Never understood how the third world pricing logic holds up for things like video games, since the hardware to play them costs pretty much the same no matter where you are.
Indeed. And it's kinda hard imagining things getting better, since most politicians are corrupt fucks under the payroll of either national or foreign big money. The only hope I have is people's revolution, Marxist style... but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Maybe things will turn this way when our climate catastrophe starts to really rear its ugly head, but who knows? It might even go in the opposite direction, with the fascism blight we're suffering reaching critical mass.
Internet access on third world countries (at least in mine... I live in Brazil) is mostly Whatsapp/Facebook and sometimes other sponsored stuff, not the actual open Internet. Mobile telecoms usually offer packages with free access to that corporate-driven sh*t and a few GBs of traffic to other stuff. I'd hazard that this is true elsewhere on poor countries.
I don’t want to live in a world where the Arab Spring and the early days of Anonymous were the last hurrahs of the Wild West Internet and actual digital freedom.
The Arab Spring was not about "actual digital freedom". It was a state-sponsored attack on non-aligned regimes, facilitated by Facebook, Twitter and a few other American companies, that ultimately failed to improve the lives of people living in the affected countries.
Of all things you can (justly or unjustly) criticize the Chinese government, this is the most ridiculous. They're actually doing the right thing with their subsides for EVs, while the rest of the so-called "civilized world" is lagging behind.
But several people also noted that the games industry goes through cycles of mass layoffs, because simply having a stable business isn't enough for investors. Revenues must grow by a chunky margin: if they don't, costs must be cut. Embracer's mishandling of their business might be grotesque, but it's business as usual nonetheless. "We make a shitload of money, but it doesn't go back into the games," one person commented. "It goes into a lot of now very wealthy peoples' pockets, and the people who actually make the games kind of scrape by, most of the time."
True. One doesn’t have to explain their choice in having children to others anyway.
I don't think I'd be a good parent so I decided to not have children. I'm in my forties so this is unlikely to change
It just feels strange, to have an opportunity to give a child a better life than most of the people on the globe can, to want children, and to choose against.
The future is bound to suck a lot, so I can understand people who think like that
logistics and taxes also play a role