There is absolutely no way they managed to do proper due diligence to understand who on the team is essential ("good bones" for the structure) vs. those that are not. It's been a week.
Steam Deck is nice, but let's not kid ourselves that it's anywhere close to what Windows has to offer. Most games in my Steam library still are not Steam Deck compatible, and chances are they never will either because they are too old or because they require new OS components that embed themselves around kernel APIs (separate conversation on whether that is good or bad).
Again - not necessarily saying that the Windows experience is ideal, but it's the absolute best out of the available options.
Ah yes, the good ol' Linux "You're holding it wrong" mantra.
Look, I don't know about you, but I don't have unlimited time to go fiddle with whatever emulation layer is there to make some game from 2017 work well on a modern Mac. Not only that, but Apple has proven, time and time again, that they completely do not care about backwards compatibility, which is crucial for games, so let's not pretend that the "manufacturer" (assuming you're talking about the game developers here) is at fault - nobody has unlimited time to adjust their product on the whims of the folks in Cupertino.
Here's the reality - on Windows, I can still play DOS games. On macOS, with the latest OS release, 90% of my Steam library cannot be used (that were all perfectly fine before the update) because Apple decided to remove support for 32-bit apps. So sticking to Windows for gaming is the logical choice if you want access to the latest and greatest titles and not a selection of a few that are "hacked around".
I wasn't referring to the edge network for _startups_ to replicate. I was more wondering how AWS and others can replicate Vercel/Netlify and eat their lunch. They have no defensible moat as a company.
The more I see these announcements, the more I wonder - what is the appeal of something like Vercel and the likes? On the surface it seems like AWS/GCP/Azure/whichever big cloud provider can replicate literally everything they build within their infrastructure quite easily. Why host your core infra in a BigCo cloud and then the site on Vercel?
Most smart watches are actually providing a lot of information that is useless for the consumer. Yes, you can track your heart rate and step count - but then what? What does that mean? Do you need to walk more? Sure, but you could do that without the watch.
There is some gamification aspect to it, but it creates the illusion of "caring about your health" while doing the bare minimum. Let alone the constant distraction with notifications that now buzz your wrist and you get distracted by.
This is a well-known play on FOMO - there is that bit about the inherent fear of missing out on being top of leaderboard/in-game items/bonuses/etc. What's fascinating is just how easy this mechanic is applied to so many modern games and apps, and how hooked folks become on it even though they know what's going on.
"Ugh... they implemented this for FOMO... but damn I can't skip playing this game for a day because I am going to miss out on the +1 bonus to agility that's gonna be awarded if I log in 7 days in a row."
There is a big difference between "We enable others to access data with user permission" and "your game play, activities and usage of games and Xbox Services will be tracked and shared with applicable third-parties, including game developers". The latter means that they leave the door open to that data being sold and shared with "partners" if it's convenient.
That's part of the problem - opt-in never works because it's an inherently an anti-consumer practice. The industry got so used to vacuuming up as much data as possible that the moment you give customers the option, they do not want to partake.
You know it's a bad thing when you say "If I ask users for consent, nobody will agree to this."
I as a customer want full control of my data and if you, the website owner, try to force me into giving data that I did not consent to (invasive site analytics, for example, that track my page behavior), I will go out of my way to block that through extensions and by just banning things at the DNS level.
We're talking about MSFT here - what did they build in the past 5 years that did not have a dark pattern built in?
Windows nags you about Microsoft account and won't let you install without it unless you know the magic CMD incantations.
Xbox games that are physical are nothing more than a "license key" that is used to download games from the MSFT servers, so if they ever go down, your DVDs are useless.
MSN being showed in Windows under the guise of "weather" and "widgets" while they promote trash tabloid content.
Logging in with an Outlook account in Edge hooks it to sync with Edge and you have to then explicitly go and opt out.
Shoveling third-party adware into Edge in the form of "credit payments".
Blocking custom browser settings.
There's a clear history here of reverse-Midas-ing quite a few things, and I genuinely feel bad for folks that want to build a great product within that environment. But the pattern is clear - your data and usage of their products will be tracked and monetized. The only winning move is not to play.
I know this will sound like proposing a bandaid to a bigger problem, but that should be an incentive to drop Minecraft. Stop playing the game and move on to something different.
More folks need to realize that their best bet (if they want to play games) is to buy them through DRM-free services like GOG, and not Xbox Game Pass or whatever flavor of subscription there is.
You're right in that once you get banned (for any arbitrary reason), there is no recourse. You can't get your library back.
So what can folks do?
- Buy MP3s that are DRM free.
- Buy physical copies of movies on DVD/BluRay instead of paying for streaming.
- Buy games on GOG, or physical copies that do not depend on "launchers".
- Buy software that is not subscription-based (Affinity is fantastic if you want to replace Adobe, for example) and you can buy for a one-time fee.
Getting really tired of the game of cat and mouse with telemetry domains, but alas the vast majority of the population does not understand the risks to their privacy, nor are they educated about the extent of data collection and re-selling that is happening in the industry.
It's as if we need to simplify the way we have 18,337,398 page Privacy Policy into something like "We collect and sell your data to the following parties: 1, 2, 3". Bet at least then you'd have some people against the mass telemetrization of every nook and cranny of your devices.
FWIW, I just assume that any data in the "cloud" is up for grabs to the highest bidder, with any service, no matter how "privacy-oriented" they are today. Once they get enough data, it becomes too tempting to start monetizing it.
Microsoft despite its revenue volumes is not exempt from trying to diversify its revenue streams through selling whatever data they have for ads/whoever wants it.
That's a HUGE part of the reason why I refuse to use any "cloud storage" aka OneDrive or whatever they call it these days, or any of the MSFT cloud services in Windows. Bing is the first thing I disable, along with all the MSN bloatware, and it's all done through a DNS block at the top of my network stack. Never connect the OS to the Microsoft account either, because the way the company works - they are not a friend of yours and neither are they going to help you re-gain whatever semblance of privacy you're aiming for.
Despite what any website might say, all of the hype and “value” of crypto always comes back to dollars. If you take that away, I don’t see how anyone will want to stick around short of super hardcore techies.
I’m sorry, spit my coffee over the keyboard. What value does cryptocurrency provide other than sucking the world’s electric energy for meaningless calculations?
Yes, and with Google you can also appeal. Problem is the same, though - you don’t know why the decision was made and don’t have the full view of the problem.