#how much does it cost to maintain a website

[grocito]

फ्री में ईकॉमर्स वेबसाइट कैसे बनाएं | जयपुर विक्रेता हमसे संपर्क करे

क्या आप "मुफ़्त वेबसाइट कैसे बनाएं" ढूंढ रहे हैं, आज ही जयपुर में अपने ऑनलाइन स्टोर के लिए "ग्रोसिटो" पर जाएँ।

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[readwebcomicsgdi]

You keep saying "Build a website" but doesn't that cost money?

It does! Like basically any other profession or hobby there are expenses eventually, and hosting is just another one like the tablet or the bristol board.

Generally my advice is to start out hosting somewhere free like ComicFury, both to see how well you actually like maintaining a long term project and how seriously you want to take it. If it turns out it's important enough to you that you want to turn it into a career or ensure its stability, you find a way to sustain it. In my case, I hosted Kidd Commander on tumblr for the first fifty pages or so, realized how unstable that was and how much it would upset me if they changed their content policies or functionality in ways that would harm my comic (which they have, several times), and started making efforts to drum up enough support to maintain its own site. Every person running a website of any kind went through some form of this process at some point!

If you give it a shot and find you DON'T really care to dump resources into it, if it isn't that big of a deal to you if it goes down with a company's ship one day, then it's probably not worth the trouble or the money! Websites are a lot of work and resources, and while in my opinion it's a good trade not everyone would agree. Maybe you have other places you need to put your money or your time, you have other things that take priority that means you don't elect to drop money on something that's more like a hobby, that's fine. This isn't like, backhanded either; not everyone DOES want to fool with all this, and even if you're into making comics that doesn't mean you also have strong enough feelings about longevity or ownership to want to put in the effort to own your own space.

Whether it's something you want to carve out for yourself is up to you, I can't help y'all with that. A lot of my aim when I bring up hosting is to remind people about the inherent risk they're taking by relying entirely on corporations to house these passion projects that are long term and, frequently, unattractive to the shareholders who will probably gain influence over the corporation during the course of the work. The internet is aggressively centralized, to the point a lot of people have gotten so comfortable with apps and for-profit social media that they trust them with a lot more than they should and aren't even aware there are other options. If it's free, you're the product, and as soon as you stop being profitable they will sweep up everything you've built and send you out empty handed. If that's not alarming to you, by all means set up shop somewhere like Webtoon. Really! But if it is, figure out what your goals are and get to work.

[the-final-sif]

One of the things I think people as a whole don't understand about the internet today is that so much of what's wrong/dangerous/flawed about the internet exists because so much of the internet started as one person's hobby they built in their spare time or as a specific task for a specific function that was just useful/functional enough that literally everyone started using it. There's tons of biases built into the modern internet and some of that is carelessness but a lot of it is... just like. This was invented by a group of grad students fucking around for a few weeks. How the fuck were they supposed to know it'd be become the global standard and that nobody would bother to address or change these things?

Like, the whole reason that the US government gets the ".gov" domain name is because this entire system was invented in the US primarily for use in universities. Under the original system, you had to phone in to talk to the center who owned the list, tell them what name you wanted and then a person would type your name/ip onto the list attached to a nickname much like a phonebook. Then people slowly figured out domains and maintaining domain registries. And then the system became useful enough that more of the US started using it, and then people realized "oh shit, other countries want to use this too, guess we need to figure that out".

The "world wide web" or the thing we all know as the internet (and the reason that every website you visit has www in front), was invented originally by one dude trying to make his own job easier (Tim Berners-Lee). He thought it was pretty cool and shared it, and he was one guy who only spoke English and was just doing what he thought was going to work.

Like, this is a very lighthearted article talking about him, but I think it illustrates the point really well,

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, has confessed that the // in a web address were actually "unnecessary". He told the Times newspaper that he could easily have designed URLs not to have the forward slashes. "There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. He admitted that when he devised the web, almost 20 years ago, he had no idea that the forward slashes in every web address would cause "so much hassle". His light-hearted apology even had a green angle as he accepted that having to add // to every address had wasted time, printing and paper.

via "sorry for the slashs"

We have an entire internet and infrastructure built rather haphazardly but also in such a way that going back and trying to change or fix things either requires an insane amount of work or could render vast swaths of the prior internet inaccessible.

Like, I think everyone here remembers Flash getting shut down and how much of childhood games got wiped off the generally accessible internet and relegated to projects like Flashpoint. It was really hard to see, but Flash was also a project started in 1996 (or 1993 if you count the OG version that turned into flash) that was supposed to be for a limited set of use cases, and not the medium on which major parts of the internet would run. By the time Adobe shut it down, Flash was incredibly dangerous with the constant risks of malware, it was buggy, slow, and there were a million better programs. It had to be killed to make way for better things, but because of how the internet was built, that death came at a pretty high cost.

So if you're ever wondering why it feels like the web is a bunch of dominoes ready to fall down at any time, it's because it is. And it does. And so many people spend so much of their time combating all the problems created by using systems that were never intended to handle everything they are currently handling because the alternative is a task of monstrous undertaking that would almost certainly turn decades of history to dust.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

To save the news, ban surveillance ads

Tonight (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Tomorrow (Jun 1), I’m giving the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL Computer Science in LONDON.

Then it’s Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals isn’t content — it steals money. That matters, because if we create pseudo-copyrights over the facts of the news, or headlines, or snippets to help news companies bargain with tech companies, we make the news partners with the tech companies, rather than watchdogs.

How does tech steal money from the news? Lots of ways! One important one: tech steals ad revenue. 51% of every ad dollar gets gobbled up by tech companies — primarily the cozy, collusive ad-tech duopoly of Google/Facebook (AKA Googbook). If we can shatter the market power of the concentrated ad-tech industry, news companies would go back to getting 80–90% of the ad revenue their reporting generated, which would pay for more reporting.

There’s lots to like about fixing ads. For one thing, a fair ad marketplace would benefit all news reporting, not just the largest news companies — which are dominated by private equity-backed chains and right-wing billionaires who have repeatedly shown that any additional revenues will go to pay shareholders, not more reporters. Fair ads would also provide an income for reporters who strike out on their own, covering local politics or specific beats, without making themselves sharecroppers for Big Media.

One way to fix ads would be to break up the ad-tech “stacks.” Googbook both operate impossibly conflicted ad-placement businesses in which they bargain with themselves on behalf of both advertisers and publishers, with the winners always being the tech companies. The AMERICA Act from Senator Mike Lee would force ad giants to divest themselves of business units that create conflicts of interest. It’s popular, bipartisan legislation — and I do mean bipartisan; its backers include Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz! I wrote about the AMERICA Act and the role it will play in saving news from tech for EFF’s Deeplinks Blog last week:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

This week, I’ve got a followup on Deeplinks about another important way to unrig the ad market: banning surveillance ads:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Even if we break up the ad-tech stacks, ads will still be bad for the news — and for the public. That’s because the dominant form of digital ads is “behavioral advertising” — the ad-tech sector’s polite euphemism for ads based on spying. You know these ads: you search for shoes and then every website you land on is plastered in shoe ads.

Surveillance ads require a massive, multi-billion-dollar surveillance dragnet, one that tracks you as you physically move through the world, and digitally, as you move through the web. Your apps, your phone and your browser are constantly gathering data on your activities to feed the ad-tech industry.

This data is incredibly dangerous. There’s so much of it, and it’s so loosely regulated, that every spy, cop, griefer, stalker, harasser, and identity thief can get it for pennies and use it however they see fit. The ad-tech industry poses a risk to protesters, to people seeking reproductive care, to union organizers, and to vulnerable people targeted by scammers.

Ad-tech maintains the laughable pretense that all this spying is consensual, because you clicked “I agree” on some garbage-novella of impenatrable legalese that no one — not even the ad-tech companies’ lawyers — has ever read from start to finish. But when people are given a real choice to opt out of digital spying, they do. Apple gave Ios users a one-click opt-out of in-app tracking and 96% of users clicked it (the other 4% must have been confused — or on Facebook’s payroll). The decision cost Facebook $10b in the first year. You love to see it:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But here’s the real punchline: Apple blocked Facebook from spying on its customers, but Apple kept spying on them, just as invasively as Facebook had, in order to target them with Apple’s own ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The thing that stops companies from spying on us isn’t the strength of their character, it’s the discipline imposed by regulation and competition — the fear that they’ll get fined more than they make from spying, and the fear that they’ll lose so much business from spying that they’ll end up in the red.

