#how to make a website to sell stuff

[icewindandboringhorror]

indeed my exact process once every 8 months or so

[florida3exclamationpoints]

Hi besties pspspsp graphic design besties do we like this logo for my etsy. Like if I were to get logo stickers and stuff for shipping. Do we like this

[yakityyaku]

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.

[autism-corner]

>:(

[foone]

Your posts are in an AI model

and then Tumblr decided to sell them to AI models.

Now, don't get me wrong, tumblr selling out the users to AI companies is bad, yes, they shouldn't do that. It sucks.

but don't lets get this confused: your posts were already in there. Tumblr selling them is about tumblr making some money and about the AI models having more exhaustive post collections. It's not about your posts being in an AI model, vs not being in one. That battle has already been lost.

Can you find your post on google? Then it's almost certainly in an AI model already. Think about it: These AI sites showed up before all the sites were making deals to sell their users' content, right? How do you think they built them in the first place?

They scraped the posts. Just like google and bing and such do when they build their search indexes.

It's a fundamental part of how the open web works: you want your posts on tumblr to be visible to users, right? You want them to be readable?* Like, look how much stuff broke when twitter changed their whole read-while-not-logged-in policy, ruining a bunch of thread links/NSFW links. And if it's visible, it's scrapable. That's what the AI models were built on.

I've done website scraping before (not for AI models, of course. I was doing search engines and website archival), this is just how it works. You hire a few relatively smart CS graduates and tell them "build me a scraper that'll give us a bunch of tumblr posts" and they go off for a month or two and come back with a database of a few billion posts, and you stuff that into your AI model. That's how they got all the deviantart and flickr and twitter and pinterest and so on posts. They didn't pay for them: they just took them.

They only ever pay for this shit because either:

they fucked up in such a way that the site might be able to sue them for taking rather than paying

They can buy them cheaper than they can finish taking them. Maybe they'd need to pay the CS grads for an extra month? well, that might be more expensive than just throwing the site a couple hundred thousand bucks.

ANYWAY: my point is, don't treat this "oh no tumblr is selling our posts to AI" like it's a big thing that might happen and it would be bad to happen. Yes, it's bad, tumblr shouldn't do this, this'll let AI models get continual updates of content for far easier than just scraping them would be, tumblr betrayed user trust, and so on...

but realistically, this is not a black and white matter of "if only tumblr didn't do this, then we'd be safe from AI models!"

Nope. We already lost that battle. I'm sorry, and it does suck, but that's just how it is. The avalanche has already started, it's too late for the pebbles to vote. * I'm assuming here that you don't run a private blog that's set to only followers or something. You'd be safer then, of course, but you're not really my target audience for this rant

[cinnamoonblue]

It reminds me of you

ONE SHOT - Ryomen Sukuna/Reader (female)

DESCRIPTION: Modern AU - fluff

SUMMARY: You want a Labubu so bad, especially the one which reminds you the most of your boyfriend, and he makes sure you get everything you want.

WARNINGS: english is not my first language, explicit language, pet names (princess, brat, woman), reader described as a female

WORD COUNT: 2,9K

✰ MASTERLIST ✰

NOTE: This is my first Sukuna one-shot ever, and I'm so excited. I have been wanting to start writing about him for such a long time now, and recently I finally become a Labubu mami and I love them so much and they have always reminded me so much of him so I had to write this. I hope you have fun reading this short one-shot with Sukuna as your mean, rude and grumpy man to the world, but being the most carrying and sweetest boyfriend to you. I know that for a lot of you this might not be the most correct take/description of modern day Sukuna, but low-key I think that he will be a big softy for his girl. ♡ Enjoy reading ♡

!PLEASE IF SOMEONE KNOW WHO IS THE ARTIST BEHIND THIS FANART OF SUKUNA IS IN THE BANNER LET ME KNOW SO I CAN CREDIT THEM!

