Facebook also allows you to send money through messenger. I have no idea how often people use that, but it's a feature that exists. Come to think of it, I haven't seen it ask me if I meant to send money the last couple times I typed $ and then an amt, but I swear I've seen it do that a few times.

Roses are red, violets are a flower, why does this nigga got boots on in the shower?

Whenever I hear bora Bora I always think of vin diesel at the end of XXX when he just says "Bora Bora." After whatever crazy shit he had to do, lol.

Pretty sure it's easy to distinguish my ADD ass brain hopping from

"how, exactly, does a nuclear fusion reaction work"

To

"Rash." "Rash on arm." "Can you die from a rash on your arm?"

To

"When was the first fuel injected engine made?"

Shit, not like it's illegal to wanna know things.

Late reply, sorry.

Definitely not disagreeing, and I also think in various industries the reasons why this is happening can vary greatly. Generalizations aren't usually apt to describe specifics, but I believe they stem from similar factors/forces.

For games, its a question of why those AAA publishers felt they should increase monetization in that way, or could be, for example. For instance, you can also point to the growing cost of developing larger games, and the expectations that come along with those scope increases. Albeit, you, as a publisher/dev or whatever they happen to be, have a choice in whether to spend that much on any given thing. Obviously you don't need to necessarily have a gigantic budget to make a good game.

I've heard various people talk about it from the position of investors with a seemingly small appetite for risk, plowing money into large games. This was successful for a while, and still can be, but there have also been some notorious flops that weren't great. But another question that would come to mind is whether the market can even support having so many high value productions going on at once for the same market.

Then, throw in that the portion of society that has been historically growing and spending lots on games is shrinking, and possibly seeking cheaper alternatives. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems partially valid that a combo of poor bets and losses, combined with a shrinking share of the market, and even more factors I haven't touched on, are on the right path to an answer as to why we are seeing smaller/indie blow up a bit more. These factors alone, I feel, could lead to these companies feeling like they need to shift to a different monetization strategy. I also agree with not wanting to be beholden to a million different companies each deciding to give me as little as possible as far as my rights as a consumer goes.

The dollar store expansions are indicative of a larger trend, imo. You see a lot of businesses catered to a wide range of classes/the middle class dying out, while dollar stores are expanding, and luxury brands are also doing great. This trend isn't limited only to retail, and is probably just the beginning. You can see a similar sorta idea in videogames, where "cheaper" games are rapidly climbing to the top, things like among us, or even at the extreme end, something like vampire survivors. I saw someone discussing this somewhere that had described it far better than I am right now, but suffice to say, the middle ground options in a lot of industries are dying.

I wanted to play bioshock infinite. No biggie, go to download, fire it up, and oh, what's this? 2k added a fuckin launcher since the last time I played the game? Why? I already purchased the game a very long time ago.

We see this fracturing of marketplaces often. It's very similar to streaming services. It's not great for the consumer, and eventually leads to confusion and annoyance. Not to mention how I'm not constantly playing 2k games, why on earth should I have to use their stupid launcher specifically only to play bioshock infinite? Sure, any company could sell their games directly for more money than they could through something like steam. But that doesn't mean the market wants or could even sustain having 700 different marketplaces to purchase games from. It's dumb as hell, and like I had said earlier, why should I be forced to use the 2k launcher when bioshock is the only game I'm gonna play through it?

Additionally, maybe steam isn't the best, I can agree with that. But does that mean I want another 15 companies collecting data on my usage and being forced to send them information about myself, that I didn't have to do, when I purchased the game originally? Fuck no. It's stupid, and I can't wait until this dumb ass trend falls apart.

Whaaaat? You don't love having a million different launchers? It's the best! And tons of accounts through God knows how reliably secure services? My desktop is nothing but launchers, you've got the origin launcher, the 2k launcher, paradox launcher, you've got the Ubisoft launcher, launchers as far as the eye can see, AS IT SHOULD BE.

I remember playing the fuck out of a game based on this for PS2 back in the day, but also having zero clue who or what the warriors were, lol.

Any good braindances available yet for it?

Lol where I live, I'm still excited when my phone somehow manages to pick up a 3g signal and I go from just having g two bars of zero g to 3g and maybe could even listen to a song, maybe.