Which is why we need a legal ban on ads, not mere platitudes on billboards advertising companies’ “respect” for our privacy. The US is way overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action, which would let you and me sue the companies who violated it, even if no public prosecutor was willing to go to bat for us:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

A privacy law that required companies to get your affirmative, enthusiastic, ongoing, specific, informed consent to gather and process your personal data would end surveillance ads forever. Despite the self-serving nonsense the ad-tech industry serves up about people “liking relevant ads,” no one wants to be spied on. 96% of Ios users don’t lie.

A ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just serve the public, it would also save the news. The alternative to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on what a reader is reading, rather than what that reader was doing. Context-based ad marketplaces ask, “What am I bid for this Pixel 6 user in Boise who is reading about banana farming?” instead of “What am I bid for this 22 year old man who recently searched for information about suicidal ideation and bankruptcy protection?”

Context ads perform a little worse than surveillance ads — by about 5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/29/taken-in-context/#creep-me-not

So presumably advertisers won’t pay as much for context ads as they do for behavioral targeting. But that doesn’t mean that the news will lose money. Because context ads favor publishers over ad-tech platforms — no publisher will ever know as much about internet users as spying ad-tech giants do, but no tech company will ever know as much about a publisher’s content as the publisher does.

Behavioral ad marketplaces have high barriers to entry, requiring troves of surveillance data on billions of internet users. They are naturally anticompetitive and able to command a much higher share of each ad dollar than a contextual ad service (which would have much more competiition) could.

On top of that: if behavioral advertising was limited to people who truly consented to it, 96% of users would never see an ad!

So contextual ads will show up for more users, and more of the money they generate will land in news publishers’ pockets. If context ads fetch less money per ad, the losses will be felt by ad-tech companies, not publishers.

Finally: publishers who join the fight against surveillance ads won’t be alone — they’ll be joining with a massive, popular movement against commercial surveillance. The news business is — and always has been — a niche subject, of burning interest to publishers, reporters, and a small minority of news junkies. The news on its own is a small fry in policy debates. But when it comes to killing surveillance ads, the news has a class alliance with the mass movement for privacy, and together, they’re a force to reckon with.

My article on killing surveillance ads is part three of an ongoing, five-part series for EFF on how we save the news from tech. The introduction, which sets out the whole series, is here:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The final two parts will come out over the next two weeks, and then we’re going to publish the whole thing as a PDF that suitable for sharing. Watch this space!

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery. All the icons except for 'ending surveillance ads' are greyed out.]

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/31/context-ads/#class-formation

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[nitro-nova]

Let's Help Alfred!

Hi, this is Alfred, my 14-year-old grumpy old cat. Alfred means a lot to me and many lovely people that I know.

The short story is that he is old and in need of medical specialists. There are two whoppers coming up:

Ultrasound for his tummy to look for signs of blockage. The cost will range between $1,400 and $1,800.

Dental care, possible chance of tooth removal. The cost will range between $1,400 and $2,500.

I have created a fundraiser pool on Paypal. https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8RrDxhPxUp You can view the fundraiser's progress and make a donation through their website.

Additional details/predicted questions below. Content warning for some mentions of unsanitary stuff.

Q: How is Alfred doing right now?

A: He is hanging in there. The main concerns are that he has suddenly stopped eating as much, has a fit or two of vomiting for consecutive days per week, chews abnormally slowly, yowling at random times, and other health issues. He's getting old. He's walking slower, but he's being far more social than usual. He often sits in a chair next to mine while I'm at my job.

Q: How much of this can you cover yourself?

A: I have been doing my best to keep up with the costs, but I have taken hits to my emergency funds. I've spent $800 for an animal hospital visit, did three ~$400 visits that included bloodwork and tests to determine his hyperthyroidism, and spent $1500 for a procedure to resolve a hyperthyroidism issue. I've hopefully extended his life for a few more years, because of this, but it hasn't gotten to the bottom of his relapsing health problems. I'm trying not to feel like I'm still at square one.

Q: Do you think it's possible that the fundraiser will succeed?

A: I don't know. This is a lot of money, and part of it is just diagnostic. I'm considering getting a second job (currently I work remote tech support). A backup plan is to get a loan or credit and pay it off. I really want to be a good pet owner for Alfred, and I will figure out a way to get him care, one way or another.

Q: I've seen you draw some art. Can you commission your way to victory or something?

A: I'm willing to accept commissions, but if I were to do "$100 commissions," for example, I'd need to complete about 43 of them. I don't even know that many people. Anything helps, but it's a lot of money. With that said, I've got https://twitter.com/nitro_nova and my DMs here if you want to reach out.

Q: Tell me some things about Alfred while I think about clicking that link.

Alfred is a 14-year old, and his breed is American Maine Coon, one of the largest domestic cat breeds. He is generally grumpy and does not like to be picked up or to be placed in a lap. He maintains his fur much better than I maintain my own hair. That's why he always looks good. He enjoys the presence of other people, and will often seek them out just to loaf next to them.

Alfred will loaf in a high chair next to mine for roughly the entire duration of my work shift. For a while, he was obsessed with the gravy of wet canned food (we aren't sure why he has rejected it in favor of dry food again). He will pry open doors and hop into cabinets, and he does not like it when a door is closed. He has a cat tower which he loves. Very rarely, he will come to you and bump you, because he loves you under his posh and elegant demeanor.

[dykeishheart]

Every so often you see a ridiculous post, usually something with sexual content presented humorously, and a reblog comment will say something to the effect of "this is why this website is unprofitable"

And while those are funny, it's just patently untrue.

Firstly, it behooves us to establish a baseline of terminology, because in current discourse there's a major disconnect between what 'unprofitable' means when used by tumblr users and when used by tumblr executives.

Unprofitable in lay use typically means 'there is a net negative cash flow for this company' while in executive terms it means something more like 'the revenue generated here is unfit for long term growth'. The key distinction is that root word profit; In reality Tumblr is profitable by the first definition but unprofitable by the second. If tumblr wasn't bringing in enough money to at least balance out operating costs it would have been gone long ago. MySpace still exists, Tumblr will likely occupy that same space until it literally can't afford to anymore. The real issue is that tumblr's business model doesn't generate its own growth, and therefore doesn't continually expand its proft above operation like every corporation expects to.

Basically when users on here talk about profits they're measuring velocity, while executives are measuring acceleration. How much will the money increase its own collection, how can we make that happen faster, and how can we maintain that acceleration curve?

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at Tumblr's actual business model. Compared to Twitter and Facebook, tumblr lacks two key things: Public acclaim, and user incentives for engagement loops.

The first part is easy. Tumblr isn't a famous platform like Facebook is or like Twitter is. Outside of Tumblr, nobody talks about Tumblr. This means it's not viewed as a strong market for advertisers, it's not generating waves of new users, and it's not gonna get attention for doing critical maintenance or breakthrough innovation because the crowds simply aren't here. There are millions of Tumblr users, but it really doesn't mean the same thing as the collective hundreds of millions of users across Facebook and Instragram that all generate tons of ad and data revenue for one corporation.

The second part is more complicated because it gets into the psychology of social media engagement, and I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert on how that works. But the crux of it is that the mechanics of engagement with Tumblr are just different from that of Twitter in a few basic ways that mean huge differences in how the space is utilized.

Firstly, Tumblr is fairly obtuse about post longevity; the halflife of a tumblr post is effectively eternal because posts from the first year the website was open for public use still circulate. Posts didn't even have dates put onto them for users to see until like two years ago, unless you modded your website layout with third party tools like Xkit. This is great if you want a website where your art can last forever, but terrible for creating large surges of engagement super quickly on hot button topics and posts. This latter model is how basically all social media operates nowadays, with posts basically dying after 48 hours. There's always a frenzy on every meme, headline, picture, thinkpiece, and political fuckup that inevitably creates micro-surges of engagement for whoever saw it. This creates vicious cycles of attention seeking in just about everyone involved, but it just doesn't work that way here. I get periodic validation from writing I've posted years ago and that gives me the feedback I'd normally have to post hourly to attain on twitter, so there's really no drive for me to constantly be posting. This lack of need to constantly generate content feeds into the first issue of public acclaim; if everyone isn't constantly posting then the content which does leak out from here isn't enough to cross most of the thresholds to motivate people to migrate to the platform and give it public acclaim.