It all started when one day you saw a TikTok of some girl unboxing something called Labubu. The moment you saw the fluffy small monster you fell in love with it and wanted one immediately. Sadly, when you checked the website where they sell them everything was sold out.

Since that day, your boyfriend has been hearing about these so called Labubus all the time. Sukuna, being Sukuna of course, doesn’t get the hype behind them and thinks that they are just a waste of money, but you choose to ignore him and his opinion.

Tonight is Friday, surprisingly both of you have it off today from both your university and the part time jobs you have, so you have decided to just stay home and do nothing. Ordering a takeaway from the nearest ramen shop closest to your apartment, you two eat your dinner while doing your own stuffs – you snuggled up in bed watching your favorite series, while Sukuna is playing games with his friends on his computer.

Your boyfriend seems to be losing as you can hear him loud and clearly cussing out his opponents and friends, but you don’t pay much attention to it as you are quite use to this type of behavior from him.

You and Sukuna are very different as people. When you started dating two years ago it came as a surprise to everyone around you. While you are more of a layback, nice and open person, Sukuna is a menace. He is rude, he is mean, he is eighty percent of the time grumpy, and he is probably the biggest cocky asshole a person can be or meet - is what everyone will say if you ask them about your salmon haired boyfriend. What they don’t know is that they are right, but also very wrong. He is all this and even more, the list with his bad sides and qualities is quite long. What they don’t know is that your boyfriend is also the most carrying, loving and sweet boyfriend any girl in this world would dream about, but only you get the chance to call him yours.

To this day you are the only person who he has let to know him on such a deeper level. Even his closes friends, Uraume and Toji, had never seen how sweet and carrying Sukuna could be until they met you, which leaded to a lot of teasing and messing around with him from his friends, but even when it seemed like he couldn’t stand it when they do it, from the inside Sukuna didn’t really care. As long as his girl is happy, he is willing to do the best he can, so you never feel unloved or cared about.

As they night continued you have switched from watching your favorite show to scrolling on TikTok. Tonight is a very important night for you as Labubu is having a big restocking and all you want is to get your hands on two boxes – one for you and one for your boyfriend.

Even though Sukuna doesn’t like or see the hype behind them, they remind you so much of him, and because of it you want to match with your boyfriend and get him one as well.

You know that you can’t keep yourself awake till four in the morning when the release will be so instead you put alarms to wake yourself up. Getting up from the bed before you fall asleep, you go to Sukuna who is still playing and wrap your hands around him.

“I’m going to sleep now.” You say to him as you place kisses all over his face while his eyes are focused on the game he is currently playing. “Are you coming to bed soon?”

Cussing out one more time as his team loses, he takes his headphones down and turns to you. Taking your face in the palms of his hands, he pulls you closer to him as he crashes his lips into yours. The kiss you share is both aggressive and gentle at the same time, but you don’t mind.

“No, princess. All because someone doesn’t know how to play.” He says to the mic attached to the headphones from which you can hear Toji’s voice complaining about Sukuna and his skills.

You laugh when you see your boyfriend’s grumpy face and kiss his lips one more time. “Don’t take too long.” You tell him as you wish him and Toji goodnight.

Your alarm rings at exactly three fifty-eight in the morning, but in your sleepy state you turn it off and roll to the side hoping that you will find your boyfriend next to you but instead you are met with an empty bed. Sitting up in bed you open your eyes and see him still on his computer talking quietly, probably still with Toji, making sure not to wake you up.

Grabbing your phone to see what time it is, the realization hits you. The Labubu drop. It is tonight and it is happening right now. Unlocking your phone and typing the website you breathe out for a second as you see that it is loading so you still have the chance to have your hands on two boxes, after all you are just a minute late after four.

“No, no, no, no.” You scream in despair as the website crashes. This makes your boyfriend immediately turn around and look at you. Seeing you whining and hitting the pillows in the bed with all the power you have in you, he takes his headphones off and gets up from his gaming chair.

