* 468x60 static non-animated non-tracking banners for cool webcomics and weird hobby blogs are brilliant and only the most tedious of people have any problem with them at all
* blog writers and webcomic artists getting paid a couple bucks here and there for running non-intrusive ads is Good Actually
* the shittiness of web ads scales exponentially in accordance with how much money you're trying to make off them - if you want a few extra quid each month for pizza and beer money, web ads are great and useful to everyone, that's the perfect use case; if you want more money than that then ads are the wrong tool for the job, and you can in fact use the wrong tool wrong enough to destroy democracy
Edit: one more
* the fact that my adblocker will look at a 468x60 non-animated non-intrusive non-spyware banner ad for a gay webcomic and go "ah yes, this can go in the same hole as this 50 megabyte video ad for a toothbrush you bought last week, loaded with so much spyware javascript that your processor fan roars like a jet engine," by DEFAULT, is... honestly tragic. These are Different Things but, remember the most tedious people in the world I mentioned above? They made the adblocker
Mildly spicy web advertising takes
* 468x60 static non-animated non-tracking banners for cool webcomics and weird hobby blogs are brilliant and only the most tedious of people have any problem with them at all
* blog writers and webcomic artists getting paid a couple bucks here and there for running non-intrusive ads is Good Actually
A reminder, I am that pissed off with the kind of horrific web advertising that google and facebook put out that I'm giving ad space away for free on Improbable Island, check it https://www.improbableisland.com/hobbysites.php
(image description: three screenshots of banner ads I'm serving on Improbable Island, there's too many to describe properly but it's a riot of colour and text advertising webcomics, indie games, weird blogs and basically it's what you'd expect to see if you asked Fedi to come up with banner ads)
A reminder, I am that pissed off with the kind of horrific web advertising that google and facebook put out that I'm giving ad space away for free on Improbable Island, check it https://www.improbableisland.com/hobbysites.php
(image description: three screenshots of banner ads I'm serving on Improbable Island, there's too many to describe properly but it's a riot of colour and text advertising webcomics, indie games, weird blogs and basically it's what you'd expect to see if you asked Fedi to come...
Watching a mutual ask for printer recs and receive a chorus of tired tech folk going "Just get a Brother, they're fine" and man
MAN
Like this is actually kinda fascinating honestly, Brother is now the best printer brand, the one that every Computer Person recommends, and is it because their printers are good? Their printers are fine, they print, whatever, no, it's because everybody else's printers have gotten Innovated out the wazoo, every innovation making them way worse, until it's gotten to the point where I wouldn't have one in the house even if it were free, and meanwhile Brother's have remained consistently Fine I Guess, which now makes them the best printer manufacturer simply by virtue of them opting out of the Who Can Get Crappiest Fastest race
Brother have gotten to where they are now, by NOT innovating
EDIT 2023-11-27 2130 UTC: I muted this thread a while back because wew lad this got too big. I won't see your reply but the lurkers (and commentors) of Hacker News might.
Watching a mutual ask for printer recs and receive a chorus of tired tech folk going "Just get a Brother, they're fine" and man
MAN
Like this is actually kinda fascinating honestly, Brother is now the best printer brand, the one that every Computer Person recommends, and is it because their printers are good? Their printers are fine, they print, whatever, no, it's because everybody else's printers have gotten Innovated out the wazoo, every innovation making them way worse, until it's gotten to the...
@ifixcoinops I remember reading that brother may have also sold out and some newer models have different kinds of drm. Interestingly no commenters mention this, do y'all have old models or was what I read just bull?
Our Brother wireless laser printer is 12 years old. It's old enough to have drivers that work out of the box with "stable" Debian Linux. It prints what we send it. That is all.
Meanwhile, my in-laws have a fancy HP Inkjet. It ran out of ink. "Not a problem, I'll bring the cartridge home from the one at work", said father-in-law. Denied! The cartridge refused to print in a different printer.
Alright so 2017, tech blogs are all "Have a gander at mastodon, it's like twitter but without the nazis," all the folk who don't like nazis or supporting/hosting/enabling nazis go "Alright let's give this mastodon thing a go" and almost immediately discover that no, it's not like twitter at all, it's very very different to twitter, it's its Own Whole Thing. Folk who were expecting something like twitter go back to twitter, folk who like it here stay here, all good and normal.
