ericesque

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ericesque
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  • Facebook CFO says personalized advertising 'under assault' by Apple privacy changes

    Oh the humanity! Not the personalized ads!  

    Can anyone imagine an Internet where multi billion dollar companies had to provide a product that was compelling enough for users to actually reach into their wallet and pay?  Where sites competed on the merit of their content rather than who’s algorithm and a/b testing has created the quickest dopamine hit? 

    Yes I’ve been watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix. And yes I appreciate the conflict of interest in a video streaming service creating a documentary on the horrors of being addicted to services that compete for your attention. And yes I appreciate the irony of posting all this on an Internet forum with at least some subliminal desire of coming back later to find it got a few likes. 
    command_fAnilu_777cgWerkstrustnoone00christopher126aderuttermariowincoheadfull0winerandominternetpersonwatto_cobra
  • Everything new in iOS 14.2 beta 1 -- updates to Control Center, Watch icon & more

    The solo loop was introduced for the express purpose of cleaning up that icon.  I’m not even mad. 
    igorskywatto_cobra
  • YouTube TV hikes monthly subscription price to $65

    shamino said:
    ericesque said:
    It can depend heavily on what’s available in your area. The ONLY cable option to our home is Comcast. 

    The cheapest package I can seem to get from Comcast is $80 once you add in hidden fees for HD content and local sports broadcast fees. This is literally double their advertised price.
    FWIW, I'm paying $144/mo (including all the taxes) for Dish Network.  This is broken down into:
    • $98: "America's Top 250" - basically every non-premium channel they offer
    • $12: My local TV channels
    • $26: Equipment rental for a Hopper (multi-room DVR) and two Joeys (remote receivers for the Hopper)
    • $8: taxes
    I could theoretically reduce the $110 worth of programming down to $43 (reducing the total bill to about $80), but that would eliminate my local channels (I'm not in a place where a roof antenna would work to receive them) along with many channels I really like to watch (which are only available in the largest tier).

    That having been said, I'm basically paying 38 cents per channel for 290 channels (including locals) or 50 cents per channel if you include equipment rental and taxes.  Also bundled is the full suite of Sirius-XM music channels and a fairly decent catalog of on-demand titles.

    Google is charging 76 cents per channel for 85 channels, and the virtual DVR means you can't access your recorded content when there's an Internet outage (especially important for Comcast Internet customers :-( )
    I watch less than 25 channels. Was happy to pay $45/mo. So you could say I’d gladly spend $1.80 per channel for the right channels. I consider the other 60 (or 265 in your case) channels absolutely no value-add. I also do not depend on TV for entertainment so much that having access during a power outage (very nearly the only time I’ve faced a Comcast Internet outage) to be worth paying for either.  So even though I’d be less than thrilled to pay $65 for the same value, if it’s still the cheaper option, I’ll take it over Comcast or Dish. 

    I’m not suggesting my preferences hold any more value than yours. I’m also not suggesting I’m in the majority. Simply trying to explain why I may be willing to subscribe at this price.  I currently have Hulu basic and only subscribe to a live TV package only during the college football and basketball season. Since it’s a quickly evolving market I’ll certainly shopping around before signing up for anything this fall. 
    watto_cobra
  • YouTube TV hikes monthly subscription price to $65

    Exactly. It was already more than cable before, and now it's just ridiculous. 30% increase!?! Who would be interested in this? People with money to burn...
    It can depend heavily on what’s available in your area. The ONLY cable option to our home is Comcast. 

    The cheapest package I can seem to get from Comcast is $80 once you add in hidden fees for HD content and local sports broadcast fees. This is literally double their advertised price. 

    YT TV isn’t what any of us hoped Internet TV would be, but it’s still 20% cheaper than Comcast for a significantly better lineup and features that would raise the price of a Comcast package even higher. 
    mtrivisowilliamlondonapplesauce007randominternetperson
  • Leaked images confirm Google is working on an Apple Card rival

    mpantone said:
    Google had worked on this before Apple did. 

    Google had a physical debit card long before Apple Card: it was the Google Wallet card which was discontinued in 2016.



    Up through 2015, the Google Wallet card had NFC, something Apple Card does not have. In this case, Apple cribbed from Google.

    Of course, none of the underlying technology is new.

    The Japanese have been using cellphones as NFC contactless transit passes since 2005. The Suica card can be used as payment at many stores as well.

    Many technology companies' offerings are copied from others. Apple did not invent any of this. They did encourage adoption.

    Hell, the NFC contactless chip isn't even theirs. It's from NXP, a Dutch semiconductor company that was spun off from Philips. The old Amex Blue cards from the late 90s-early 2000s had a Philips cryptocontroller chip embedded in the card. There was a corresponding USB card reader that you'd plug into your PC that basically acted as a form of two-factor authentication for online purchases.

    In the early 2010s, most of my credit cards had NFC contactless chips but adoption in the USA was so poor that the major credit card issuing banks stop issuing these cards and by 2015, most of my cards had gone back to being dumb pieces of plastic.

    The United States consumer finance market is anywhere between 10 and 20 years behind the rest of the industrialized world. It is really slowing down the speed of innovations in this area.
    Edison didn’t invent electric light.  The Wright Brothers didn’t invent human flight. They created the world’s first practical implementations and secured their place in history books.
    Beatsgilly33watto_cobra