“What’s wrong, princess?” Getting in bed and wrapping his arms around you he pulls you closer to his big define with muscles body.

“I failed.” You cry as your turn towards him, burying your head in his naked chest and wrapping your arms around his neck.

Looking down at you Sukuna raises one brow. What have you failed exactly? You have already passed the last exam you had, so what it could be you failed so badly at four in the morning?

“What are you talking about?” His voice deep as always makes you look up at him.

“The Labubu war. I failed getting us Labubus.” Crying out dramatically, you bury your face again in his chest.

“Woman, are you fucking crazy?” He can’t believe that this whole scene is all about some overpriced kid’s toy. “You can’t be serious. All this at four am, for some ugly ass toy?”

Pulling away from him, you give him an offended look. “How could you call Labubu ugly?” You try to push him away from you, but this is impossible. This man is at least five times your size if anything you made things worse, as he pulls you to lay down with him.

“They are, princess.” His arms tighten around you even more as you gasp when he offended your little obsession again.

“No, Kuna they are not.” You protest once again as you try to escape your boyfriend’s deadly grip. “They are extremely cute, and you have no idea how much I want to get us some.”

“Why you keep saying us?” Easing his grip a bit he looks at you once again with confusion and a bit of irritation written all over his face.

“Because I want to get one for you as well, so we can match.” Propping on one arm on the bed you move your body a bit sideways to Sukuna’s in a way that you can balance it as you start running the fingers of your other hand through his soft salmon pink locks.

“I’m not carrying this ugly ass toy anywhere.” A makeshift of a mocking laughter escapes past his lips as he can’t believe that you want to get him one as well, even when you know that he doesn’t like them.

“You were going to put it in your car as a car charm.” Grabbing a bit of his hair in a fist you pull it playfully, making him hiss a bit from it.

“Oh, so you already decided where I’ll put it.” He playfully rolls his eyes as you nod at him.

“You know, I don’t know if I have mentioned, but they remind me of you so much.” Pushing yourself up with one hand, you cross one leg over his body and now you are sitting on top of him, tracing his tattoos with your fingers.  

“These monster looking things?”

“Yes, Kuna. These monster looking things.” You reply with a smile as you bend your body closer to him, your faces now millimeters apart. “Because they seem evil and mean from the outside, but they are actually super nice, and sweet, and cute.” With every word you say, you place a kiss on his lips. His grumpy face doesn’t change much, but you know him very well and you know that he enjoys what you are doing. “Should I stop?”

Giving you a warning look with his dark crimson eyes, you just laugh at him as you continue to kiss his lips. “I’m not cute.” He murmurs in between your kisses.

“Sure, Sukuna. Sure.” You whisper with a smile.

It has been a week since that night. You have promised yourself that you will get Labubu no matter what next time they drop, but the problem is that it won’t be any time soon. You have found a lot of resellers in your city, but the prices they sell them for are crazy and as much as you want one for you and your boyfriend you won’t spent that much money on it.

Coming home from a long shift from work and a long day from lectures all you want is to take a hot shower and snuggle up in bed. Sukuna is working tonight as well, but you don’t know when he will be home. The nightclub he works at doesn’t close until five in the morning and even if you text him, he won’t be able to response, so all you can do is guess when he might be back.

After taking your hot shower before bed your whole body feels a bit relaxed, but it is still crying for sleep. Instead of putting on pajamas, you go for one of your boyfriend’s T-shirts. The moment you put it on, you hear the front door of your apartment opening.

Walking out of the bedroom you are met with your tired boyfriend’s face. “Hey, Kuna.” You say as you go to him and wrap your arms around him. “Why home so early?”

“It was slow. They can manage without me.” He grunts as he pulls away a bit but still holds you in his arms. “I have something for you, brat.” He tells you, giving you a tired, cocky smile, the one you love so much.

You can’t help but smile. This is the real Sukuna for you, the one only you have the privilege to see - grumpy, but carrying; tired, but still very loving.

