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It’s like corporations don’t know how to do anything but enshittify anymore
It’s the ultimate push to turn everything into the perfect Capitalist (not market-oriented) business solution: Getting paid for nothing
If your goal is to accumulate capital, and there are not outside forces regulating your worst impulses, you ultimately will create a class of legal-protected thieves, since the absolutely best and most risk free way to accumulate capital is to be given it in exchange for quite literally nothing.
Gambling is about as close to the platonic ideal as you can, but conquest by military force of political capture is also a very, viable route. Use the law to force people to buy your nothing and be protected for it, rather than being lynched when you steal someone’s products.
Mandated insurance that isn’t a crown corporation beholden to ratepayers is a perfect example. If you have mandated insurance for something, and that private insurance has a shareholder requirement to see growth every quarter, and the same amount of things are being insured, only one thing can happen:
Rates go up with denials
Payouts go down
Eventually you’re paying for insurance you know is worthless but it’s mandated by law.
I agree with you, but then isn’t it strange that AI does a whole lot of something instead of nothing? Like, the high amount of effort they put into making AI a big thing runs counter to the laziness of getting paid to do nothing.
Though I guess they ARE getting paid doing nothing, with how many data centers are getting cancelled.
But it does provide nothing. Whatever AI gives is a hallucination, that’s practically nothing since it’s not information you can rely on and you have to verify it anyway.
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Think about it this way, if you get connected to an AI chatbot instead of a real person, does it feel like the company is giving you their time? Or does it feel like they are giving you nothing?
Compared to insufferable automated phone systems, which have existed for decades and employ exactly no one, they are a vast improvement.
Not when you realize that the “something” they’re charging you for is:
a) bastardized cargo culted knockoff of “something” so insubstantial that it’s very nearly “something-shaped nothing”
b) the “something” is made of stuff that isn’t even theirs.Not only is it giving you a bamboo and thatch sculpture of an airplane when you ask for an airplane; it’s made of STOLEN bamboo and STOLEN thatch.
Yep let’s take entirety of user submitted content to the internet over 30+ years and repackage it and sell it back to you as if it was our product.
I hope you don’t misunderstand me by my saying “something” to imply it’s anything substantial, significant, or even good. I’m very anti-AI in all aspects of our lives, just so you know where I’m coming from.
Yes, the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models is in keeping with their laziness, and yes, the models don’t improve our lives in any way. But they can’t exactly steal the electricity needed to power data centers, nor can they steal the silicon required to manufacture all the CPU’s, GPU’s, SSD’s, and RAM they require. All those things are enormous capex and opex, and that’s what I mean by “something.”
That’s a lot of work they’re doing to push AI, and the only plan I can think of to recoup those costs is to expect taxpayers to foot the bill: they want municipalities to pay for the increase in electricity costs, cover the pollution and devastation their DC’s generate, all without creating jobs and opportunities in the region (because why would they pay labor a fair share, yuck). And the finale, when all those investments fail to generate any profit they want a government bailout to keep from going belly up.
I just don’t think any of that is worth the effort you know what I mean?
oh, allow me to clarify–!
I did not mean to sound as though I had been disagreeing with you ^.^; my comment was more intended to have a ‘yes-and’ kind of vibe~
but I really do like all that you had to say here and I still agree!
While they’re truly not stealing the electricity, what I would hope to imply is that they are nevertheless acquiring it via nefarious means–in that many of these data centers are building gas combustion generators to supplement their power usage in violation of environmental regulations, workplace safety standards, and generally all the laws that say “you can’t do that without proper documentation and licensing” etc.
So yeah–the “stolen thatch and stolen bamboo” isn’t literally stolen (like you said!) but rather just ill-gotten.
Also I have indeed noticed the way that there’s so much money being thrown around, especially the funds they’ve gotten from “investors” which are really just debt. They’re going into massive debt to pay contractors and vendors… and that cap-ex and op-ex? sometimes I wonder if that’s the real motive. Just a big stinkin’ money laundering racket to bilk people out of their savings (anyone with a managed retirement investment fund that happens to do business with these jerks) and squirrel it away on “other companies” who are “working for” them.