I worked making parts for Blackhawks for a lil while, and though there is obviously a large diff between military and civilian, there was definitely a giant chunk of change spent on the chain of custody information, and certainly a huge chunk of the cost to produce any part was in labor. The actual pre preg carbon we used was cheap in comparison. Something like a rotor blade may have over 100 layers of carbon, all hand placed, mind you, and ANY foreign object like a hair or something landing on the black carbon between any layer can cause the part to not bind together in that location. All parts were ultrasounded after coming out of the autoclave and before moving onto trimming, and then finally the part went to assembly. I worked in layup. If any void or any imperfection is found, 99% of the time, the $50,000 1' x 1' panel would be thrown in the trash, not much of any repairs allowed. And while we may not have sold a 1' x 1' panel, if we did, that is actually just about what it would cost to purchase from the company I worked for. Everything was meticulously watched by computers, as well as every step of the layup that I did had my name, date, and signature attached.

I've never heard this term before but I guess I was too. In the 90s/00s. We'd also go incredible distances on bikes and even fuckin scooters lmao. My brother and I weren't dumb, though. Decently large town up north. We were always out doing SOMETHING. It's funny to think back on how spread out the different places we used to hang out were. And I've often thought about whether or not I'd let my own kids do the same. I know that shit can happen to anyone, anywhere. But that's also life. Unless you have a legitimate reason to be concerned, like a threat or something, and of course depending on where you live, it really can not be a big deal. Especially nowadays with everyone having a mobile device. There's a careful middle ground between letting your kids have some freedoms/a chance to make mistakes, and controlling everything they do/never allowing any chance of mistakes. Crazy to think how different things are today in that same city, especially after 9/11. This was all in new York.

Hey I feel ya, plus sometimes you just might not realize how you come across. Mix that with being annoyed or something and it's easy to come across the wrong way on reddit. Though I gotta be honest, when I saw your comment I didn't think it was gonna even be downvoted lol, I certainly didn't downvote you. Thanks for the link!

The other day I did something kinda like that, but worse actually and didn't realize in the moment I was actually being an ass. Shit happens. That's what my mom always told me, haha.

Cause the rest of us prolly didn't see the video. I sure didn't. But I mean, I would. Tho its a lil odd when you make a comment and get a reply for the benefit of others, and not really a response to yourself. This just kinda seems like the post version of that, lol.

There's really no way you're avoiding all the different tracking methods as an avg user. There are literally companies who's entire job is to try and assemble all the data that exists about you, into profiles with your name on it. The more accurately they can do it, the better for them, as they can then resell it for higher value. It's why every fucking thing you do is watched to some degree.

You can watch trends, find out a whole lot about a person if you gather so many thousands of different data points, and then combine them all. Even "anonymized" data very often isn't even close to being "anonymous" and can more often than not be tied back to a single unique individual. Fact is, there's nobody that moves their mouse across the screen quite like you do. Or whatever it may be. There are so many different ways to identify people nowadays.

Bioshock infinite was legitimately one of my favorite games, came out right at the end of highschool and I have a lot of memories associated with it, lol.

Bioshock infinite

Yes, when they understood that central banks are responsible for sudden, huge swings in the market, and exist basically as a way to manipulate markets/prop up entire industries. Often this gives false signals and can lead to many things, such as ramping up in production to meet the new (fake) demand. Its not like you couldn't have protections for people without having an overarching central bank, separate from the govt, with total control over the monetary policy of the nation. Not to mention how easy it is for central banks to essentially redistribute wealth to themselves, while taking from everyone at the same time, in order to do said propping up I mentioned earlier, usually for political reasons.

Yes, and there was a time where people actually understood what central banks are/do and how badly they did NOT want them. Part of the reason why the creation of the fed was done in secret.

Mofos itt thirstier than when SpongeBob met sandy for the first time. Meanwhile Sparks is all I can think of.

Plus I thought I read that the theoretical savings can be much higher than 5%-8%, I thought I had read somewhere that it could be as high as 15-20% fuel savings, though that would require perfect circumstances at the high end, and of course there are kinks to work out like you mention with the handling. Either way, 5-8% is pretty substantial.

When I was little, my siblings pretended they couldn't see me for a day, just to fuck with me. I'm pretty sure I was freaking out by the end of the day.

Those kinds of teachers are the best. I had an English teacher, notorious for being a hard ass. But one day he took the entire class period to discuss IRAs and saving in general, as well as other financial information. He truly gave a shit about his students. Definitely changed the way I saw him.