Secondly, the people who *do* post constantly aren't rewarded for doing so in any meaningful way. People who generate tons of content for YouTube and Instagram and TikTok make actual literal money from doing so. People can use Twitter and Facebook to advertise themselves, their products, their podcasts, their personal websites, whatever. With enough of a presence on most social media, there's monetary drives involved. And this motivates some unsuccessful users to keep trying to gain personal acclaim because it's no longer a social media platform, it's a shovel salesman in a gold rush. Tumblr does not have this. Tipping was added a while back but from what I can tell it's not widely used, and even if it was that's still money coming from other users and not the platform itself. Nobody is posting on tumblr to try and make it big and get real money doing so. The people posting a lot on tumblr are people like writers posting updates for their fics, artists posting their art, sex workers promoting their OnlyFans, porn blogs, stolen meme accounts, and the odd wizard here and there. Most people here are engaging for social fulfillment, which is ironically the least profitable motive a social media platform can offer its userbase.

[tribow]

I don't get the discourse around supporting Tumblr.

Like if you give money to Tumblr you are supporting all of their bad decisions!!!

Okay, but then how do they keep the site alive? Ads? How many people are clicking on ads here? Tumblr hasn't been scraping every tiny piece of data they can get to sell it like Facebook does either. Should they start doing that? Or should they sell more ad space even though they're already known to be a site that isn't all the great for advertisers.

This is the only two routes I can think of for attempting to stay sustainable without the use of getting money directly from their users.

Someone's gotta pay to maintain this site and also pay all employees working to do so. This isn't a one man job you need a whole team for this. Tumblr costs quite a bit to maintain.

Is it wrong to pay for an online service you frequently use? I mean, let's imagine every Tumblr user magically unite to protest against all the changes to Tumblr they disagree with by making sure Tumblr gets no financial support. What would happen? Who is paying Tumblr's staff to listen to the demands of its community? Does anyone know how long that could take? Would that really save the site or would that send it straight to its doom?

To change topic a bit. Is financially supporting a company indicative of you agreeing with what they are doing? Is it not entirely possoble to critique a company in spite of your support? There's still things like review bombing and disrupting customer service. Besides, without being a paying customer you wouldn't have much of anything to threaten Tumblr with. If majority of the userbased was supporting with money it would be very scary for Tumblr if a ton of people really pulled out.

I....

I don't know it just seems to me that people want to protest to Tumblr staff by just....doing nothing and continueing to use Tumblr. What does that do??? Do YOU want to become the product??? Tumblr could axe Tumblr Live right now all of those people complaining wouldn't give Tumblr a dime for it. These devs are fairly communicative. They have several blogs dedicated to development, there's devs with their own blogs who respond to the community and even post surveys for suggestions to other staff, they did a Q&A in Tumblr Live (annoyingly), and have been fairly transparent in clearly communicating their plans while keeping it very open to criticism.

I can't really say that about many other companies. Tumblr staff gives its users SO MANY avenues to communicate. It's almost too open. The staff can get harassed very easily (I'm sure some do). Are the people complaining about this site not using these avenues to get staff's attention? I don't see how not giving them money will get their attention. If anything it would make them more desparate to get money from us through other means than something as inoffensive as merch.

This is a website that you are using. Is it wrong to compensate those maintaining/providing this service as you use it? If it is wrong, then what are the alternatives? Am I just stupid am I missing something?

[20dollarlolita]

Why I don't sell handmade stuff: a guide to calculating how much money you're not making on your etsy store.

Fun me fact, for like half of 2013 I supported myself entirely through my etsy store. I do know HOW to have a profitable handmade store. But here's why I don't do it anymore:

Let's take a journey into a land of hypothetical sales. I don't like math, so everything is going to be multiples of 10.

Let's say that I'm selling a pair of gloves for $100. I made these gloves, and I'm selling them for $100. How much money am I making on these gloves?

Well, I'm not making $100 on them. That should be pretty obvious. Unless I have a magic "press a button and now there's a pair of gloves!!" box, it's going to cost me something to make the gloves.

Let's say that the yarn that I made the gloves out of cost $10. The materials cost me $10, and I'm selling them for $100. Did I make $90 on this pair of gloves? Maybe! That might be cool. Making $90 on a pair of gloves sounds like making a lot of profit.

But it's not, actually. Because you're not factoring in a lot of things, but notably, labor. How long does it take you to make a pair of gloves?

Well, let's say it's 10 hours. Back before I knitted so hard that I destroyed my hand and can never knit again, I could do a pair of gloves in 10 hours if I really hustled.

So now we have a more full picture: We have gloves for $100. Materials is $10, labor is $9 an hour for 10 hours, for a total of $90 of labor. Now, $9 an hour is just over half of minimum wage where I am, but it's more than Federal Minimum, so we'll call that an okay number. We've calculated that $100 for a pair of gloves made from $10 of yarn can pay a speedy knitter a semi-reasonable wage.

But the thing that you need to remember is that every other transaction fee also comes out of that $90. Etsy takes like 15% of every sale (we'll round to 10 due to I don't like math reasons). The yarn is going to cost $10 no matter what. It cost you money to get the yarn from wherever it is to your house. It costs you gas to get to the post office to send the thing off. All of those things add up. So now, you pay $10 for the yarn, $10 for website listing, $5 for assorted shipping and gas. So you're making $7.50 an hour, Federal Minimum Wage.

If you want to do some math here, you're making $7.50 an hour. Your web host is taking $10. This means that your store host is making more for hosting the listing than you make in an hour of working.

Oh, but speaking of working. Updating and maintaining a web store takes time. Maybe not a lot. Maybe one hour for every project (total of photographing, writing listings, answering customer questions, packaging, standing in line at the post office, etc). So now your job takes you 11 hours and you're making $6.82 an hour. It's officially less than minimum wage.

None of this is calculating in durable consumables. What if a needle breaks? What if your car gets a flat and needs a new tire? What if you need to see a doctor about your hand from doing it too much? Your pricing of $100 for a pair of gloves, $6.82 an hour wage, NONE of that covers things that might go wrong but that would be 100% the fault of your knitting business. My copay for my doctor is like $35, so that is over five hours of work just to see a doctor to ask why my hand doesn't feel right, not counting anything that might be prescribed by that doctor.

But okay, whatever, you're okay with your $6.82 an hour and you don't need to worry about bad things that happen because you're the luckiest person ever. What if I told you that, being okay with $6.82 an hour, selling a pair of gloves for $100, you are making

no profit

at all.

Yes, you're getting paid (at least a little). But you're not making any profit. You're making a wage. If you had to pay someone else to do your work, and you paid them $6.82 an hour and sold the gloves they made for $100, you would not be making any money at all. Your small business is not making any money. You as a laborer are getting paid less than minimum wage to do skilled labor. Your business is making zero profit at all.

So then you do all of this, become okay with getting less than minimum wage, be okay with a business that is technically speaking making zero dollars, you get all that done, spend the hour listing your gloves, and the first message from a potential customer you get?

"Lol, I like this, but what the fuck is up with that price? $100, really????? I can get gloves for $9 on Wish!"

So that's why I don't sell handmade stuff anymore.

[tryslat]

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[grocito]

How to move your business online | Convert Offline Dukaan in ₹149

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[pure-ablution]

What was the process of having your faja custom-made? I’m the $500 anon, and I completely agree with you—investing in well-made undergarments is a wise decision!

$500 can get you kitted out with a full wardrobe of high-quality shapewear, hosiery, and maybe even a nice lingerie set or two, if you know how and where to shop.

I asked a Colombian lady who used to live near me for contact details of a place she recommended, I ordered through WhatsApp by sending a few photos of myself, my measurements, and a detailed description of what I wanted, and on my next trip to South America, I paid a visit to Medellín for 2 in-person fittings. My faja was made from scratch, I had quite a few bespoke additions set in, and I bought it for myself once I knew I’d managed to reach and maintain the weight and body composition that I was totally satisfied with. It cost me 500,000 pesos, and I’m pretty sure that I was charged foreigner tax, because I’ve seen Colombian websites advertising fajas for a quarter of that price, but it was bespoke and not simply a tailored off-the-peg model, the customer service and quality were both excellent, and it still came out at much less than I would have paid for something similar here in Europe.

The shop I used is unfortunately now closed, but friends have recommended Dimori Faja, which offers a made-to-measure service, if you can travel to Chile for fittings. There are also a bunch of factories in Colombia and independent artisans that I started looking into before I decided just to go with the recommendation I’d been given, so you could look into researching that, or I could try and make a guide if people think that would be helpful. Otherwise, I’ve heard good things about Tributo, who can make MTM fajas using only your measurements, no fittings, and ships worldwide, but you’re not guaranteed such a perfect fit. There’s a company that does faja tailoring services here in the UK, and I’m certain there will be something similar in the US, so if you buy from Tributo or somewhere else and the fit isn’t perfect, you could take your faja for in-person alterations at a more local service.