They AREN’T worth the effort. It’s the emperor’s new clothes all over again. The only thing they’re really actually TRYING to do, I hypothesize, is just keep everyone distracted so they can do exactly what you said they would: make themselves ‘too big to fail’ and then ride off into the sunset when the shoddy facade they propped up comes crashing down, leaving the public sector to foot the bill…
the theft of intellectual property and art to train AI models
Any proof that that actually happened?
Ever since fucking Trump came to power, he basically defanged the agencies that were supposed to curb corporate abuses and enforce laws and regulations, and allowed corporations to do a lot more anything they want to make more profit.
any company born after 1993 can’t make good products… all they know is exploitation, fire their workers, enshittify, be pink capitalist, eat hot cash & lie
(yes i know sony was founded before 1993 thank you)
So was Enron? I’m not sure why you chose 1993, companies have been shitty across all of time and space.
Welp, I’m the fucking idiot today lol. Thanks!
“Eat hot chip & lie” was my favorite saying for a long time after that tweet went viral
If buying does not equal owning something, piracy can’t equal theft. At this rate, what’s the point of consoles?
You do own it, you own the digital copy. The developer can’t hack your computer and remove it or prevent you from playing it.
They just remove the right to access it. You don’t own it, you own a licence to play it. You don’t own anything digitally you yourself cannot access and transfer.
You don’t own the content on Netflix. Or Amazon. Or any digital marketplace, besides DRM-free places.
They don’t hack your computer, they just turn off the servers and ban accounts.
They just remove the right to access it.
They can’t do that, it’s impossible. You are not logging into their server to play the game. You are downloading and installing it on your local machine.
This is NOT like Netflix. How can people be so ignorant about this? Do you not really know how this works? For Netflix, you stream from their servers. That IS NOT what is happening here.
They can’t do that, it’s impossible.
Too bad they can, and they did.
You’re very uneducated on this topic. You probably should read up more on it.
This is why all video is streaming now and downloads require regular token checkin. Very few services provide real independent and long term functioning local downloads of media.
THIS ISN’T VIDEO STREAMING.
For fuck’s sake, what is going on with you people?
The digital store downloads came via an encrypted file format. That format depends on specific software from the ps5 to open. If you switch to a PS6 or get an update to the OS pushed to your PS5 it is entirely possible those files will no longer open.
It isn’t like they sold you a mp4 or mkv files.
The developer can actually remove it remotely. Sony itself is currently doing it: they’re removing all movies bought by users.
Do you have those movies saved on your local machine? Or are you accessing them on a remote server?
People here are supposed to tech literate, goddamn. I’m barely tech literate and I understand the difference between downloading and installing a program on your local machine and accessing streaming video on remote servers.
Sony cannot remove programs from your local machine.
Let me paint a picture for you, friend: you have a power outage while playing games. Your drive is corrupted (yes, this happened to me).
Sony has removed the game from their servers, and you just lost your only copy, as you have no way to back it up.
It is now gone forever, just like the movies they removed after selling.You seem irritated that people push back at you, but they have valid points. Without a physical copy, you are no longer in control of the game/movie.
You also lose the ability to buy and sell used, which is a right you have with physical disks, but not with a digital license.
It’s ok to not care for physical media, but at least try to understand the point we’re trying to make. We want us all to have access to both digital and physical to choose freely. Why fight that when it’s a win/win for all of us?
…Have you not heard of DRM?
Because DRM is a thing too. They can make it so you can’t open that program on your local machine.
Judging by how they reply, no they don’t know DRM is a thing.
How I wish it actually worked that way…
– Frost
Sony is actually removing them from people’s machines, remotely. Look up DRM on Wikipedia.
End of an era for just about everything. Streaming is all enshitified. The job market is shit. Democracy is falling apart. Decades of progress being undone. It’s just the way it will be until people get sick of all this shit and start doing things differently and move on. All the great old companies are dead. Either turned to zombie brands or run by zombies. I remember how excited I was to buy my first Sony Trinitron, my first walkman, my Sony component stereo, first PlayStation.
At some point Sony bought a Movie Studio in the US and a few years afterwards the company leadership started coming from their Media division instead of their Engineering division.
This was in the early 00s.
That was when Sony started enshittifying, with things like locking down their consumer devices (not just to block copying but also to do things like segment markets via region locking) and at one point they even shipped Music CDs with a PC Rootkit (the infamous “Sony Rootkit” scandal).
IMHO, Sony was maybe one of the first large companies to start enshittifying.
