Epic lost billions of dollars when they were kicked out of the App Store and Google Play and they were out for a long time. Only now Fortnite is coming back to mobile.

Exactly. Their holy war on the App Stores blunted Fortnite’s momentum at its apogee.

On one hand, I admire their chutzpah. The App Store model has weighed down the entire software industry and has prevented entire categories of new products from growing out of infancy due to anticompetitive practices. Everyone, Apple and Google included, would actually be better off without the App Stores in their present form, and I’d love to see them weakened or eliminated.

But on the other hand, Epic actually accomplished very little in their war, and nowhere near what being unavailable on mobile platforms for years cost them.

Additionally, their refusal to go after Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch never made any sense to anyone except for those with a financial interest in those arrangements. The rest of us were just confused — the console App Stores are the exact same model as the mobile App Stores.

I suspect Epic’s actual reason for not going after the consoles was a bit of realpolitik or cowardice depending on how you look at it. They couldn’t afford to be locked out of the mobile and console stores at the same time, so they invented some tortured rationale for why they could pay the console vendors their 30% but not the mobile vendors. But, this muddied their message and they came up mostly empty handed in the end, and here we are today.

I vibe code web apps with Google's Gemini and I think it actually mimics Google's UI and UX because I see similarities between my vibe coded web apps and Google's web apps.

But that's a different style from the these colorful border rounded boxes that I think Claude in particular loves to produce.

This looks like something I would vibe code with Google's Gemini. Interesting concept.

I use to have wired headphones for years but wires always get damaged over time and then headphones stop working. Now I got wireless headphones.

Isn't this a risky way to transfer intelligence information because when people see gibberish data they will know something fishy is going on. Better way would be to use subliminal channels[0] for intelligence exchange.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_channel

At least nobody will be able to sue you for things you say when you are dead. Zuck will get all the lawsuits.

Tbh I don't care if I speak to a human or a bot as long as they are "useful"; by useful I mean if they provide me useful information but then again humans can provide unique information that bots can not. But I think identity is not relevant anymore, what's relevant is reputation. People think internet bots are bad per se but we need to build useful bots, just like there are chat bots that are useful on various platforms like Telegram, Discord or whatever other platforms people use.

This is a great point. In the past and present, sites like slashdot and HN depend on the users to achieve that moderation to surface useful comments and keep 'spam' down.

Now, there are tools to achieve that kind of moderation automagically, and even better, consistently. This is an opportunity to build out a community that is useful for everyone. The first platform that guarantees anonymity supported by human-independent moderation will likely attract significant and persistent user support.

There is still the issue of cost - how does the community pay for such a platform? Perhaps like the Google of yore - very limited ads? Avoiding enshittification can be done through the Wikipedia model - non-profit to manage the whole thing?

I had a similar idea where AI bots run its own social network and talk to each other but my AI social network would be more realistic (human-like) e.g. AI Instagram-like network where AI bots would share their photos and comment on each other posts.

Go for it!

It was just one of my numerous thought experiments....starting with text only social network (like Moltbook) is probably way easier than to go with full blown Facebook/Instagram type network.

I've never seen or heard anyone listen music out loud from his or her phone in the public transit or on the airplane. They all have headphones but sometimes they listen music so loud that you can actually hear it from the headphones or earbuds. People usually listen out loud some short clips or they talk out loud via speaker but music, that's just disrespectful.

It's absolutely rife in the UK

It's already unlawful on trains thanks to byelaws but enforcement is non existent

Pretty common across Europe too

I will always politely ask people who are doing this to stop it, and 99% of the time they do. (This is in the UK).

I appreciate that is a temporary solution for you but that's just generally not our culture to do that. We expect people to follow rules and norms and aren't really prepared for when they don't

And 99% of them will not change their behaviour. The next trip or when you get off, they will do it again. It's not a solution

It's become a lot more common since lockdown. I have to wear earplugs.

Someone in Japan can also say your first sentence. Lucky them (and you), but in a lot of parts of the world, selfish cuntiness is a growing disease.

Inside trading on the public market and on the public blockchain, that's smart!