~(Original comment deleted.)~

On second thought, you just go ahead telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. It’s pointless to argue with self-rghteousness because it doesn’t know how to be honest with itself - let alone anybody else.

I think maybe you’re… ahem …selling yourself short. It might be more difficult in the current economic environment, but I suspect there are enough people who’d be willing to pay for high-quality acting even when the plain text version is free. It’s the immersion in the fantasy that makes it worth it to them. How do you think OF does so well when there’s so much readily accessible free porn out there? Do it right, market it properly (and cost-effectively), and even in this economy (or maybe even because of it) people will still pay to experience their fantasies (or at least escape reality). You just need to commit to doing it well to make it worth them paying for.

ETA: you could also encourage the purchasing of your recordings by including extra content, and/or publishing new stories as an “intro chapter” to get them hooked, and then continuing the adventures in the recordings. The conversion rate would be pretty low, but you’d probably still make more than with your advertising path - which you could still go to by releasing the extra material after some semi-lengthy “exclusivity period.”

…I’m very religious but not at all superstitious…

Cognitive dissonance on full display.

a.k.a. “business as usual” when the government that’s supposed to be policing such behavior had become primarily focused upon doing it themselves.

Those who make for the best leaders very rarely want to be leaders.

If I knew about that beforehand, I’d probably be much less likely turn it on to begin with. If I learned the hard way, I’d likely be dissuaded from ever trying it again & just get one of those other apps. Conversely, the fact that my current phone boots much faster than older ones did makes it not really as off-putting an issue at it once was. It sounds like a major PITA until you realize that.

What happens when it’s no longer profitable enough to make manufacturing film worthwhile? In recent years LOTS of companies have been moving towards focusing strictly on their most profitable items only - dropping things that were still profitable, but not enough to please their major shareholders who only care about profits being as high as they possibly can be.

You have control over it so it’ll soon be just like all the other pre-installed crap that you never use, but still eats up limited storage space.

With the addition, Google isn’t only thinking of users’ well-being, of course.

It’s reacting to increasing regulatory pressure around social media harms and algorithmic dangers. Today, many countries and U.S. states have created laws to restrict or ban minors from using social media, as the impacts of these apps on young people’s mental well-being have become better understood.

Google can now point to a feature like Pause Point to claim it’s part of the solution, not the problem.

Ahhh - there it is.

The thing that is much more concerning to me, tho: if this is pre-installed as a standard part of Android, then it could potentially be abused by work, carriers, governments, malware, etc. to control what you can and can’t easily do.

Please do (even though I personally don’t use those apps). Including imposing more of the incredibly large fines the EU has become known for, and applying the bulk of them towards mental health services & initiatives. It’s long past time those companies were held responsible for what they’ve done to rake in such insane profits.

If you’re relying on AI, well then…

(Yes, I know they can have their uses if done properly, but for too many that’s a HUGE “if”.)

Did you get too close to a 5G tower?

If anyone is still invested in Tesla at this point, they deserve to lose their shi®t.

Now if they’re newly invested, that may be another story entirely. Assuming the battery & solar biz doesn’t get spun off.

Same. So I guess that means we’re done here. See ya around. 😁

Great if you’re in Europe (which I think I’d rather be, but can’t afford to do).

I use a Chromium-based browser (that allows extensions) in desktop mode to access my bank because they deliberately give a crappy experience to mobile users. How do I know this? Because their site used to work just fine in standard Android Chrome up until 2-3 years ago when they “overhauled” their site. Made me refuse to install their app even harder.

Sadly, this seems to make up the vast majority of people.

Yeah, they don’t like anything that sucks more than they do.

So, I assume you’re a guy (or at least have those “parts”) since you’re smacking two heads…

I kinda agree & kinda don’t. I think the problem is OP should have said “you must be significantly more open to changing your opinion.” You still need to validate everything you can before doing so.

I soooo wanna know about the implied non-consensual operations…

Tried Blorp a while back, but didn’t like it - don’t remember why. Will try Summit - thx for the recommendation!