I’ve actually been boycotting Sony since then, so roughly for 2 decades now.
It’s awesome to meet another in the wild! I too have been boycotting Sony since they added malware to their products.
👍
There’s dozens of us!
Technofascists running/ruining the world
Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction. Enshittification is the inevitable result of shareholders demanding endless growth at all costs.
I could just as well point to dumb people giving them their money as the reason. At the end it is more complicated than such a simplistic reductions.
Victim blaming is never a good take.
You don’t even have to get high-mindedly preachy, it’s a bad take on its own terms, since it hinges on the notion that the population at large are all “dumb” and therefore deserve bad things.
Not really, no.
Infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet.
No, this is just playstation continuing to hate their customer base.
They’ve always hated their customers. Between Sony, and Nintendo, I dont know who hates their customers the most… but they both certainly try.
and it doesnt matter, because they both have enough fanboys that strip off their clothes and gleefully dance naked and joyous in the rain of shit both companies sputter out of their assholes and down onto their customers.
Its like they saw how much Xbox has been sucking and thought “hold on, instead of building on this market lead, I bet we could beat Xbox in enshittifying!”
Ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360, it’s like the console wars have just been about them trading whose turn it was for the next PR disaster. Racing to the top was too expensive so they race to the bottom instead.
Not really end of an era, you’re just witnessing a monopoly forming since Xbox is pretty much dead in the water. I guess it’s technically a duopoly since Nintendo is fine, but Nintendo kinda does its own thing without regard to what others do. Basically, with Xbox out of the picture, Sony is free to do whatever it wants.
Maybe sega will make a come back lol
Just in time for the Code Veronica remake. Maybe it’ll be a launch title.
That’s where Valve comes in. They’re the threat Playstation is most worried about right now.
People on Lemmy and other gaming communities are vocal and interact, but it may still be true that the silent majority of the game-playing population still prefers the dumb quick-setup box to play their 8 editions of Madden.
I’d like it if Valve or any more responsible company could jump in, but barely anyone has the chip contracts to manufacture for it (certainly not including Valve given they can’t meet demand)
Don’t forget they also paid $3.6 Billion for Bungie just to shut down their most popular game and put all their hope in their new extraction shooter that’s been struggling. No new games in dev or even green lit. Also they just laid off a bunch of people.
This one is more on the Bungie side of things. Bungie got a few lifelines and STILL fumbled.
Oh yeah don’t get me started on Bungie. The are a shell of their former selves. When they split from Activison and it all came out that the mircotransactions was all Bungie’s idea that was my first WTF moment with these guys. They let us believe it was the Corp overlords ruining our game but they did it themselves. Then they did everything they could do to make themselves look profitable for Sony’s acquisition. Just horrible decision after horrible decision.
Imagine if Bungie never “vaulted” (read: deleted) any part of Destiny 2 and we were still able to play the original campaign it shipped with? More people would still be playing Destiny 2 and you’d get plenty more new players without them having to use a guide or YouTube lore videos to get caught up on the story.
Instead of mArathon they’d probably be making a Destiny 3
Destiny got what it deserved. I can’t believe it lasted as long as it did. I noped after they started charging $40 for a couple maps and a raid labeled as “expansions”. And that was destiny 1. The game was an unbelievable ripoff.
Can’t believe people still stuck with it even after they locked down the legacy content. It’s crazy how much it takes to get people to stop buying enshittified products.
What really sucks is that Marathon is actually pretty fun.
They just completely fumbled the marketing and launch, the UI needs to be cleaned up, and it doesn’t feel worth it at $40. IDC if it’s a AAA developer, it’s still a pretty small game content wise even if it is fun to play.
I’m a diehard Marathon fan, I dumpster dived for an Apple to play the first two on when I was a kid. I can’t even try the new one because they purposefully broke it on Linux.
I don’t understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this. The only draws of consoles was the turnkey hardware, which you can generally get with Proton now, and access to physical games, which won’t be a thing soon. Now it’s just a locked-down PC with a DRM storefront that makes you pay a subscription to pay online games and which may or may not have backwards compatibility from system to system.
Maybe that’s just the PC gamer in me talking. Are there any advantages to console anymore? Like, a single benefit?
I don’t understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this.
I don’t think people buy consoles for the physical games… I mostly stopped doing that a generation ago.
