04 Jan 2025 Search

Aram Zucker-Scharff writes, in Never Forgive Them,

If this year has revealed anything about the tech billionaires it is that they have a very specific philosophy other than just growth and that philosophy is malicious…I don’t think we can really take on the obstacle of, let’s call it more accurately, the scam economy without acknowledging this is all part of the design. They think they are richer than you and therefore you must be stupid and because you are stupid you should be controlled…

Read the whole thing. A lot of tech big shots want to play the rest of us like a real-time strategy game. (Ever notice that the list of skills in the we don’t hire US job applicants because the culture doesn’t value the following skills tweets is the same as the list of skills in the our AI has achieved human-level performance in the following skills tweets?) I predicted that low-trust society will trend in 2025, and I agree with Aram that a big part of that is company decision-makers deliberately making decisions that make it harder to trust others. I’m working on a list of known good companies. (Work in progress, please share yours if you have one.)

And yes, my link collecting tool as queued up a bunch of links about the shift towards a lower-trust society along with ways that people are adapting to it or trying to shift things back.

Opinion: We Need More Consequences for Reckless Driving. But That Doesn’t Mean More Punishment — Streetsblog USA (a lot of this is reactions to reactions to app-driven rat running through neighborhoods. Bollards can be a way to game the algorithm.)

Judge blocks parts of California bid to protect kids from social media (the ban on addictive feeds without consent is still there)

Self-Own (bullshit about economics, explained)

The Cows in the Coal Mine (bullshit about health, only getting worse)

This Year in Worker Conquests

Boeing strike ends after workers vote to accept “life-changing” wage increase

Steinar H. Gunderson: git.sesse.net goes IPv6-only (coping with AI scrapers)

OpenAI’s Board, Paraphrased: ‘To Succeed, All We Need Is Unimaginable Sums of Money’

Namma Yatri is a rideshare app that offers a better deal to drivers. Daily or per-trip flat rates, not a percentage

5 Rideshare Strategies That Are Complete BS

How to block Chrome from signing you into a Google account automatically

Leave Me Alone.

Firefox-maker Mozilla’s boosted revenue significantly in 2023, but the financial report may also raise concern

Google Cuts Thousands of Workers Improving Search After Search Results Scientifically Shown to Suck (a lot of the bullshit problem is downstream from Google’s labor/management issues)

Why is it so hard to buy things that work well? (imho Mark Ritson still explained it best—companies over-emphasize the promotion P of marketing, trying to find people slightly more likely to buy the product as is, over the product refinements that would tend to get more buyers. George Tannenbaum on destroying brand trust with too much of one P, too little of another: Ad Aged: Leave Me Alone.)

Why Big Business May Wind Up Missing Lina Khan

An ad giant wants to run your next TV’s operating system

Yes, your phone is tracking you via advertising ID, and companies are using it to sell your location and identity to anyone. Protect yourself by disabling this feature on your device.

Meta beats suit over tool that lets Facebook users unfollow everything (I guess now it turns out you can’t unfollow the AI bots anyway?)

Sweet Dreams and Sour Deals: How White-Noise Apps Are Playing Advertisers

NFL Player Uses Pirate Streaming Site to Watch His Own Team

Missouri AG claims Google censors Trump, demands info on search algorithm

Ex-coiner Y Combinator startup bro: ‘dawg i chatgpt’d the license, can’t be bothered with legal’

Steam adds the harsh truth that you’re buying “a license,” not the game itself