Nodding with his head, Sukuna leads you to your living room, and you both sit on the sofa. Taking his black backpack from his bag he tells you to close your eyes, and you do exactly what he tells you to do. You can hear him unzipping the bag and then taking something out of it, pulling it on the table. “Okay, open them now.”

Opening your eyes, you look at the coffee table and see what is on top of it. Gasping loudly, your eyes widen, and you can help but happily stomp with your legs on the floor. Two Labubu boxes. He got you not one, but two Labubu boxes as you wanted. “Sukuna… you… how?”

“I have my ways.” He smirks at you.

The excitement in your voice fills up the room and you can’t help but throw yourself in your boyfriend’s body. “I love you, Kuna. I love you so much.”

Wrapping his arms around your body and rolling his eyes as you buried your face in the crook of his neck, he murmurs. “Yea, yea. Me too, brat.”

Pulling away from him you give him a quick kiss on the lips before you take the boxes in your hand.

“They are not from the two different collections, one of them is the one you wanted the most, so…” Hearing this you are not surprised. He might be grumpy and seems like he doesn’t always pay attention to what you are saying, but Sukuna always listens. Of course, he has heard, and against his will, remembers all the things you have said about this stupid keychain of toys. He knows which collection you want the most, and which color you wanted, but he has managed to find only one box from it, but he hopes you like the other one as well.

“Okay, let’s open the macaron one first.” You excitedly say, as you closed your eyes and started to open the box. “I really want the pink one.”

Sukuna can’t help but smile. You are adorable. Not only now when you are all excited as a little kid about some toy, but in general. He will be lying if he says that he doesn’t love this childish side of yours. He adores it. He adores everything about you.

Finally, opening the box and the small package the Labubu is in it, you open your eyes. “Oh my, Kuna, look how cute it is.” You coo at the grey Lububu in your hands, pulling it closer to you in a hug.

“But it’s not pink.” Sukuna comments as he takes it from your hands to observe it better, still not understanding the hype.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s still super cute.” Reaching for the other box, you take a better look at it, before you open it. It is the ‘Have a Seat’ edition, the other one you wanted the most, because here is the Labubu that reminds you the most of Sukuna and you are praying to be it in the box.

Doing the exact same blind opening as you did with the first box, you take a deep breath before opening your eyes. You not only scream, but also jumped from excitement, which made Sukuna flinch in surprise.

“Calm down, woman. You’ll wake the neighbors up.”

“Baby, oh my, Kuna. Kuna, look!” You excitedly start to jump on one spot on the sofa, your excitement through the roof, because you have got the one you want the most. The salmon pink one, with red eyes with heart shapes in them. Your own Labubu Sukuna. “I got you in Labubu version.”

Turning the Labubu, towards him, Sukuna just rolls his eyes. It looks nothing like him. He is a tall, big, scary for some people man, not a pink furry monster keychain. “It looks nothing like me.” He grunts.

“Yes, it does, Kuna.” You pull him closer for a kiss. “Thank you. You made me so happy tonight.” Placing a kiss on his cheek, you also wrap your arms around him.

“Only tonight?” He slightly tilts his head to take a better look at you.

“A bit more, than usual.” You reply.

Two weeks later you, Sukuna and Toji went out for a few drinks. Sukuna didn’t drink tonight, because he has decided to go out with his car, and right now he is the only sober one, he has to drag you and Toji to where he has parked.

“Come on, get in asshole.” He tells Toji as he tries to get him to sit in the back seat of the car. Once he gets Toji to get in the car, he closes the door and gets to the driver’s seat.

“The fuck is this mouse hanging on the mirror?” Toji laughs from the back of the car as he points towards Sukuna’s grey Labubu hanging on the rear-view mirror.

“This is Labubu.” You turn around to look at Toji as you explain to him what Labubu is and you show him your salmon pink one, placed in a little car basket on the air conditioner on your side.