2022, this place has had years to develop its own vibe and its own way of doing things and has in the meantime become even MORE Not Twitter, but tech blogs go "Try Mastodon, it's like Twitter but without Elon Musk," and there was this... honestly, Exciting At First But Generally Unpleasant Period where people who were *actively mourning twitter* came to mastodon again expecting something like twitter, something they'd been promised by I dunno tech journalists or whatever, and they either went "Ooh this is actually not at all what I was told it'd be like but I like it" and stuck around, or they had Bitter Disappointment And Confusion and left, or they did "This place is not like twitter and therefore it is Wrong and I will Make It Like Twitter" and they had an even worse time than the Bitter Disappointment And Confusion folks.
2023 now, we've had the folk who wanted Twitter Without The Arseholes, then we had folk who wanted Twitter Without The Biggest Arsehole, who's left, Folk Who Want Twitter? Folk Who Meant To Try Leaving Twitter Six Months Ago But Who Now Suddenly Can't Log In And Have To Move Right The Heck Now? Honestly I think there's gonna be a LOT of disappointment mixed up with panic and mourning and generally hurt feelings because of this billionaire fiddling about and pushing people out before they're ready.
I think the theme of the late web 2.0 era is one where people are on websites that they Do Not Want to be on, because that's where their mates are or that's where the memes are or that's the only game in town or whatever, and I've said in the decade-scale-online-community-management thread and I'll never quit banging this drum, websites that are full of people who'd rather be somewhere else are really miserable places that can chug along in misery for years and years.
So aye, I don't celebrate when twitter hecks up, I think the people who actually want to be on twitter would be happier on twitter. Folk who want to move their stuff to other websites should have the chance to do so at their own pace, dipping their toes in and casing the joint, they shouldn't have to deal with trying to adapt to a totally different place ON TOP OF the trauma of having their existing place yanked out from underneath them, compounded by, honestly, being lied to about the new place. It wasn't like twitter five years ago and it's even less like twitter now, I really wish we could just bury that association but I guess it's gonna stick around and keep tripping people up for ages 'cause, y'know, first impressions I guess.
Just. Bloody. Tech boys, stop pressing buttons and breaking things for a minute, yikes
Alright so 2017, tech blogs are all "Have a gander at mastodon, it's like twitter but without the nazis," all the folk who don't like nazis or supporting/hosting/enabling nazis go "Alright let's give this mastodon thing a go" and almost immediately discover that no, it's not like twitter at all, it's very very different to twitter, it's its Own Whole Thing. Folk who were expecting something like twitter go back to twitter, folk who like it here stay here, all good and normal.
Alright, so how come I'm ifixcoinops@retro.social now when I was ifixcoinops@mstdn.social yesterday, what's the story, what's everyone banging on about with the dot art and Welsh pixies and Meta meta and stuxes, alright here's the Short Version
Stux = guy who runs mstdn.social and a bunch of other general-purpose fedi sites Welshpixie = lady who runs mastodon.art, an art focused mastodon website AJ = guy who runs retro.social, this website Meta = Facebook, hereafter referred to as Facebook because they don't get to change their name and wash away their past sins any more than my Lucky Goldstar dishwasher does
Facebook: Mmmmmmay we pleasssse have a little CHAT with the big adminsssssss, we promissssse we'll be good this time <3 Fediverse in general: Haha get bent facebook, we weren't born yesterday Facebook: That wassss Facebook, we've reconssssidered, let'ssss be friendssss Me: Happily dunking on people who spell accessibility as a11y and completely oblivious to this whole conversation Welshpixie: Ey up, facebook are up to their old tricks again, remember not to fall for it guys Stux: Nasty Welsh Pixie, let's give them a chance, I will block your Whole Entire Domain mstdn.social website: A block you say, a defederation, now that's quite serious, that's for when you don't want anyone on your website to follow anyone on this other website, are you quite - Stux: yes I'm sure lol mstdn.social website: Very well, *chop* Everyone on mstdn.social who was following anyone on mastodon.art: suddenly, silently not following those people any more Everyone on mastodon.art who was following anyone on mstdn.social: also suddenly silently not following those people any more Everyone on both websites who was following anyone on the other website: WTF STUX Stux: oh uh yeah hm. Ahem. That may have been hasty. I wonder if I can undo some of the - mstdn.social website: nope Stux: I think I'll take a break from the computer for a bit Me: Drinking beer and playing Beat Saber with a couple of out-of-town mates and completely oblivious to this whole thing happening Me: goes to bed Fediverse: meta meta meta Me: good morning fediverse, what are the haps my frieWHAT THE HELL Me: WHERE'S MY GOOD MORNING ART Fediverse: meta meta meta Me: FACEBOOK? WHAT? Several People: Dan my server's gonna defed from yours in a week, can you move? Me: what no what's going on that's not enough time I've got things to do, tell you what though I'll have some time in the autumn and I like you too, can we catch back up then? Several People: we are chill and lovely and we understand Me: slowly pieces together what's going on while drinking a Winsford Mocha
---intermission because I have a fifty thousand character post limit now---
A Winsford Mocha is an analogue of this fancy "mocha" coffee stuff you tasted once in the far-off land of Chester, where they have coffee shops; you live in Winsford, which is a town best known for having Europe's last remaining salt mine, a literal man-made hole in the world, where there are no such frivolities, so you attempt your own. It's two spoons of instant coffee, two spoons of Cadbury's drinking chocolate, microwaved for a minute, stirred and microwaved for another minute, and drunk with thumb resting on the spoon because the contents tend to settle.