[my-brothers-corrupted]

My Brothers, Corrupted

Book Five: Section Three

Dapper's psychosis worsens as he goes on without treatment, and the others try to figure out what to do while still trying to maintain a feeling of safety. Masterlist

Tws for self-hatred, past abuse, and psychosis and treatment discussions, including institutionalization. Marvin also snaps at the audience a couple times. Tws may not be completely exhaustive - keep in mind the heaviness of the fic and look out for yourself.

Thank you to @lehhoh7822 for taking the time to compile this book!

.

Blue wakes up alone.

He rubs at his face and turns over, considering just going back to sleep. He’s tired. But he’s hungry, too, and if he’s hungry than his brothers are hungry, and if his brothers are hungry, he needs to make breakfast.

“Jackie?” he calls, hoping his twin is just getting ready in the bathroom, but there’s no answer. The house is cold. He drags himself out of bed, shuddering in the chill. Ugh. The football jersey he threw on as a sleep-shirt is sweaty and unwashed, not unlike his dead white hair. He picks at a scab on his neck til it bleeds, frustrated from the moment he wakes up.

There’s a note on the bedside table in his brother’s struggling, messy handwriting.

Blue, I went to town because I found out about some people who can maybe help us get a place to stay and food and a job and things. I will get some stuff we need at the store. I checked last night and you and me and Chase are registered as Irish citizens in the health care system acording to the website but Dapper and Dok are British and German so it maybe costs some money to take them in to see someone but if they need appointements right now I will find the money. I’ll be home later and hopefuly we can go stay somewhere else. Love Ro

“You’ve got to be kidding, Red,” protests Blue, gripping at his hair. “None of us should be out alone. He hates crowds and public transportation but he just goes out alone… determined bastard. How will I find him if something happens? Dammit!”

He crumples the paper and throws it at the wall, slumping back into bed. Maybe he will just go back to sleep. But then again he feels so disgusting. This goddamn skin. He pulls the blankets over his head and groans into his pillow.

Anonymous asked: Blue, I think it might be possible some of Anti's magic or his 'soul' or anything might remain in you. Not that you are not your own person, but you've been showing signs that some of his magic might have stuck in you when Dark ripped him out. I mean, the anger, the love of Trick, the possible accidental hypnotism. I think it's something you should consider.

“Ah, right, yeah,” says Blue, slouching out of bed and washing his face in the bathroom sink. “Forgive me for having some shit going on right now and a friendship with one of my brothers. Must be a demon in my soul. Glad to know I look that much like my abuser to the lot of you.”

He throws the towel down and stares back at you, eyes flashing. “You sound like Dapper. Anti is DEAD. Move on.”

scunneredzombie asked: Jackie, did you bring a camera with you?

“He probably didn’t even bother to think of that,” mutters Blue, checking the bag to count how many cameras they have with them. “Maybe he at least took Anti’s phone if he really needs anything. He’s having so much fun with his new independence he’s starting to get sloppy.”

Blue shifts through some of his clean clothes for a minute, but what does it even matter? He drops his bag and gets up, heading to the room next door.

“Chase, Dok! Do you want breakfast?”

There’s no answer. He cracks the door open quietly and finds only one sleep-tousled twin laid out in the stolen bed, eyes closed, breathing soft and even. For a second, Blue feels a little better. He shouldn’t be so grouchy. They’re fighting a lot lately, sure, but what matters is that Anti is gone and they’re all together and alive. They’ll go from there.

“Where’s your twin, though, huh?” he sighs, closing the door. “Dok? Chase must be tired if he’s sleeping through you sneaking off. Henrik?”

Anonymous asked: I didn't say you look like your abuser. I said it's seriously a possibility some of his magic stuck to you. Blue, he is dead, and he is gone. But this is a serious thing to consider, you shouldn't brush it off so quick. You looked Chase in the eye and possibly hypnotized him a bit. That can't be just tossed aside like it doesn't matter.

“What are you talking about?” mumbles a sleepy voice behind him, and a second later, Chase is creaking open the door, blinking at him.

“Just something stupid,” snipes Blue, setting the camera down on the shelf beside him. “Forget it.”

Chase hums sleepily.

But the more he thinks about it, the more it starts to eat at him. He’s nauseous. Anti still here? Anti still inside him, moving him, controlling him? He remembers -

Ink in his mouth, and blood on his face -

Laughter. Not his laughter, but from his mouth.

Dapper stares up at him like he’s everything he hates and loves at the same time.

Henrik is splayed out beneath him, screaming for help, but all he does is keep hitting him, again and again, beating his fists against his head, his chest, his arms, til his knuckles are stained with Henrik’s blood.

“Do you think Marvin’s going to fucking wake up, you little bitch, is that what you’re screaming for? Do you think big brother’s going to save you? No one is fucking coming, Henrik, no one is going to save you, and all your brother can do is fucking WATCH - ”

“Blue,” comes a steady voice, and then Chase’s hands are cupping his cheeks, trying to draw his gaze. “Blue. I’m here. Just breathe.”

Blue leans over and grabs his stomach, shaking so hard he can’t stay on his feet. His knees buckle and Chase grabs him, holding him tight and helping him to sit down.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. Blue, you’re okay.”

These hands, these hands, his hands, his hands. He can feel - he still remembers -

He grabs his throat and wheezes, crumpling in over himself, letting Chase fold over him and hold him, making reassurances to him again and again and again.

Anonymous asked: You are you, even if his magic does remain. You were you and he was him. Nothing he did is your doing, nothing he said is your fault. You are Blue/Marvin and you have been through all of this. He stole from you, stole your body, but nothing he used it for is your fault. Do not shoulder the responsibility of your abuser, love.

“I need - I need to talk to Henrik - why won’t he talk, Chase, why doesn’t he talk, I need - ”

“I know, Blue, I know.”

“And Dapper looks at me like he still sees him in me, I hate that, I hate him, I hate all of this. I can’t ever fix anything, I’m just - ”

“It’s not your job to fix anything, Blue, just breathe.”

“He took everything from me!” screams Blue, jerking so hard Chase pins him down slightly, scared he’ll slam his head into something. “I wish I had killed him slower! I wish I had chained him up in that barbed wire and tore through that fucking cut on his throat once and for all!”

Chase takes long, slow breaths, trying to get Blue to follow.

“It’s not your fault, Blue, what he did.”

“I can still feel him crawling inside me, fucking parasite.”

“It’s just the trauma, Blue. He’s gone.”

“What if I did hypnotize you?”

“What?”

“What if I did? The other day? We made eye contact and you - you got all - kind of dopey, you know?”

“I’m not Trick anymore,” says Chase firmly. “Nothing like that happened. Just forget it, Blue. It’s done.”

scunneredzombie asked: Chase, any idea where Henrik got to? Outside maybe? Take your time with Blue, he needs you, but finding Dok should be the next-up.

“Oh, shit,” says Chase, sitting up. “Oh, fuck, he must have snuck off while I was asleep, fuck.”

It puts fear in him immediately, and he’s on his feet, calling for him. “Dok? I’m here! Where are you? You don’t think he ran off, do you? Blue, I’m going to go grab him, just quick, I’ll be right back.”

Blue lets him go without protest, slumping back against the wall. It’s Chase’s job to protect his brother the same way Marvin was supposed to look out for all of them. He buries his face in his hands and closes his eyes, flowers curling out from one sleeve of his shirt in woeful blue petals.

Anonymous asked: None of you have jobs anymore, you all deserve to relate with and help each other at any time, like a family. Not Antis dollhouse, but an actual family, all of you to all of you.

“I gave up Marvin for a chance to save them someday,” Blue tells you quietly, running his fingers over old scars. “But all I could do was kill him and that fixed so little. I still have to see them all breaking in half and I can’t do anything about it. Can’t even get a hold of myself. You’re right, Red and I are just going to end up being the new version of him. Controlling because we think we care, unlike him, but controlling anyway. Maybe I do still treat Chase like Trick. I wish so badly that one of them could just be… okay. Could just be himself again. Happy and healthy and fine. But we’re all just fucked up and tired. How am I even supposed to start fixing any of this? I think even if Red gets us everything we need, we’ll still all just be shadows of the people we used to be.”

