mobile that’s a little more complicated, but adding a private dns of ‘dns.adguard.com’ blocks most things.
I am always shocked when I have to use a browser without an ad blocker. How do people tolerate it?
I mean, I get it. I know many people have no idea about adblocking, etc. But goddam. It’s so awful without it.
You should rawdog fox news sometime. Their cookie pop-up is WILD
I love how I’ve lost all perspective on what a “normal” ad is. Whenever I see one I’m often either super confused at the approach or it’s so bland I just don’t care. Once you stop seeing them routinely they feel so ridiculous
I’m in the same boat, but you also have to remember that blocking ads typically involves blocking tracking too. You’re right they the ads are much more bland or misdirected but that’s because there’s little to no targeting data (probably just your IP address).
I’m mostly talking about the stuff I see on a TV when I’m in a waiting room or an airport or something
Right! It’s kinda wild when you do see them. I always equate it to the feeling of being in a casino.
What really throws me is tv commercials. When I do see one, like in a waiting room or something, all I can think is, “people fall for this?”
They usually depend on just making you remember them (the most extreme example I can think of is the “I’m on a horse” old spice ad from like 15 years ago, which admittedly is very clever/funny/well executed), regardless of the message or context. They just want brand recognition a lot of the time. You’re at the supermarket, you see 10 of basically the same cereal, but this one brand of cereal feels more legit or just “draws you in” veggies of a subconscious association. In that way unfortunately it works most of the time, especially if you don’t have a strong opinion on a product.
This right here is why I think advertising is manipulation. Cause even the subtle shit where you’re like ‘That was weird’ and shrug it off is still affecting you days, weeks, even years later. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and there are so many fucking stupid ad jingles and slogans stuck in my head, half of them I don’t even remember who they were for.
Every time i accidentally open chrome instead of waterfox on my tablet jeeesus christ
Use DNS-based blocking. I put Tomato firmware on my router and block for all devices on my network. Rethink can selfhost DNS on Android too.
Interesting, I just use a private DNS on my phone set to dns.adguard.com and it catches most things, but I’d like to hear more about this. I’ve considered setting up a pihole but there are people in the house who work from home and need to do VPN shit so I’m reluctant to mess with that, but if I can just change the firmware on the router…
You can thank Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays
Specifically his 1928 book Propaganda which basically created PR and modern advertising.
It happened gradually, like frogs in a kettle.
When it was just a guy putting up a sign in front of his smithy it was kind of harmless. Ditto for having a single text-only paper ad for people who are new to town. But, it was a slippery slope.
Yeah that’s kind of my point: society has not stopped to think about the fact that the water is at a full boil and has been for a while. If I had my way ads would just be a basic, boring, ‘This product/service exists, and this is what an independent panel of testers has determined about its functions and capabilities.’ There have definitely been products that were advertised to me that make my life easier and that I use every day, so I don’t want to lose the ability to discover them, I just also don’t want these companies putting their dick in my ass and whispering into my ear that I’m not good enough person as a person if I don’t like it.
Frogs will not stay in the kettle :)
Yes, it’s true. Let me know when a more scientifically accurate idiom comes along, though. I also still use “like a bull in a china shop”.
It was only like 6 months ago I learned that a bull will actually be extremely careful in a china shop (or equivalent) unless its concerned.
Are most of our idioms just wrong?
Marketing wasn’t really a thing until sometime around the Industrial Revolution and post-WW1. Before then, we didn’t really have the capacity to produce more than what people needed. Marketing basically just consisted of “here’s my product, here’s why it’s superior to others.” But with the post-war boom and the rise in manufacturing, producers were suddenly able to out-produce the demand. So they invented marketing, to get people to buy things that they didn’t actually need. The idea of “create a problem so you can sell the solution” was born.
EULAs that say ‘using this <whatever> indicates your acceptance of these terms’. Seems like it ought to be illegal but it’s super common.
Paying for anything and then being stopped from owning it should be illegal.
What the fuck am I buying software for if not to own it and have my privacy protected while using it?
Fuck EULA’s and the companies trying to push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour 😤 just for a couple extra bucks selling our data to the highest bidder.
100%. If buying isn’t owning then stealing isn’t theft.
Just because they put it in the terms doesn’t it legal.
Still has a chilling effect on pushback
It kinda does make it legal. If you don’t agree to the terms of the product, then you are using it illegally. It sucks, but that’s where the law is. I am typing this on a Linux laptop in Firefox, but those have terms and conditions, too!
That depends on the location/jurisdiction, but I do have a hard time believing that any court would uphold a EULA stating that you have to cook dinner for any Microsoft employee that happens to request it, just because to installed Windows 11.
I believe a fair number of juristictions also invalidate any EULA that’s only viewable after you’ve purchased a product so most software EULAs are worth less than toilet paper anyway.
EULA’s are widely honored and established law. However, anyone can push back on anything they put in an agreement.
To fight Microsoft, you have to fight Microsoft’s lawyers, in Microsoft’s jurisdiction. But you can’t sue them, because you already agreed to arbitration. And you’d have to pay lawyers in what would be a long, drawn out process.
If Microsoft demands things that are incredibly weird like what you describe above, there definitely would be a chance it could be appealed to a court and eventually see a judge. I think it would be a long and expensive process for both sides getting there. And Microsoft’s argument would be, “The user has the option to stop using it.”
There are undoubtedly severance clauses in there, so if a court deems a part of a license illegal, then it is stricken, and the rest of the agreement stands.
So, Microsoft’s lawyers only put things in the agreement that they are 99+% sure of wanting and winning. So they probably won’t request your spleen. They don’t want that. They just want your money, your data, and your eyeballs connected to your brain.
You know, I’m not actually sure how binding it is, aside from not totally. It must do something or they wouldn’t bother getting pretend consent.
Surprisingly a lot of clauses in EULAS are and get “stricken” (even though this one still stands).
Ice cream, after you haven’t had any for 2 weeks
