One could argue that Tado should have had more certainty about their business model before they started selling promises they couldn’t keep, but that’s business I suppose.

Presumably Tado anticipated they could capture customers on a free tier and upsell later, but it turns out that when customers have a fully functional basic tier, they generally don’t want to pay money for extras they don’t care about.

And so now, Tado are left with an online service that costs them money to run, but no ongoing revenue. So of course they will try to monetise the subscription.

Of course, part of the problem is that customers have almost been conditioned to expect cloud stuff to be free. And so that’s the price Tado tried to aim for, and now that is causing problems.

Either way though, what they are doing now represents “changing the deal” Darth Vader style - the product previously was a one time purchase and then free after, and they are now trying to make it paid after selling it as free. And that is bad.

It was to figure out if they /really did/ start charging for it, how many people would actually pay.

I hope Tado goes bust because they don’t deserve to survive, treating customers like that.

Truly, it’s the existential horror that really keeps me going :')

I’m not into any sports at all, of any kind. I dont think I could even name 10 athletes in total - either male or female.

I’m also pretty sure that wouldn’t be a blocker on me having a meaningful discussion about trans inclusivity in sports

In the 90s, ‘Political Correctness’ was sweeping through the western world, and was big news in the public consciousness. And that brought along some strong sentiments.

At that time, ‘Political Correctness’ was seen by many as nothing more than “a list of things you shouldn’t say in polite company” - that is to say, purely performative rather than something that would actually change behaviours or meaningfully improve anyone’s lives in the way we see inclusive behaviours to be now. It was nothing more than lip gloss for public speakers and TV presenters, and people thought it pointless, and stifling of free expression.

In other words, Political Correctness felt to many like a top-down push to enforce change, spearheaded by people it didn’t actually affect. Very unlike modern inclusion where change originates from within communities who are themselves affected.

It created an environment where being offensive and “non-PC” was therefore a counter-culture challenge to authority, and especially among young people there was nothing cooler than challenging authority.

Given the young demographic of gaming magazines this created the ideal conditions for these wild ads. A lot of them were extremely ableist and mysogynistic, but a lot were also extreme simply by featuring violence and sex and drug use. Being extreme in any way was the whole point, because the purpose was to say “You want me to be ‘PC’? Well fuck you,” and throw up the middle finger.

Of course, there’s a tremendous amount of irony in advertisers jumping on this sentiment of anti-conformity to sell products… but that’s another point entirely.

It was a wierd time.

I wonder what the Large Penis test came back as

The instructions for Windows work just as well on Linux, to be fair.

The batteries are for dipping

I used to be very much into My Little Pony when that whole thing was big, and there was a tremendous amount of very dark fan theorisation and spinoff material.

I think what you say is correct in part, that it can make things less shameful, but I also think there’s a simpler explanation - it’s fun.

It’s exactly because kids shows are so happy and non-threatening that these dark fan theories are so entertaining, because of the stark contrast between the theory and the source material. And so the darker it is, the better.

I mostly don’t think people “believe” the dark theories are true, or in any way actually intended as subtext by the showrunners. People aren’t “reading between the lines” so much as they are purely “making it up” - in ways that were never intended but feel somehow plausible. It’s just a bit of fun.

MLP itself was a strange case, though, and got quite bizarre in the end. As the show went on, the writers and animators became increasingly aware they had unexpectedly developed a huge adult following, and some of the plot points that began purely as fan theories later became canon… but that’s a whole different story…

If lasagna doesn’t have a layer of deliciously browned and bubbling cheese and crispy oven-pan edges, it’s dead to me.

This is like playing Disco Elysium

What that phrase SHOULD mean: "I will refrain from having opinions on scientific matters, and leave those to actual scientists*

What the phrase ACTUALLY means: “I’ll ignore the science, and have opinions anyway.”

This is the way it should be.

I already gave the whole damn week to my job. If I sleep all weekend just so I’m rested and ready for Monday, then I’m basically giving them my whole weekend, too!

No. The weekend is MINE.

Fair xD

“it’s a van that looks like the Sanrio character Cinnamoroll”

Described it

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more effective for the CS to type that way in this setting.

Normally, I agree with you. I hate when people send lots of tiny messages instead of one long one. It is annoying, and constantly captures and diverts your attention. Big message is better because you can process it all in one go and it is less context switching.

But think about the scenario here. You’ve got a customer on the other end who themselves may have a very low attention span. They are in the middle of a customer service exchange, and this might not trigger a notification the same way a messaging app would, so the customer can’t really do other things during this chat, they have to just keep it open and watch and wait for the CS response.

In that circumstance I bet typing in lots of small messages makes your average customer feel like the CS is ‘fast’ and ‘responsive’ and gets them more favourably rated afterwards.

Happy Crimes

Goblin mode, 1930s style

If the air fryer had an inside camera so you could see how things were doing, that would actually be kinda cool!

What’s wrong with the joycons on your normal switch? The drift thing?