He pauses, breathing more even, more slow. Okay. Okay.

“I wish my hair would grow back,” he adds, voice small. “I really wish this body was mine again.”

scunneredzombie asked: And are shadows not still worthy of love and care? You, all of you, need to stop trying to be the exact people you were before he was in control. Trauma /changes/ you. Trauma changes your brain, physically and emotionally. But those changes don't take away your value or your personhood. It's okay to change, and it's okay to feel like shadows for a bit while you heal. Don't give up, you lot!

Blue is quiet, staring down at his feet, his knees drawn to his chest.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “They all still deserve a lot. I… deserve better. A lot better than the way he treated us. I just wish I could give it to them. I think it’s so ingrained in my head - and in Ro’s too - that we have to make sure they’re okay before we can be okay. I guess maybe I should be focusing on myself but I just want them to be… ugh. What a mess all of this is.”

He feels bad all the way down to his heart, doubly exhausted now from his freak-out, and embarrassed that Chase saw him like that. His little brother is coming back towards him now, Dok in tow and a worried look on his face, but Blue doesn’t want to see them right now. Doesn’t want to see Henrik silent and blank from the things that Blue - that Anti did to him. Doesn’t want to risk looking too deeply into Chase’s eyes and realizing that you might be right, and some part of Anti remains inside of him, enough to mess with Chase’s brain. Doesn’t want to be looked at at all, not while he’s… this.

“Can I just get some alone time?” he asks, rubbing his face.

“I could be alone with you,” offers Chase quickly. “But, um, also - ”

“Chase, I just - I just want some alone time.”

Chase glances back at Henrik, who blinks at him. He sighs.

“Um, okay. Yeah, no worries. But if you need anything, Blue… you know I’d do anything for you, right?”

“I love you too,” answers Blue softly.

Chase’s mouth flickers with a small, taut smile. He leads Henrik back down the stairs.

Anonymous asked: Blue. You're putting shields up against people that don't want to hurt you. You have a right to your privacy always, but you don't have to deny the fact that you need help and you want to get better. You're a problem solver but it's okay to ask for help and it's okay to accept it as well.

“Yeah, well,” grouses Blue, getting up and heading back towards his room. “Consider this one more shield.”

And he closes his door and leaves you in the hallway.

Downstairs, Chase flinches at the sound of the door shutting. He squares his shoulders and lets go of a deep breath, stepping out onto the porch.

“Okay, Dap,” he says unsteadily. “Blue is taking a break. But we can figure this out between the three of us, right?”

Dapper doesn’t reply. His hands are coated black with charcoal, which he has spread across the entire back wall of the house, repeating drawings of eyes over and over and over again.

Anonymous asked: JJ, are you alright? Another paranoid episode?

“Hey, Dapper,” murmurs Chase, sinking to his knees beside him. “Hey, look at me. Are you okay? JJ? Can you look at me?”

He just keeps drawing. Henrik is already on his other side, right where Chase found him this morning - trying to pull the charcoal out of his hand and touching the back of his head like he’s somehow holding him in place. It’s the most independent reaction Chase has seen his twin offer in weeks, but it isn’t doing much. Henrik tightens his grip on the charcoal and Dapper shoves his hand away, curled low over an eye on the corner of the house.

“Dapper,” says Chase, louder, putting a hand on his chin and trying to draw his gaze to him. “You didn’t sleep, did you? You have to stop. Jameson, hey.”

Henrik blinks at him from the other side of their brother. Dapper doesn’t stop.

“Okay.” Chase chews on the nail of his thumb. “Okay, so not listening. Maybe not hearing me. Dapper, can’t you just tell me what you need? What are the eyes for?”

He’s been scrawling so hard and for so long that there’s blood on the ends of his fingers.

scunneredzombie asked: Offer a reality check, Chase? Like reminding him where he is, his name, your name, that he's safe, etc. Reminders of truths and things that would provide comfort.

“Dapper? I’m here. It’s me, Chase, and Henrik, too. That’s who’s touching you. You’re safe here, yeah? Dap. Look at me, okay? Can you please? Can you tell me what the eyes are for?”

Dapper scrapes at his ears for a second. They’re black with charcoal and red with how hard he’s been scratching at them, cupping them, striking them. Chase pulls his hand down from his ear.

“You’re going to make yourself bleed. JJ, talk to me.”

“Can’t talk.”

“Hey! Yeah, here I am, okay, I know you can’t talk, I just mean - you know what I mean, right, you - ”

“Nobody’s listening. Just talking talking talking.”

“I’m here, it’s Chase, I’m listening.”

Dapper keeps drawing eyes. Or Chase thinks they’re eyes. They seem to just be devolving into ovals with circles inside them. Dapper rocks himself forward with a sudden intensity, letting himself slump against the back wall like he’s trying to collapse into it, but still drawing, still drawing.

“I’ll get you some water, okay?” offers Chase, drawing back from him, unnerved. Dapper’s posture is distinctly uncomfortable-looking, like a mannequin with cut strings left splayed against the wall, but he doesn’t try to adjust. His pupils are shrunken dots.

“Fuck, fuck,” he whispers to himself, hurrying into the house to get him some water.

Henrik stays outside, staring at Dapper as he draws. After a second he sits down beside him and starts tracing over the eyes with his finger, smudging it in charcoal. Dapper pushes his hand away and corrects the lines he’s marred without comment. Henrik has a hand on his knee, quiet.

Anonymous asked: Is Anti talking to you, Jay? He's just a ghost now, don't fret. He can't hurt you, and he can't see you. He's a hallucination. You're very paranoid and scared right now, I understand. Try to bring yourself back to reality. Focus on the water's coldness, on Henrik and Chase being there for you, on the friendly, brotherly hands that touch and try to bring you back. You will be okay. No one is watching besides people who love you.

Chase is good with him by now - knows what to say, how to hold onto him, what to look out for when things are getting bad. But no matter how much he speaks reassurances in calm, even tones and short sentences, or how gently he repositions his shaking body, or how carefully he’s trying to look after him, he’s not coming out of it.

“How long has he been like this?” asks Chase, looking up at his twin like he’s hoping he’ll start talking again in this exact moment and give him all the answers like he used to. “What are we supposed to do? I need Red or Blue.”

He gets to his feet, stalking in circles as he tries to think. There’s a sudden dry yelp and he turns, alarmed, to see Henrik reeling back, gripping his nose.

“Dapper!” Chase howls. “It’s Dok, not Anti! Did you hit him?”

He reaches down to grab his wrist, but Dapper thrashes free, teeth gritted, eyes watering with fear.

“He’s everywhere, he won’t leave me alone, I can’t get out of my room…”

Chase pulls Henrik to his feet and leads him inside, sitting him down on the couch. This is out of control. He knows what he would do next, but - well, he’s not in charge. He needs Red or Blue.

scunneredzombie asked: You're in charge right now Chase. You're the most functional person around currently. Try doing what your idea was, it could be helpful. JJ just needs people to be cautious and gentle to him right now, remind him he's free and not in that prison of a room. Turn him around and let him see the grass and forest behind the house, take him onto the soil if you can. Literal 'grounding'.

Chase sits with Dapper a while longer, looking at him. He tries touching him, pulling at him, trying to turn him around, but Dapper just yanks back towards the wall with increasing desperation, his fingers smearing blood across charcoal. It’s been a long time since he’s been this stuck in his head, but the truth is that he’s been struggling for weeks now, and there are a lot of things Chase wishes they would have done for him a long time ago.

Okay. He’s in charge right now.

He’s not little brother. He’s just a brother. No more hierarchy. Okay.

He gets to his feet and goes up to Blue’s room. He opens the door and steps inside, and his sibling looks up at him in confusion from beneath a pile of somebody else’s blankets.

“Dapper needs to go to the hospital,” says Chase. “I’m going to take him to the bus stop.”

Anonymous asked: Good call, Chaser. Do you know if there's any behavioral clinics near to you? JJ would have a difficult time in the hospital, what with all the strangers, but it might be just what would help right now. He need his medicine and he needs a safe place with people who know what to do.

“Hold up, what’s going on?” demands Blue, hurrying out of bed. “Let me see him. I’ll handle it.”

“Blue, I love you, but you and Dapper aren’t really best friends right now. He’s been hallucinating and erratic for days now and now he’s almost totally unresponsive, drawing eyes on the walls and scraping at his ears because his voices are so loud. Blue, he’s having a psychotic break, and if it doesn’t get handled, not only is he going to keep suffering, he could snap the timeline. I know we’re used to Dapper being kind of - well, weird. But we can’t pretend any of this is normal.”

