Yeah I’m here like “what are we even talking about? What company is doing this over just reading badge swipe data?”
I know smaller companies might not have badging systems that can provide such analytics (or badging systems at all), but the Amazon anecdote smells fishy to say the least.
Writable NFC cards are pretty cheap on Aliexpress and Amazon, they're writable with most any NFC enabled phone and apps like "NFC Tools" that let you input a uri.
If you don't have a Plex server like the OP, you could use a link to the streaming service you use.
This is a fine mentality when it takes a certain amount of "Internet street smarts" (a term used in the article) to access the internet - at least beyond AOL etc.
But over half of the world has internet access, mostly via Chrome (largely via Android inclusion). At least some frontline protection (that can be turned off) is warranted when you need to cater to at least the millions of people who just started accessing the internet today, and the billions who don't/can't/won't put the effort in to learn those "Internet street smarts".
Mainly the theory that, if you can’t use downloaders to download videos, then people will no longer see YT as the go-to platform for any video hosting and will consider alternatives.
And I call that a theory for a reason. Creators can still download their videos from YT Studio, I'm not sure how much importance there is on being able to download any video ever (and worst case scenario people could screen recording videos)
i'd argue that 95%+ of users (creators and viewers) couldn't care less about downloading videos. creators use youtube because it's where the viewers and money are, viewers use youtube because it's where all the content is. none of them are going to jump ship if yt-dlp dies.
also, one could assume that the remaining 5% are either watching with vlc/mpv/etc or running an adblocker. so it's not like google is going to lose ad revenue by breaking downloaders like yt-dlp. grandparent comment (legacy smart TV support) is the much more likely explanation
It's not the 95% you're concerned about, it's the 1%, or 0.0001%, who are top content creators, who both archive their own production and use YT as a research tool themselves (whether simple "reply videos" or something more substantive). Ultimately Google will kill the goose and lose the eggs.
Those creators are what drive the the bulk of viewers to the platform.
Though, come to think of it, as YT's become increasingly obnoxious to use (the native Web client is utterly intolerable, front-ends such as Invidious are increasingly fragile/broken, yt-dlp is as TFA notes becoming bogged down in greater dependencies) I simply find myself watching (or as my preference generally is, listening) to far less from the platform.
I may be well ahead of the pack, but others may reach similar conclusions in 5--10 years. Or when a less-annoying alternative clearly presents itself.
They can afford it because the market rightfully bets on such trained models being more useful than upstream sources.
In fact, at this point in time (it won't last), one of the most useful applications of LLMs is to have them deal with all the user-hostile crap that's bulk of the web today, so you don't have to suffer through it yourself. It's also the easiest way to get any kind of software interoperability at the moment (this will definitely not last long).
> I'd love some case studies or anecdotes about the real-world threats that using an old devices exposes me to.
The Apple patch in the OP is in regards to a zero-interaction exploit that compromised the device to install spyware etc.
> Impact: Processing a malicious image file may result in memory corruption. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.
Maybe that's because of the boogeyman being feared and so people update enough to make such attacks not common enough to be worth it, so once we stop fearing it... but idk. So far it hasn't mattered to have devices with Bluetooth vulnerabilities at hacker conferences of all places
I mean, it’s a legitimate concern. Google is bleeding so hard right now from Gen Z and especially Gen Alpha deciding to use ChatGPT first and foremost when asking questions that Google would’ve answered previously. Whether or not that means they should keep Chrome as a product is up for debate.
Under good Monopoly law, you would remedy the situation that got them to this point, not worry about their future. Chrome + Deals got to them to this point so that's what you unwind. If it causes Google to get weakened and AI finishes them off, that's just creative destruction at work and oh well.
The ease with which a total newcomer was able to steal share from Google is real-world evidence that there wasn't really a monopoly and that Google competitors (Bing, etc.) just sucked and didn't want to spend the money to be better.
Well, courts disagree with your assessment and so do I. Yes, AI is a threat to Google. How much a threat remains to be seen. From normies I know, most of them are just using Gemini or whatever is on Google front page. They are not starting most of their searches on OpenAI or other ones.
ChatGPT has for sure the "first mover" strength for normies (you can hear it mentioned in TV, radio and in the street, but also lot of people just talk about "AI". So, IMO there is still space to be used as "the AI" rather then specifically ChatGPT.
It might also just be always referred to "ChatGPT" when talking about another provider, just like people saying "Kleenex" when referring to tissues.
Courts also decided you couldn't bundle a web browser and then turned a blind eye when it's done on a different platform with draconian restrictions against even installing an alternate browser.
They didn't "turn[] a blind eye" as they weren't asked the question again. There was no legal precedent established by the Microsoft case that required all future operating systems to have a replaceable browser engine. Also, the factual situations were quite different: Microsoft had a de facto monopoly on PC OSes in the late 1990s, while Apple never had a monopoly on mobile devices.
I asked Grok and Gemini and they both said there have been reports that Google search has dropped below 90% for the first time, so it’s significant but it’s like a 1-2% drop.
They stole share from Google because search is becoming obsolete, not because a new search engine came to town. It's like saying 5G stole market share from AOL's dial-up business. Search still has a use, and Google still takes > 90% of all search, so it's still a monopoly, and I'll add that Google is trying to leverage that monopoly to expand Gemini.
Chrome had nothing to do with the case, though; the prosecutors were grasping at straws. The obvious remedy is to ban Google from bidding for placement, which is what happened.
Because it happened. If I was stealing cable but then all shows I wanted to watch switched to streaming, should I be let off the hook because situation remedy'd itself? I'd imagine most people would say no, the fact you can no longer do the crime in the future does not change the fact you did the crime in the past.
I'm Gen X and recently been using ChatGPT a hell of a lot more than Google, especially for queries similar to sibling comment. Instead of trying to word my query optimally for search, I just write what I'm trying to achieve in natural language and I get an answer, instead of having to scan a few results to know if they're likely candidates. Even with the made up shit on occasion this is a win.
I know smaller companies might not have badging systems that can provide such analytics (or badging systems at all), but the Amazon anecdote smells fishy to say the least.