In terms of hardware I have basicly everything under the sun you play games on.
Sony has has a pretty strong list of exclusives still. In my mind at least. And I just don’t always feel like sitting at a desk.
So unless you build another pc for next to the TV, your other options are a mile long HDMI cable from wherever your pc is to your TV or remote play. Neither of these options are as smooth of an experience as just grabbing a controller and turning the Playstation on. You could somewhat do this on PC with Steam OS or Bazzite, but Linux/Proton is still problematic for a lot of multiplayer games.
Are all good points. The exclusive thing is unfortunate because Sony used to port most of its exclusives to PC for a few years there. It makes me wonder if they only stopped in anticipation of discontinuing disc sales.
They are also lobbying to make hosting your own videogame server illegal: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/esa-bafflingly-declares-private-minecraft-servers-illegal-in-stop-killing-games-hearing-we-consider-it-piracy-we-have-lawsuits/
Sony is part of ESA.
So is Microsoft who owns Minecraft who definitely presents private servers as dangerous (which for children may very well be true).
Having the possibility to setup a server allowed me to setup one for my sons and I. I’d rather have that then them going online…
You would think that’s what every parent would prefer…
Both because it’s more safe and secure. Plus I have very fond memories of LAN parties and without private servers and local multiplayer kids won’t be able to experience that :(
So are bicycles and kitchen knives. Ffs
That was kind of my point?
That just because it’s “dangerous” for children doesn’t justify banning it wholesale. Sorry I wasn’t more clear.
Yet Microsoft allows people access to host a private server while also putting up scary warnings for kids telling them to stick to the “safe” realms servers or whatever (are they even still called Realms? fuck if I know). On the one hand, it’s good they haven’t removed it entirely, on the other hand, it seems like that may be their eventual long-term goal with how they treat the private server ecosystem.
I also think Discord and Roblox contributed to people not knowing what the fuck “server” actually means anymore.
To reduce costs on printing and to reflect Sony’s vision, they are dropping the L from the name of the console.
They’re not dropping it, they’re hoping you take it.
But leave them with the L.
By not including the extra plastic L on the console, Sony realized it could save 7 cents per console.
You joke but that’s why stick drift is an issue now.
Bad notice…. I like phisical disc, not is good for ever this system, and one question: you pay the game, but not is you own, not?
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
I’m an Xbox fangirl (a resentingly disappointed one, of course), and the recent industry shenanigans made me get apprehensive about whatever is going to come out next from Microsoft’s direction. They could turn the direction around. Not sure if they can.
I liked Nintendo Switch, but Switch 2 was pretty much “yeah, I’ll probably get a Steam Deck at some point, sorry”.
This PlayStation stuff basically switched my opinion of them from “Nnno” to “Oh hell no”.
I will be back to PC gaming! And will be building a new PC once the industry quits being stupid for a moment. Until then, my 2020 laptop will have to do.
I can’t speak to market trends, but I can say this 100% makes my PS5 my last Sony console. I’ve bought every one, and the only reason I continue to buy them is so I can collect exclusives on disc for my collection.
A digital only console is just a bad, expensive gaming PC. I already have a good expensive gaming PC, so I’ll just buy games digitally there.
After the recent Sony is deleting your movies you bought crap, I decided I’m never buying a digital game from them ever again. So sounds like it’s my last as well. And I was already 90% digital.
Especially seeing as they tried to do the same thing before and reversed course due to the backlash, but I guess they just don’t care anymore.
While I applaud your decision, the market has spoken - 85%+ of all console game sales are digital. The overwhelming majority of people don’t care about physical games, especially in a time when the physical copies don’t even contain the full game due to storage constraints.
I’ve been digital-only since the day they made all games available digitally on the Xbox 360, because I don’t trade or re-sell games, ever, and I much prefer the benefits of digital. Most people are like me these days. It sucks for the people that aren’t, but they’re going to have to just move on or abandon their hobby.
I do buy digital and have for decades, but primarily for PC. I don’t for console because that’s the last thing I wanted a console for. I have no intention of abandoning the hobby, but this is my last reason to buy a PlayStation. They offer nothing that isn’t done better on a gaming PC.
