What I'm speaking about is that it should be impossible to do some things. If it's possible, they will be done, and there's nothing you can do about it. To solve the problem of twiddled social media (and moderation used to assert dominance) we need a decentralized system of 90s Web reimagined, and Fediverse doesn't deliver it - if Facebook and Reddit are feudal states, then Fediverse is a confederation of smaller feudal entities. A post, a person, a community, a reaction and a change (by moderator or by the user) should be global entities (with global identifiers, so that the object by id of #0000001a2b3c4d6e7f890 would be the same object today or 10 years later on every server storing it) replicated over a network of servers similarly to Usenet (and to an IRC network, but in an IRC network servers are trusted, so it's not a good example for a global system). Really bad posts (or those by persons with history of posting such) should be banned on server level by everyone. The rest should be moderated by moderator reactions\changes of certain type. Ideally, for pooling of resources and resilience, servers would be separated by types into storage nodes (I think the name says it, FTP servers can do the job, but no need to be limited by it), index nodes (scraping many storage nodes, giving out results in structured format fit for any user representation, say, as a sequence of posts in one community, or like a list of communities found by tag, or ... , and possibly being connected into one DHT for Kademlia-like search, since no single index node will have everything), and (like in torrents?) tracker nodes for these and for identities, I think torrent-like announce-retrieve service is enough - to return a list of storage nodes storing, say, a specified partition (subspace of identifiers of objects, to make looking for something at least possibly efficient), or return a list of index nodes, or return a bunch of certificates and keys for an identity (should be somehow cryptographically connected to the global identifier of a person). So when a storage node comes online, it announces itself to a bunch of such trackers, similarly with index nodes, similarly with a user. One can also have a NOSTR-like service for real-time notifications by users. This way you'd have a global untrusted pooled infrastructure, allowing to replace many platforms. With common data, identities, services. Objects in storage and index services can be, say, in a format including a set of tags and then the body. So a specific application needing to show only data related to it would just search on index services and display only objects with tags of, say, "holo_ns:talk.bullshit.starwars" and "holo_t:post", like a sequence of posts with ability to comment, or maybe it would search objects with tags "holo_name:My 1999-like Star Wars holopage" and "holo_t:page" and display the links like search results in Google, and then clicking on that you'd see something presented like a webpage, except links would lead to global identifiers (or tag expressions interpreted by the particular application, who knows). (An index service may return, say, an array of objects, each with identifier, tags, list of locations on storage nodes where it's found or even bittorrent magnet links, and a free description possibly ; then the user application can unify responses of a few such services to avoid repetitions, maybe sort them, represent them as needed, so on.) The user applications for that common infrastructure can be different at the same time. Some like Facebook, some like ICQ, some like a web browser, some like a newsreader. (Star Wars is not a random reference, my whole habit of imagining tech stuff is from trying to imagine a science fiction world of the future, so yeah, this may seem like passive dreaming and it is.)

TikTacos

The 'laptop' is s conceptual illustration. The image shown on the laptop screen is an actual SEM image.

This is a weirdly aggressive take without considering variables. Almost petulant seeming. 6” readers are relatively cheap no matter the brand, but cost goes up with size. $250 to $300 is what a 7.8” or 8” reader costs, but there’s not a single one I know of at 6” at that price. There’s 10” and 13” models. Are you saying they should cost the same as a Kindle? Not to mention, regarding Kindle, Amazon spent years building the brand but selling either at cost or possibly even taking a loss on the devices as they make money on the book sales. Companies who can’t do that tend to charge more. Lastly, it’s not “feature creep” to improve the devices over time, many changes are quality of life. Larger displays for those that want them. Frontlit displays, and later the addition of warm lighting. Displays essentially doubled their resolution allowing for crisper fonts and custom fonts to render well. Higher contrast displays with darker blacks for text. More recently color displays as an option. This is all progress, but it’s not free. Also, inflation is a thing and generally happens at a rate of 2% to 3% annually or thereabouts during “normal” times, and we’ve hardly been living in normal times over the last decade and a half.

Arguably we should be imposing 25% DST on digital products to counter the 25% tariff on aluminium and steel and then 10% on everything else. The US started it by imposing blanket tariffs in spite of our free trade agreement.

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I see your point but also I just genuinely don't have a mind for that shit. Even my own close friends and family, it never pops into my head to ask about that vacation they just got back from or what their kids are up to. I rely on social cues from others, mainly my wife, to sort of kick start my brain. I just started a new job. I can't remember who said they were into fishing and who didn't, and now it's anxiety inducing to try to figure out who is who. Or they ask me a friendly question and I get caught up answering and when I'm done I forget to ask it back to them (because frequently asking someone about their weekend or kids or whatever is their way of getting to share their own life with you, but my brain doesn't think that way). I get what you're saying. It could absolutely be used for performative interactions but for some of us people drift away because we aren't good at being curious about them or remembering details like that. And also, I have to sit through awkward lunches at work where no one really knows what to talk about or ask about because outside of work we are completely alien to one another. And it's fine. It wouldn't be worth the damage it does. I have left behind all personally identifiable social media for the same reason. But I do hate how social anxiety and ADHD makes friendship so fleeting.