“Okay, but Chase, if we take him to a hospital, they might put him in a psych ward.”

“What if he needs to be in a psych ward for a little while?” asks Chase, exhausted. “With professionals? Or what if they just give him some medication and let him come home with us once he’s stable?”

“We need to run this past Jackie,” says Blue, pushing past Chase to go find his little brother.

“Jackie’s not here. And even if he were… you know he wouldn’t let us do this. He’s so scared of losing control he would never let someone else take care of his baby brother. He’s paranoid too right now. Dapper needs to see a professional. Now.”

Blue pushes out onto the porch. Dapper doesn’t look up at him, but when Blue reaches out to touch his shoulder, Dapper gasps and cowers from him, wrapping his arms around his head and curling in on himself, panting.

“Oh, lovey, oh, love,” moans Blue, tugging at his hair, stressed. “Um, I - I don’t know. I just wanted to take him to a clinic to get a prescription.”

“That’s all Anti ever did for him,” mumbles Chase. “It was never enough. Let’s at least look for behavioral clinics like they said.”

“We don’t have any way to do that. No phone or computer or anything. And we are not talking to the neighbors - we’ve already fucked up this whole house, don’t need to be any more suspicious.”

scunneredzombie asked: Blue, I know it hurts, but there's not much you or Chase can do for him right now. Going to an urgent care or a hospital is what he needs right now, or something bad could happen to him. When people become unresponsive there's not much to do - if they don't have their medicine - besides taking them to a doctor. I've had to do it before, there's no shame in it. Psychosis is a serious thing and needs serious help.

“What’s the stress here?” asks Chase wearily. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know,” snaps Blue, trying not to cry. “Maybe that we’re broke and he’s not in the health care system? Or that he’s mute and psychotic and they might treat him badly? That he might be scared, that he might be violent, that he might talk too much about his abusive family and all the people we’ve murdered? How about the fact that Jackie is going to be pissed and terrified? Chase, this isn’t going to work.”

Chase stares down at his feet for a second, eyes tired.

“Blue,” he says after a moment. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sick and hiding.”

Blue sighs, closing his eyes.

“You’re good, right, Chase?” he asks. “That’s not true what Jackie said. That you’re just acting like the sunshine kid to make me happy.”

Chase cringes slightly, looking away. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Fuck,” Blue curses, rubbing at his face. “Fuck…. fine. Okay. Okay, yes, we’re doing this. Jackie will flip his shit, but we’ll deal with it. Dapper, honey. We gotta go. Come with me, okay?”

Still just drawing. Just drawing in circles.

“How are we doing this?” asks Blue.

“I don’t know,” sighs Chase. “Carry him?”

“I’m going to pull him a little here,” warns Blue, reaching down. He ends up wrapping his arms tight around Dapper’s shoulders and heaving him to his feet even as Dapper starts to struggle, alarmed. Once he’s up he’s a little less steady, but less angry too, just blinking around at the world with tears in his eyes and a shaking piece of charcoal in his hand.

“Babe, we’re going to the hospital,” says Blue clearly. “Come on, okay?”

“I’m not allowed - ”

“You’re allowed. It’s okay. Chase, you ready?”

“What? No, I have to stay here with Dok.”

“You’re sticking me with him alone? You were the one who said he doesn’t like me that much right now!”

“What are we supposed to do, bring two tortured brothers into the ER? That won’t look suspicious!”

“So I’ll stay with Dok, then!”

Chase flinches, shaking his head rapidly.

“Chase - ”

“I’ll stay with him,” says Chase, creeping back towards the house. “I have to stay with him.”

Blue groans and turns to Dapper, who stares back at him with his huge, terrified eyes.

“Fine, fine,” he breathes out. “This is going to be a trainwreck. This is going to suck. Come on, buddy.”

“I’m not allowed.”

“You’re allowed.”

“I’m stuck in my room… he’s going to hurt me…”

“Come on, Dap.”

Anonymous asked: Chase, let Blue stay with Henrik. You need to be able to trust other people to take care of him. Get away from the twin hierarchy and let another brother care for him. JJ is scared of Blue currently, he needs someone he fully trusts to guide him. Henrik will be okay without you for just a few hours. Everything will be alright.

Chase shifts back towards the house, clinging to the doorway. He can hear Henrik playing with an old game of dominoes on the coffee table, clicking and placing the pieces together. He doesn’t want to go.

“Don’t you trust me?” asks Blue.

“It’s not about that,” says Chase.

“So what’s it about.”

“He’s mine,” snarls Chase, face darkening. “Not yours. Not anybody else’s. And when he wakes up, it’s me he’s coming back to.”

He turns on Blue and shuts the door.

Anonymous asked: He doesn't belong to you Chase. Henrik is his own person, and he is not to be treated like he's helpless just because he can't speak. Don't be possessive in that way, it too reminiscent of Anti.

Chase chews on his nails, staring at his brother. Henrik is putting the domino pieces together right, or at least in a way that makes sense. Matching colors and numbers. He’s there, just… far away.

“Sorry, Blue,” he calls through the door.

Blue snorts on the other side. “That was fast. You have a temper like a bunny rabbit. Go get Dapper some shoes.”

Chase moves off to find the nearest pair of torn-up sneakers, tired of the day already. He hands them over to Blue and watches him help lace them onto Dapper’s feet, sinking down onto the couch beside Henrik. He moves one of his dominoes and Henrik’s eyes flicker up to him, slightly narrow in a way that makes Chase think maybe he knows he’s being played with. He laughs weakly and touches his brother’s cheek. Henrik gazes at him, blinking.

“I should never have left you alone, man,” whispers Chase. “I wish you were here to forgive me. I just don’t want you to be alone again when you come back.”

Henrik stares at him. His glasses are a little crooked on his nose. A little broken and a little crooked. His twin.

Henrik reaches slowly out and wraps his arms around his neck, letting his head fall down onto Chase’s shoulder. Chase feels a shaky breath escape from his chest. He tries to move slowly. Tries not to startle him. Can’t break this.

He hugs his brother back slowly, his hands pressing into his back. They seem to fit just right.

“I’ll take him if you really want,” Chase tells him a few minutes later, sliding back towards Blue. “Dok’s okay. Dapper’s not.”

“I almost want to take him now,” sighs Blue. “That’s my job, right?”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“He’s already upset with me. If you take him, he might be mad at you too.”

“Either way will be okay with me.”

Anonymous asked:

Would either one of you be more confident dealing with medical professionals and paperwork and all that to get him admitted? I'd lean more towards Chase just because JJ and Marv are still having a hard time, but of course it's up to y'all. There's practical bits to taking him to a hospital that y'all can consider too.

A

“Oh, hell,” says Chase. “I don’t even know my fake name. Or his.”

“I gave you your ID, how can you not know that?”

“I don’t know where it is, haha.”

“Chase!”

“I’ll find it…”

Anonymous asked: You are allowed to go Dapper. You are free, Anti is gone. You can finally have therapy and doctors and medicine. No one tells you what to do anymore. You are 'allowed' to do anything at all, especially if it's helpful and beneficial for your health.

“Do you want to pick, bud?” asks Blue, putting a hand on his back. “You can make your own choice now, they’re right. It’s okay. It’s allowed.”

Dapper stares at Blue. Stares at Chase. Stares at Blue.

“Okay, this is going nowhere,” crabs Blue, taking his hand. “Chase, bring Dok and come with us on the bus. You guys can go for a walk or something while we check in. It’ll be good for Dok to get out and about. We’ll leave Jackie a note. Come on.”

“That works.”

scunneredzombie asked: You are allowed to get help, buddy. Anti is dead. You're free from your room. You can finally get the help you need, it'll all be okay. I know it must be terrifying, but you can finally have your medicine and have therapy and people to help you through it. Repeat to yourself. Anti is dead. Anti can't control you anymore.

They go for a walk and sit on the bus with what little cash Blue was keeping from Jackie, exhausted together, though Dapper is a buzzing ball of nervous energy beside Blue, staring out the window like he doesn’t understand how they’re moving or what they’re moving past. Chase and Dok are behind them, Chase’s eyes fixed on his little brother’s head. Dapper flinches every time someone coughs or shifts or yawns around him. Like everything in the world is waiting to hurt him.

