Taxes used to offset the costs of undesirable activity are the most effective and efficient taxes, but you want less of that?

If you offered an app, do you think new customers would choose the app over a browser interface?

Do you think most existing users would switch?

Do you think there are many people who don't use your service because there's no app?

No.

No.

No, because that's not how our industry works.

If you intend to have a broad userbase, you must prioritize mobile apps. The general public prefers them. I don't like it, but that's the current landscape.

Local LLM people aren't getting banned on those platforms unless they're being hostile to other users. Even then, it's unlikely.

People saying that "The MechaHitler App" is a cesspool are the out of touch ones?

The vast majority of users rely on the algorithm that suppressed posts that Musk doesn't like and promotes insane white supremacist propaganda.

You say that you can avoid that, and I agree. You can use other apps. There are other ways to get the information you're interested in, there are other ways to disseminate information. You don't need to participate in that insanity while pretending not to.

> People saying that "The MechaHitler App" is a cesspool are the out of touch ones?

No, I chose my words carefully. Thinking it suddenly became a cesspool makes you out of touch. Twitter, like all big social media, was a cesspool before Musk bought it, and that hasn't meaningfully changed since. And also like all big social media, it's basically fine and not a cesspool if you put a little effort into curating it. Twitter is actually better than some of the others, even, in my experience (though maybe I've just been more diligent in my curation of it).

There was a minor inflection point where a lot of very politically vocal people left, but for the majority, especially institutions, not much changed.

(And yeah, I'm not denying that Elon puts his hand on the scales of the algorithm. Some of what it pushes is disgusting and obnoxious. But I see disgusting/obnoxious stuff on other platforms too -- and that includes bluesky/mastodon)

How is that not a better position than the current situation?

You know the old joke?

> I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.

It's like when the bear can't catch the slow guy anymore so he starts setting up traps and finding ways to cut off legs. Now the faster guy actually has to deal with the bear.

I read the full article and have the same reaction. He's worried that civil rights will be in a better position and that we'll have to continue to defend them from that better position.

He traded Italian organized crime for Russian organized crime.

"current trend in journalism is to be as factual as possible, without adding in one's own biases"

The facts chosen to include in a report are chosen with bias. There's no neutral subset of facts about any event.

That view tends toward sophistry and relativism. It can't be true that no event has a neutral subset of facts. If I'm reporting on some discovery in astronomy or math, what biased facts would I be choosing? There would need to be some sort of controversy about the discovery where choosing some subset of the facts supports one side over the other. But this assumes both sides have an equal claim on the facts, which is often not the case.

And while humans can't be without bias, there is a big difference between trying to be factual while leaving your biases aside, and having an agenda or outright reporting propaganda.