No research needed. Put cat trees and scratch posts everywhere. Clip their nails. We have two cats and they barely do damage to anything.

Also get furniture cats don’t or can’t scratch.

Fiber optic communications

I’m pointing out massive companies because it details if they’re struggling how are smaller companies doing? Also pretty bad. The big companies normally can operate at a loss but it’s a much bigger risk for smaller companies. More servers for more users can be $$ but if they under provision then it’s risk that if they blow up they lose their spot. It’s hard!

You keep bringing the argument to my own actions like I’m not doing any of the things you talk about. It’s not really good for debating this topic, it’s mildly ad hominem. I was trying to have a debate about the state of things, I’m not here to talk about my own actions and your assumptions of what I do and don’t do.

I’m not advocating the shitty way, I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of everyone (else) saying how dare they sell data when every other way constantly fails because everyone complains about it. Companies keep changing how they make things cheaper for users which I agree isn’t great. The problem is users have been hidden so much when they find out they’re paying for it in some other way they’re up at arms they’re paying anything for it.

That’s the crux of the problem for me. Many people are entitled now to free YouTube with no ads and also don’t sell my info! Okay, but how is YouTube gonna make money to not only host all of these videos but also let you view them? Internet, servers, etc, it’s all pricey. And I know the response is “well Google makes enough money” but they make it because every service has to pay for itself.

Frustrating to see everyone shitting on services for trying to make costs make sense. Some companies do really well, and then we look at others and say “why can’t you just pay for it” when they’re already in the red. Look at Twitter. Losing all this money and yet one of the biggest companies in the world. Lot of tech services lose money.

It wasn’t viable. That was why all those games used peer to peer to do their actual game playing. The lobbies were barely anything to handle but even then, it made it very costly. Blizzard also was losing money on that, and games back then didn’t have the numbers things do today. This is the difficulty that games have today and why DLC and what not is important. Server costs are extraordinary that most people don’t get. I am an engineer who works on keeping things alive over a decade of maintaining services. It’s not cheap!

I agree! parents should know what’s being sold about their children, AND it should be WAY more upfront than a 500 page ToS…but at the same time these types of things need money and when people get upset at what’s being done, but also don’t wanna do the alternatives… what does that leave us? That’s the hard question the next 5 years will be struggling to answer.

So then don’t buy it. If you’re getting something for extremely under what you think it’s worth, there’s only a few reasons why. But getting a smart toy that does smart things, it’s gotta talk to servers that need maintaining.

In that case it’s pay a subscription or sell data. It’s not overly private data (e.g Timmy that lives on this street loves Transformers? No, nothing like that, or it shouldn’t be), and especially when it comes to children that stuff is VERY red tape. If they’re breaking the law, then the law will catch up.

But the world has decided it deserves free or cheap things that need to be maintained and they also don’t want ads, and they also don’t want people to sell info, and they also don’t wanna pay a subscription. Maybe you’re taking this personally, but the Internet at large wants things for free and no string attached. The money to run this stuff has to come from somewhere, and most people don’t want to pay more (or at all).

Okay so you’d rather pay a subscription! Great.

You’re getting a more interactive toy that uses internet services constantly which costs server and development costs (on going) for cheaper. They need to offset that price. The price of the toy is likely significantly less than if they charged you a lifetime of service availability

No no, you’re not allowed to tell the Internet that free services cost money to run. They don’t like that. “I deserve this for free” “okay then we need to sell something to someone to run it” “no!”

Okay, you didn’t read my post and you haven’t done it yet i assume :)

just doing my first international with the 14, eSIM sucks. Twice I’ve changed you get a QR code that they tell you to scan with your phone. If you have just one phone you gotta print it? If you have a partner you snap it and airdrop it to them?

Then you need to be connected to the Internet to activate it. Once you scan the QR code the only option is “activate” two times in a row. So if you bought a limited time eSIM you have no option to install but not activate. And you need to be connected to the Internet so you have to hope to find a wifi to make it work if you wanted to wait until you’re in the country.

Wtf it’s so awful.