AnAngryAlpaca

joined 1 year ago
[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There is a dodgy car rental brand in australia, nz, usa and canada that i had used, and exclusively markets to overseas tourists, but not locals - presumably because locals would know that they should not rent a car that failed the technical inspection and is illegal to drive, which to the surprise of nobody happens a lot with cheap, 20 year old rental cars. It's very hard to find organic customer reviews of the company, because their own SEO drowns out any authentic customer voices:

  • Their links come from "paid blog posts" (they pay the blogger to write some fluff piece) in private travel blogs, advertising banners, forum posts and articles on big travel sites like trip advisor

  • Their own "travel tips for #country#" websites which offers the same info as other tourist sites, but where they exclusively mention their own business. They have a whole network of their own sites, each for a different country they opperate in, a different language for the customer nationality they are targeting and the age group/price level they want to serve

  • social media channels of course

  • In forum posts where the company is mentioned in a bad way, some new account pops up defending the company, or the thread is deleted soon afterwards.

  • Same with online reviews on google maps, where the company sits at a 4.5 score, but some bad reviews about deposits not being paid out after the car was returned have magically disappeared.

tl;dr: the internet is all ads!

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 4 points 9 months ago

You know what really helps for privacy? Adblockers.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 3 points 9 months ago

Well clearly someone who is colorblind...

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They would be abused by spam bots in an instant, even before you could write your own "welcome to my guestbook" post.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 128 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

Things to add to your product when you want to look hip and trendy, but dont have any real ideas how to make your product better:

  • 1990s: visitor counter
  • 1995: Popups
  • 2000s: flash intros
  • 2005: stock photography
  • 2010: local weather widget
  • 2015: share to social media widgets
  • 2020: fullsize 4k background stock videos
  • 2024: AI assistant
[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 11 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Unfortunately none. Developing a rendering engine that can handle css, html, javascript, while also rendering a website in the exact same way as Chrome and Firefox is a huge tasks, and not something a hobby programmer can whack out in a few weeks. Thats the reason why even Microsoft abandoned their own rendering engine, because things did always look and work different in IE.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 18 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Planes are already pretty fuel efficient per passenger. And larger planes are unlikely, because this would mean all runways they want to use must be extended so the can start and land there.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A single guy does not have 3 layers of managers and bosses above him, who have "better ideas", costscutting policies and "i have no idea what you just explained to me, so lets just not do it!".

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Maybe is in the metadata as someone pointed out earlier, or it could be an otherwise unused ASCII char that looks different for each user who licensed it when printed out, sort of like a qr code as a single ASCII char.

Or it could be that they simply just check filename, file size and/or md5, all of which can be easily changed.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago

Well if i would ask my boomer-parents or non-technical people, they would tell me that spotify is just like collecting CDs, and that you keep the stuff you paid for.

[–] AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, I get what you are saying, but then it's imho dishonest Marketing, and the user expected something different when they signed up for the paid service. I think "renting" movies, tv shows or music is not something the user expects.

If they would advertise it as "pay us 20 Dollarinos a month, and you can listen to your favorite music for as long as we allow it and don't take it away from you!" they surely would never be popular...

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