---intermission over---
Me: WTF STUX I HAVE NO IDEA WHO I WAS FOLLOWING FROM .ART APART FROM WELSHPIXIE, HOW AM I GOING TO RE-FOLLOW ALL MY ART PEOPLE Everyone on both affected sides of this whole shambles: YEAH SAME DAN I SEE YOU'RE LATE TO THE PARTY HERE Me: Sigh. I guess I'll move servers, AGAIN, and probably spend a month or two having random people look at my join date and tell me I'm using mastadon wrong, AGAIN, but this'll have to wait, I have Things To Do Mastodon: it's Mast-OH-don actually Me: I know The Fediverse: actually it's the F... ah, you know The Things I must Do: oh my god where do I even start, they are a nice even spread between equally important physical things and computer things and family things and some of them have Rather Tight Deadlines, I will spare you the details but this is why I said to several people lol see you in October Me: I am mad about this situation and I want to talk to someone IRL about it but how the hell do I even start to explain why this is even possible without that person resolving to never ever ever even glance at this whole fediverse thing Stux: *notices me, noticing him and his horrible mistakes* Stux: Say, that post of yours... not the one where you call me a wanker, it'd be a bit heavy-handed to delete that one, if I were to delete that one then you'd be able to say "Lol look at this fragile guy everyone" and you'd be right, but this one from yesterday: Me, from yesterday: "Extremely popular take that some here won't like but seriously need to sit with: spelling words like a11y or l10n or i18n or m17n is bloody incomprehensible and makes you look like an absolute w4r" Stux: yeah, that content violates the following community guidelines: "No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users." I am going to remove it. Me: oh no, not only is he not taking a break from the computer, he's back to pressing buttons and he's gone into petty "LOOK AT THE POWER I HAVE TO REMOVE YOUR VERY WORDS" mode, I have to move TODAY while I can still get an archive of my shite AJ: Hey you can put your shite here Me: Thank you AJ, I will put my shite right there. I will fill your website with my shite. Several long threads of mine which started on mastodon.social which is the website I was on before I was on mstdn.social which is the website I was on before I moved to retro.social today: lol what are you gonna do, make a blog?
---the story is done but so is the damage---
Everybody I was following on mastodon.art: I'm still not following them; there's no way to get that data back, shy of just kinda stumbling across folk and going "Oh I recognise them, *follow*" Everybody from mastodon.art who was following me, probably months from now: Hmm haven't seen that joystick pop up in my feed for a while, wonder if he died, *shrug* The Fediverse In General: LACKING in having tools to recover from the social damage that can be wrought with one reckless button press Facebook: hrmmmm yesssssssss, yum yum yum, *licks eyeballs* Me: sure hope next time this daft shite happens there's some kind of backup AJ: My server can do 50,000 characters Me: *makes USE of this, haha you all get TURBO DAN NOW*
Alright, so how come I'm ifixcoinops@retro.social now when I was ifixcoinops@mstdn.social yesterday, what's the story, what's everyone banging on about with the dot art and Welsh pixies and Meta meta and stuxes, alright here's the Short Version
Stux = guy who runs mstdn.social and a bunch of other general-purpose fedi sites Welshpixie = lady who runs mastodon.art, an art focused mastodon website AJ = guy who runs retro.social, this website Meta = Facebook, hereafter referred to as Facebook because they...
Gregory's Server