“Look at you, all mussed up,” sighs Blue, licking his thumb and trying to wipe some of the charcoal off his brother’s face. “All that curly hair growing out and all these old cuts and bruises. And so skinny. I should have made sure you ate last night. I just hid from you all. No wonder you ended up freaking out on the porch all night. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Dapper clings to the window, leaning forward to trace a dog passing by. Blue tries to smooth down his hair, stroking across the mess of his locks, scratching at his short beard.

“They’re right, okay?” he murmurs, trying to clean him up, though he knows the lot of them must look like disasters. They are disasters right now. “You control yourself. Just a little sick right now. Anti is gone. He’s gone, Dap. It’s just you and - ”

Dapper whirls on him and grabs his face between his hands, staring at him dead on. Chase’s nervous hand reaches out to grab Dapper’s wrist. Blue waits, frozen.

Dapper draws back again, still looking at him.

“You’re okay,” says Blue softly, because if he loses it on the bus, they’re screwed. “You’re okay.”

“Is it you?” asks Dapper.

“I’m whoever you need me to be right now, Dapper.”

Dapper blinks, apparently considering this. After a second he nods and sinks down in his seat, looking back out the window.

Anonymous asked: Sorry, I haven't been here for a bit - do any of you have phones? Can you contact Jackie? I'm a touch concerned that he could come home to an empty house. Is there a camera there for us to talk to him, at least?

“He did that to me this morning,” grouses Blue. “And he took the only phone. But yes, there are extra cameras at home when he gets back. And maybe he’ll actually have found us somewhere to stay… now that we’ve messed up the porch and eaten most of the food, I don’t think we’re exactly discreet.”

“Is it you?” asks Dapper again, looking back at Blue.

“I don’t know,” answers Blue. “Who do you think I am?”

Dapper shakes his head, blinking. “I’m… not sure. I don’t think we’ve met.”

Blue laughs weakly, smoothing out an extra strand of his hair.

“Weird, I was just thinking that too. Maybe we haven’t met.”

“No?”

“We really don’t know each other at all, huh? When he was still alive, you were just the brother in the basement I was supposed to save. His twin, wrapped around his finger. I think maybe that’s why I’ve been so ticked off. You still remind me of him. It’s all I’ve ever associated you with.”

“Do you want me to be something else?”

“No,” says Blue quickly, squeezing his hand. “No, just yourself. Just healthy and yourself.”

“Is it you?”

“It’s Blue, Dapper.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Okay. We’re friends?”

“We’re siblings. But I’d like to be friends sometime too.”

“You’re being funny with me, Anti,” says Dapper, laying his head on his shoulder. “You always laugh at me when I’m sick.”

Blue lets it go, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“We’re almost to help, JJ.”

scunneredzombie asked: JJ, try to stay calm at the hospital. Strangers will have to touch you to check you out and keep you healthy. Strangers will have to watch over you to make sure you don't hurt yourself/anyone. You'll be perfectly okay and none of them mean you harm. They should be understanding if you lash out, just try your best. I believe in you, all of you!

“Ready?” asks Chase as the hospital comes into view, leaning forward.

“Where are we?” Dapper asks.

“He’s talking now. Maybe we can just go back home?”

“Blue, no,” chides Chase. “Dapper, let’s go get you to a doctor, okay?”

Dapper looks up at Blue in alarm, gripping his hand. “It’s okay,” offers Blue. “Don’t sweat it. People are here to help.”

“This is a test,” signs Dapper uncertainly. “You’re testing me.”

“No.” Blue switches to signing, hoping to avoid as many odd looks as they can. “Dapper, you know that you’re paranoid when you’re off your meds. You know that’s what those thoughts are. No one’s testing you and no one’s trying to hurt you. Some people are going to come help and they’re probably going to touch you and maybe have needles and that sort of thing, but you need to stay calm.”

“You’re going to leave me here, then,” Dapper says, his breath hitching. “You - I did something wrong and you’re going to have me locked up. I don’t even remember, you can’t do this to me.”

“Nobody’s leaving you here.”

Dapper’s shaken, eyes flickering around the bus. Blue takes his arm and pulls him carefully to his feet. “I’m going to stay right with you,” he says clearly. “I’m going to stay right here.”

“You don’t want me to take him?” asks Chase.

“He thinks I’m Anti,” mumbles Blue. “I think that’s the only reason he’s not attacking us or running for his life right now.”

Dapper clings to him in return, shaking. They help him off the bus amid a crowd of people. Dapper cowers against Blue’s chest, scrambling for a knife at his side, but there’s nothing there.

“Why are we out in the open like this?” his hands snap. “You’re just being reckless now.”

“We’re allowed to be out in the open. No one’s coming for us.”

“Make them be quiet, Anti, make them be quiet!” He clutches his ears, knees buckling, and Blue grabs him, keeping him on his feet and hurrying forward with him.

“Dapper,” calls Chase, worried.

“Chase, just take Henrik to the park or something. Keep calm.”

“You stole me and now you’re putting me back,” protests Dapper frantically, his feet scraping against the ground as he tries to pull against Blue’s grip. “Like you said you’d put me in an asylum and I’d never get out.”

“Anti told you that?”

“I know I can’t handle it without you, I know, don’t punish me!”

“Dapper - ”

“I’ll break everything if you’re not around,” he sobs, gripping at Blue’s shirt between signs. “I don’t have any control of myself, of my magic, when you’re not around. You have to keep me in control.”

“Dapper, you can handle this on your own! He just wanted you to believe you were helpless without him, he just - ”

“You’re not even real, why are you still hurting me?” He strikes Blue’s chest, crying in earnest, his face swollen in red. “If I didn’t need you so badly do you know how long ago I would have left?”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t!” shouts Blue, grabbing Dapper’s wrist. “And don’t you dare fucking hit me! You could have run from Anti like I did! I let him take me for the sake of the others, but you! Why did you ever let him keep you like that? Huh?”

“Sir! Hey, do you need help?”

Blue barely hears it. “Why don’t you tell me that, JJ?” he screams, shaking him. “Why didn’t you fight him?”

“You liar,” sobs JJ, pulling away from him, near crumpled in half. “You promised me. You said you would let the others go. I wasn’t enough for you. I hate that Blue got to kill you. I hate that I was such a coward. You took everything from me. I should have killed you slow and painful. I loved you too though. I don’t know what I was holding on to. Maybe if I had been the one to do it you wouldn’t still be here haunting me. You don’t know how much I hate myself. Coward. I should have been the one to do it.”

Blue feels a sob in his throat, his eyes burning. He crashes back into Dapper, grabbing his face and shoving their heads together, meeting his gaze, and his little brother looks back with his tortured eyes, and Blue is sorry for everything he’s been through and everything they’ve lost together.

“He sucks, doesn’t he?” he manages finally.

Jameson sinks against his chest, closing his eyes.

“I hate myself lately too, little brother. We’ll get through it.”

“I’m always going to be dangerous. I can’t control myself without Anti in my head. We’re twins. We can’t survive without each other.”

“Nah,” offers Blue, shaking his head. “No, that’s just more of Anti’s stupid brother system. The cameras were right. It all has to fall apart. We’re going to help you figure out how to stay in control without needing him. Okay?”

JJ stares up at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. You must have done it before Anti came to take you. When we were living in the house in the woods. When things were kind. Things will be kind again. We just gotta take some steps.”

Jameson watches the sidewalk, thinking.

“It just starts with this, okay?” says Blue, taking his hand. “With getting some real help.”

“I’m… I’m going to get left here. Stuck again. Stuck.”

“No. We’d never leave you behind.”

“Even if you get mad?”

“Yeah, even if I get mad.”

“Even if I remind you of Anti?”

“Yeah. That’s my shit, not yours. I’ll get past it. Cause I love you.”

Jameson looks up, and for a second, his eyes are clear.

“Oh, silly,” he says, laughing faintly at himself. “Sorry, I just realized it’s you.”

“There you go,” beams Blue, relieved. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

“Marvin,” signs JJ fondly, touching his cheek. “Yeah, I see you now.”

[meams4u]

Ok it's becoming unavoidable.

The 2010s internet business model is failed, and it's very likely taking tumblr down with it. The good parts of this site are going to die.

There is an inherent disconnect between the best product/service and the most profitable product/service. However the assumption of correlation AND causation between these is at the core of capitalism.

I explain.

Booyah.

The business model which drives tumblr's decision making is the same as drove nearly all sites in the 2010s. There was so much reliable investor money, that sites could fully fund their costs and expand wildly without ever making a profit, or ever charging their users for a service. Their goal was the long game, offer something fun for free, get people hooked, become necessary for daily life; that if they could capture enough of a userbase, then that MUST be profitable at some point. How could a site with 50mil daily users not make money, right?

