Probably because it’s a hell of a lot easier than trying to figure out how to manage payment processing without those processors. Visa and Mastercard are extremely large, and by-and-large the only way to pay online in the US. Add in Paypal and Stripe’s limitations (which are also notoriously shitty) and you don’t really have many options left, so it’s really not worth it. I know the EU has better options, but Steam isn’t based there and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t want to find a way to jump through those hoops.

For anyone wondering if the article has anything new to say regarding whether or not the Trump admin will actually listen to this judge: No, it doesn’t. This article is largely pointless.

In fact, I’d argue this article is worse than pointless, since it still calls this a “crackdown on illegal immigration,” which is blatant lies that no reputable news organization has any business repeating. The last goddamn thing we need right now is the BBC spreading Trump’s excuses for what is increasingly becoming literal murder.

Probably worth mentioning that another alternative called TopAnswers.xyz exists as well—both Codidact and TopAnswers mention each other in their homepages, which I find pretty neat.

Definitely interested to see how both of these sites pan out. StackExchange has been a powerful force for good over the years, and it’s been sad to hear it starting to slide down recently, not that I should be too surprised since they got bought four years back. I’m eager to see what a properly open-source and nonprofit community can do on the good template that SE once set.

I do wish either of these sites could host in a different country than the UK though; I’ve heard more than enough by now to feel that hosting a tech project in the UK is scarcely any better than doing so in the US, privacy-wise. (Though for that matter, TA uses Amazon for hosting, which is probably the worst of both worlds.)

This is a very fair point and I agree that a solid, proven assurance of information survivability is vital to something like this. Frankly, though, if StackExchange is shitting the bed (as it seems to be if GenAI is being accepted there) then I think it’s important to get a good alternative running regardless. Still, that in turn makes it all the more important to keep the pressure up on the survivability issue so it doesn’t get ignored.

…What? They’re not threatening to ban you, and they’re not a mod, so they can’t anyways.

That said, announcing to the instance that you don’t care about the consequences of breaking the rules kinda implies that you don’t care about the rules either, and that is not a good look.

this is the era of AI

Uh, sure, so long as you define an “era” as “a period wherein a bunch of C-suites wet themselves over unproven tech.” I hope you realize that something having a lot of money behind it for a few years isn’t indicative that it’s about to revolutionize the world. There are plenty of near-useless things that had lots of excitement behind them, and still didn’t go anywhere.

I’ve seen what GenAI and LLMs can do. It’s a magic trick; it looks impressive, but for almost every possible use case just isn’t helpful, and unfortunately for all of us, the magicians (i.e. OpenAI et al) are douchebags on top. This is not tech worth advocating for.

This. After reading “huge surplus of money,” I was expecting a 5-digit figure. At current running costs, $6k is two years of runtime, but this assumes in turn that expenses never increase and no emergencies occur, which is extremely unlikely over that time period. Better to save it, I think.

Of course, this all depends on what causes got suggested. I can’t think of anything that’d be both worthwhile and (relatively) cheap, but who knows? Maybe something matching that description will come along.

It’s also worth noting how much funding Beehaw is currently getting on a monthly/annual basis. I tried looking at the Open Collective page, but there’s no easy figure or chart there to look at that I can find.

some guy said he doesn’t trust Americans to form a competent government

Not what he said.

and I said you’re an American?

Not what you said.

You don’t seem to have an interest in understanding the impact of your own words, either before posting them or afterwards. No point in talking, then.

Well, considering I never voted for Trump, am against bigotry in all its forms, don’t want to deport people for having the wrong skin color, believe that free healthcare is a human right, hate capitalism, etc… I don’t think it’s unfair to say that I very much am not like the fascists currently in power or the people who voted for them at all.

How is it fair to criticize me as though I’m the same as them when I’m fighting against them? Does my being born here somehow make me deserving of scorn?

I get accused of being a bot all the time now because I still enjoy writing long-form posts

From cecilkorik, who I was replying to. That kind of bot accusation scarcely ever occurred before LLMs entered the picture. You posted too hastily here and missed a huge chunk of context.

Yeah. I hear you there. Problem I usually have is that the odds of an accusation tend to scale less with posting style in my experience and more with level of disagreement, or whether or not the poster has personally witnessed something. Basically, “I didn’t see this with my own two eyes/dislike you, so this is obviously bot behavior.” It’s a conspiracy theorist-like attitude, and it’s predated LLMs entirely.

Nonetheless, I’m not happy that an entire new form of bot scrutiny has been introduced, and I absolutely cannot wait for GenAI/LLM hype to die the fuck down.

And more! The current discontent at the Democrat Party and the pushes for reforming it have all the more chance of success if the Republicans start fracturing at the same time.

I honestly have no idea how to respond to this. Did you read my comment and its context? Because I can’t figure out what point you’re even trying to make, so it really feels like you didn’t.

I swear to God, some people these days will cry bot if someone so much as blinks unexpectedly. Chill.

If you want to shit on America the country, I’m with you. I could hardly disagree with the top comment in this chain; America is, after all, racist, bigoted and fascist right now. The nation, and especially the government, deserve all the vitriol.

But please don’t shit on Americans writ large. Too many of us hate this just as much as you do, and we really don’t appreciate being lumped in with those who enabled it.

Thank you! Absolutely insane that this article mentioned that 128 Democrats were so spineless but almost entirely refused to tell us who. (Not unexpected, mind you, but still insane.)

there’s a full third who had a choice and refused to do anything

We’ve got at least two options for blame when it comes to the last election:

• Politicians who wield actual power and use it to do nothing (at best)
• Voters, largely struggling to survive, wielding little power, even in aggregate, due to a rigged system

I live for the day people blame the former instead of the latter, though I know I’ll never see it.

I misremembered it as being about Iran back then too, but yeah. It’s the War on Terror excuse all over again.

Iran

having nukes

Experts disagree

Man, where have I heard this one before?