I'd say if any app is poised to become the Western world's 'everything app', it's Facebook.
They've got a marketplace, video content, livestreaming, photo sharing, instant messaging, online dating which shits all over mainstream dating apps, and that's just what Facebook can do.
Making Twitter/X an 'everything app.' if we've learned anything from WeChat in China, LINE in Japan & Taiwan and KakaoTalk in South Korea, such apps can be hugely influential.
The premium tier of access makes it actually usable as a social media platform, my prime complaint about Twitter beforehand was that you'd never get any interaction with your posts unless you were a celebrity with a big following. Musk's dumbassery in this case was selling verified access.
I don't think pandering to the right wing is a good idea either, but if Musk made X a secure messaging platform, a decent dating app, capable of hosting livestreams and even a way to support creators which cut out middlemen like Patreon, OnlyFans, etc, it would have been huge.
I have that problem with all kinds of shoes and trainers, regardless of the price tag. I bought a pair of Adidas Men's Hoops 3.0 a few months back and to my surprise, the soles haven't worn down on them yet.
But I feel like it's only a matter of time until a hole starts developing in the soles, which means they're gonna be waterlogged in any kind of wet weather.
If he built X.com as a video sharing site to rival YouTube instead of rebranding Twitter and turning it into a Nazi bar, I think people would have a more favourable view of him.
Musk can have good ideas but he's being blinded by his own hubris.
I'd be more supportive of Valve if Team Fortress 2 wasn't a dumpster fire to play in 2024. The game is infested with bots that make anything outside of independently moderated community servers unplayable.
Even Counter Strike 2 has dogshit anticheat despite the boasts that VAC Live was a solution that could surpass Vanguard, to the point where the only good competitive experience you can have is to play on FaceIt or ESEA servers with their own ring 0 anticheat solution.
Every handheld outside of the Steam Deck, like the ROG Ally, Legion Go, and MSI Claw all use Windows, which can make the experience crippling for non-technically minded users.
Clearly this games journalist has never used Linux because despite the monumental efforts Valve have made to make thousands of games run on SteamOS and improve the UX through Proton, it is still an inferior experience to Windows for anybody that isn't incredibly tech savvy and the kind of person that lives and breathes command lines.
But then again, what did I expect from an industry where people are genuinely paid to talk out of their butts about games.
Speaking as a Steam Deck owner, SteamOS works a lot of the time and that's perfectly acceptable. But there has been the occasional 'Steam Deck Verified' game like Cthulhu Saves The World which soft locks on a black screen after battles.
Also, Linux is ideal for the kind of people that buy budget handheld devices like these. They are phenomenal emulation devices.
At times, I really don't understand Microsoft's MO.
They own a tonne of studios and IPs, and have also completed acquisitions of both Bethesda and Activision Blizzard over the past few years.
Xbox could easily surpass PlayStation if Microsoft actually bothered to leverage the intellectual properties they've developed and acquired to start pumping out exclusives. If they shat out a slew of console exclusives like new Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, StarCraft, Elder Scrolls, Doom, Pillars of Eternity, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, Conker, Gears, Halo, etc games, and actually ensured they were competently made, Sony wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Heck, if World of Warcraft got an exclusive Xbox port optimized with gamepad controls in mind (cross parity with PC may not be possible given how prevalent third party add-ons are), they'd dethrone Sony.
I can understand why certain IPs like Minecraft are better kept multiplatform, because Microsoft make an absolute mint off of merchandising which made their $2bn acquisition of Mojang more than worth it.
Microsoft are dead-last in the console race because they aren't doing anything with the sheer volume of IP's they have.
Unless they're doing this on purpose to avoid pissing off the FTC & CMA, acting all buddy-buddy with Nintendo and Sony because you're too incompetent to compete isn't going to drive innovation in the console market. If anything it's going to stagnate things. Nintendo really need the kick up the arse necessary for them to actually improve their hardware and the state of Nintendo Switch Online, and perhaps they need both Microsoft and Sony to offer a superior product to open their eyes.
My question is... would Trump even choose to participate in the debates if he (inevitably) wins the Republican nomination? He's refused to even engage with the primary debates in his own party and is still leagues ahead of any other candidate in the polls.
If he doesn't, I hope Biden takes part anyway and that Trump gets empty chaired. They could either invite some third party (Libertarian, Communist, etc) or independent candidates to give Biden someone to debate with, or give Biden a fully uncontested soapbox to ramble with the debate moderator. The latter would be hilarious to watch and would truly show what a farce this election is becoming.
I used to work in a place that sank its head office with an increased RTO mandate. Working conditions and pay were already quite bad and the increase in office hours led to turnover rates as high as 95% in some teams.
In the end they had to outsource a lot of their finance roles.
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