Well, there was enough money flowing in to prevent those questions from ever being seriously asked. Which is unfortunate, because the answer is no. YouTube, despite massive use, omnipresence, and so so many ads, doesn't make money. Gmail doesn't make money. They painted themselves into a corner by being free, and people are used to that. The status quo was always unsustainable. Employees cost money. Servers cost money. These bills were paid by willing investors in the past, but with little more userbase to conquer, what's bringing them in? Now websites are scrambling to maintain the cash flow necessary to stay alive, let alone improve.

Gmail, YouTube, Discord, Twitch all have mega profitable services bankrolling them for the sake of surveillance, but tumblr doesn't have that (neither do Reddit, Uber/Lyft, or Snapchat). Various buyers (Yahoo and others) have dumped cash on tumblr occasionally, but that's not going to keep happening. So what's the plan? Cutting costs will only guarantee a slow death and nonfunctioning website (Twitter). So tumblr must either increase revenue or fire everyone and shut down the site. I cannot stress enough that the status quo of a functioning website for free, cannot exist without someone dumping money on it.

Now finally I get to the main point 🎉

Have you ever spent hours mindlessly scrolling some app, bored the whole time, and at the end you feel like shit? According to our current system, this is your favorite app which you like using the most. Have you ever had a meaningful connection on a forum or witnessed perfect comedic timing in a reblog chain? Well unless you chose to spend hours experiencing these beautiful moments (oxymoron), then the system will interpret your enjoyment of those websites as far less. That is considered a bad website. The only metric currently used is eyeball time. This metric does not reflect user satisfaction.

This metric is used because it's a simple conversion from eyeballs to ad views to income. So eyeball time becomes the goal and social media sites become optimized towards quick-seratonin-hit addiction and features that trap rather than convincing user to choose to spend their time on a site. Why isn't the latter a good enough option? Because happy people don't choose to spend their days looking at ads.

And that's the heart of the issue. Humans are not happy when they're generating max profit. Capitalism is never satisfied with profit alone, it demands the greatest possible profit. And therefore capitalism demands systems which make us unhappy. This is tragically at the core of capitalism; the idea that consumer choice will direct companies to produce the best product. That the product which wins out must therefore be the best for consumers. But it's not true. It has never been true. It's why cigarette companies succeed while companies that make long-lasting cars fail.

Tumblr, with its features that encourage user interaction and discourage influencer culture, is more enjoyable and less profitable. Can they find a workforce of engineers who are just as talented and hard working as the Facebook engineers, but accept much lower salaries? Probably not. So what do they do? I expect they make things worse on purpose, and eek out some kind of survival. Remember the porn ban?

[youtubethumbnailchecker]

Topic :- What Is YouTube Thumbnails and How to download thumbnails free

Introduction

YouTube has evolved into much more than just a video-sharing platform. It's a world of endless possibilities, and creating a successful channel has become a dream for many. While content quality is crucial, there's one often underestimated factor that can significantly boost your channel's success - YouTube thumbnails.

Welcome to our YouTube Thumbnail Downloader, your one-stop destination for quickly and effortlessly downloading YouTube thumbnails. With our user-friendly tool, you can access thumbnails in various qualities and resolutions, including 1080p HD, 720p, or 480p, all without the need for registration or any cost. Your security is our priority, and you can trust that your downloads are safe and secure. So, whether you're a content creator looking to enhance your videos or simply want to explore intriguing thumbnails, our website has you covered.

The Power of First Impressions

Imagine you're walking into a bookstore, and the book covers catch your eye. The same concept applies to YouTube. Your video's thumbnail is the first thing viewers see, and it's the book cover of your content. A well-designed and intriguing thumbnail can make a potential viewer stop scrolling and click on your video.

The Art of Creating Click-Worthy Thumbnails

The Dos and Don'ts

Let's dive into the dos and don'ts of creating captivating YouTube thumbnails:

Do:

Use high-resolution images that clearly represent your video's content.

Incorporate vibrant colors and contrasting elements to make the thumbnail pop.

Add text that teases the content and sparks curiosity.

Don't:

Overcrowd the thumbnail with too much text or clutter.

Mislead viewers with misleading thumbnails. Honesty is key for long-term success.

The Impact on Click-Through Rate

Your Click-Through Rate (CTR) is a vital metric for your channel's growth. CTR represents the percentage of people who clicked on your video after seeing the thumbnail. A higher CTR means more viewers, which can lead to increased subscribers and revenue.

So, how does the right thumbnail affect your CTR? It's simple. An enticing thumbnail grabs attention and entices viewers to take action. It's like the cover of a mystery novel that makes you want to read the first chapter.

The YouTube Algorithm and Thumbnails

YouTube's algorithm is smart. It doesn't just analyze video content; it also considers the performance of your thumbnails. If your thumbnails result in more clicks and longer watch times, the algorithm will favor your videos, ultimately leading to more exposure.

But remember, the algorithm also penalizes clickbait and misleading thumbnails. So, always maintain transparency and relevancy.

Crafting Thumbnails for Different Content

Different types of content require distinct thumbnail strategies. For tutorials, you might want to show the end result, while for vlogs, a candid image can be more appealing. The key is to align your thumbnail with the viewer's expectation.

Storytime Thumbnails

When telling a story, use thumbnails that capture the essence of the story. For instance, if your video is about a hiking adventure, a thumbnail showing you atop a mountain with a breathtaking view will draw viewers in.

The Mobile-Friendly Factor

With the majority of YouTube views coming from mobile devices, it's crucial to ensure that your thumbnails look great on smaller screens. Test your thumbnails on various devices to make sure they're visually appealing and informative.

Conclusion

In the vast YouTube universe, your video is a needle in a haystack. Your thumbnail is the magnet that attracts the viewer's attention. A great thumbnail can be your ticket to success, with increased views, subscribers, and engagement.

So, put effort into crafting those eye-catching YouTube thumbnails, and watch your channel soar to new heights!

FAQs

1. What's the ideal resolution for YouTube thumbnails?

The ideal resolution is 1280x720 pixels. This ensures your thumbnail looks crisp and professional.

2. Can I change a video's thumbnail after uploading it?

Yes, you can. YouTube allows you to change your video's thumbnail even after it's been published.

3. How can I track the Click-Through Rate (CTR) of my videos?

You can find your video's CTR in YouTube Analytics, which provides detailed statistics about your channel's performance.

4. What tools can I use to design eye-catching thumbnails?

Popular tools for creating thumbnails include Adobe Photoshop, Canva, and Snappa. You can also find free online thumbnail makers.

5. Are there any best practices for adding text to thumbnails?

Keep text concise, use readable fonts, and ensure it's large enough to be legible on small screens.

[lookbester]

How To Get Twitter Blue Tick - What You Need To Know Blue Tick On Twitter

How To Get Twitter Blue Tick?

Twitter Blue Tick is a premium subscription service that offers a blue checkmark to your account and early access to select features. To get a blue checkmark on Twitter, you need to have an active subscription to Twitter Blue Tick and meet their eligibility requirements. The blue checkmark means that the account has an active subscription to Twitter Blue Tick and meets their eligibility requirements.

Your account must meet the following criteria to receive or retain the blue checkmark:

Complete: Your account must have a display name and profile photo

Active use: Your account must be active in the past 30 days to subscribe to Twitter Blue Tick

Security: Your account must be older than 90 days upon subscription and have a confirmed phone number

You can subscribe to Twitter Blue Tick on their website or through their app on iOS or Android. Once you have subscribed, the checkmark will appear on eligible profiles after a review to ensure subscribed accounts meet all eligibility criteria.

It is important to note that changes to your profile photo, display name, or username (@handle) will result in a temporary loss of the blue checkmark until your account is validated as continuing to meet their requirements. Additionally, any violation of the Twitter Terms of Service or Twitter Rules may result in the loss of the checkmark or suspension. So make sure you follow their guidelines to keep your blue checkmark.

TABLE OF CONTENT:

How To Get Twitter Blue Tick?

2. What are the benefits of Twitter Blue Tick?

3. How much does Twitter Blue Tick cost?

4. How to maintain the Twitter Blue Tick and how to protect it?

LEARN MORE: https://www.lookbester.com/2023/04/How-To-Get-Twitter-Blue-Tick-What-You-Need-To-Know-Blue-Tick-On-Twitter.html