I saw the 85% stat they are pushing. I honestly don’t believe it. I strongly believe they are pumping that number up by counting PlayStation Plus redemptions and smaller games in that total. I would be much more interested to see what the actual Physical vs. Digital sales are for a single new release title on day one. I would guess the split is much closer to 70/30. That might be higher in markets where internet access is less robust. This will also piss off retailers and distributors, which now are expected to sell low-margin consoles without high margin games. They chose such a far off date in purpose, to see the feedback and test the waters. I doubt this will come to fruition. Physical media is seeing a resurgence as trust for these companies to maintain services is at an all time low.
On that note, companies need to be careful taking industry wide trends and extrapolating from them with no nuance. That’s why I worded my first comment carefully. I am not anti-Digital at all, but I buy a console for collecting exclusives. I have hundreds of digital Steam games and some digital PS5 games. You know how many digital PS6 games I’ll have? Zero, because I won’t own one. Like backwards compatibility, the benefit of it can’t be quantified by how much time people use it vs. cost of development. Physical media is a draw, even if it is not always taken advantage of. I’m not boycotting, I’m genuinely no longer interested.
This is the kind of decision that looks great on a balance sheet when you have no competition. But when your hardcore audience stops buying, collectors that buy extra releases and collectors editions stop collecting, retailers stop pushing because they can only sell one low margin box, and your competitors see your weakness and double down on it, it might not turn out so great.
The 85% stat isn’t a lie - it’s in their own financials that they release to shareholders, and they’re actually one of publishers with the least digital uptake. Xbox, Ubisoft, EA, etc all also release these figures and they’re higher. You can go to Sonys investor relations portal and check the figures out for yourself.
Physical media is not making a resurgence. It’s getting lower and lower every single year.
Sony will not abandon this plan because they have no reason to. It won’t affect their sales at all.
Also we don’t know how this will affect retail yet, that all depends on if they allow retailers to sell below the PS Store prices.
I didn’t say it was a lie, I said I think it’s inflated the way I already explained. Also, the fact that they are lower than other publishers indicates they will see a bigger impact from this than others.
Physical media is making a resurgence in other areas. Vinyl, DVD, 4K BluRay. Not a big one, but it’s on a backswing. I’m not doubting video games are lower every year because they are still in their initial era.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on the impact. I think the knock-on effect will be bigger than they anticipate. Obviously they agree with you that it won’t impact anything. I think it will, for all the reasons I just went over. It’s not a 1:1 relationship between sale and impact. When people don’t have the console because it doesn’t attract them, they can’t make any sales. So they won’t lose one sale from me, they’ll lose the console sale and dozens of physical and digital games.
This is exactly what Microsoft went through with cutting BC, trying to kill physical media, and trying to play their dominant hand and we all know how that worked out. Turns out it’s more than the sum of its parts. Sony might succeed, it’s a different era. But it certainly gives a lot of weak spots for competitors to target.
Don’t forget that they’ve halted PC ports for their games, including shitcanning nearly-complete work on Ghost of Yōtei.
They’ll probably keep releasing for the PS5 for years into the PS6’s lifespan, so as long as that happens I’ll get their games if they look good, but once they shift over to PS6 completely, I’m done. I already have the hardware, much cheaper to keep using it than to get something new.
PS4 is my last PlayStation. Can’t even recall the last time I powered it up on purpose.
Good call. If you didn’t get a PS5 at launch price, it certainly won’t ever be worth getting one, or any future PS console.
Honestly, I regret wasting my money on the PS4.
You might be able to jailbreak it! I have a collection of consoles that I got only to tinker with. I keep up to date with the PS5/PS4 through MODDED WARFARE on Youtube. Might give you something to make it useful for you, even if it is just to run Linux on it. :P
I’ll be looking into jailbreaking my PS5 once Sony drops support for it. Any hardware you already own, even years old, is much more valuable now than it used to be.
Out of curiosity, why did you get one?
There were several PS4-exclusive games coming out that I was really looking forward to,and I was expecting many more; furthermore, I thought it might be handy to have something with built-in optical media support. Most of those original titles were re-released for PC, my future hopes never really materialized, and I never used the optical drive except to insert a disc for DRM purposes.
There is no point to consoles anymore. It used to be that consoles were easy to use and cheaper while PCs were more expensive and complex. That is no longer the case. Computers are stupid easy now and consoles have become too expensive. Nintendo excluded they are the only ones doing old console case where it is for children.