On your way to Toji’s place he heard everything about Labubu, and the story of how you got them. “It was last week when we went to the mall and bought them their outfits and the car seat.” You happily squeak as you take look at your Labubus. Your Labubu is dressed in a cute pink outfit, and Sukuna’s wears a black robbery mask, with a silver and gold chain around its neck and a gun in one hand.

“We are here. Now get out before you throw up in my car.” Sukuna turns to Toji as he parked in front of his place. He knows that from tomorrow Toji won’t stop making fun of him, all because of this stupid toy.

Before Toji gets out of the car, he pats Sukuna on the shoulder and leans closer to tell him something, which you don’t catch. “Aren’t you a big softy, Kuna?” Without giving Sukuna a chance to response, Toji is out of the car, as he knows how to piss his best friend off the best – call him weak for you and use the nickname only you can call him.

“What did he say?” You ask once you two are alone and Sukuna starts the engine again.

“That Labubu sucks.”

END NOTE: I hope you really liked this short one-shot. Sukuna is one of my most favorite anime men (I have only two most favorite men lol) and this is the first time ever I write something about him, so every criticism about it will be appreciated, as I plan to write a lot more about him in the future. If you liked this feel free to like, comment, reblog or message me ♡ Thank you for reading it ♡♡♡

writing, format, header © cinnamoonblue & dividers by © cinnamoonblue and @bernardsbendystraws, fanart @su2kuna on X/Twitter ©cinnamoonblue, do not copy or plagiarise my work.

[alltimefail]

ATTENTION DEAD BOYS FANDOM:

We have some unfinished business and a case to solve: The Case of the Curious Cancellation! 💀🔎

Here are the ways you can help (be sure to read until the end).

I'm not sure how many people here on Tumblr are also over on DBDA Twitter, but there have been MANY developments in the last 24 hours and it's important for all of us to be on the same page if we're going to have a chance in hell of saving our show.

First and foremost, we need to get Dead Boy Detectives in the Netflix Top 10 again. This means running it as much as possible. Read about that below:

(SOURCE x)

As the graphic says, the goal is to have it running on a loop constantly, as much as you physically can. Be sure to have some level of volume on or else it won't count. If you're on Twitter be sure to post your rewatch (photos of your tv, commentary, etc.) with the hashtag #ReviveDeadBoyDetectives !!!

Also, there's no better time to do this: the Tweet below brings up a great point! 👍

(SOURCE x)

Second, and easiest thing: KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE SHOW AND CREATING CONTENT ABOUT THE SHOW. Analysis, fics, fanart, shitposts, gif sets, memes, tik tok videos, so on - do not stop! Reblog other people's stuff and talk about it! Give fics kudos, comment, make fic rec lists and post that WIP or sketch! The most important thing to remember is to TAG YOUR POSTS AND CREATIONS. We need to trend!!! On Tumblr make sure you continue tagging your posts as you probably already are (look at my tags on this post if you need help, and remember not to use "DBD" on here because that is another fandom! We use DBDA here). On Twitter you want to use the hashtag #ReviveDeadBoyDetectives for the rewatch and #SaveDeadBoyDetectives is a popular one, too. You can also use #DeadBoyDetectives. Hell, I usually use all three if I can! Hashtag every post you make about Dead Boys, no matter how annoying or "cringe" you may feel. Flood the fucking tag and do not stop.

Third, everyone needs to sign and keep circulating the petition. We've surpassed 5,000 signatures in a day which is fantastic, but we need more. Get everyone you know to sign it; tell them it takes no more than 15 seconds. Be annoying until they do it just to shut you up.

Fourth, request "Dead Boy Detectives Season 2" through Netflix's support website. It's a small thing but if we all do this a couple times a day it will get their attention. They really do vet these suggestions, and an influx of requests for a canceled show will raise eyebrows.

Lastly, if you decide to write Netflix (via email or a letter - their office address has been floating around) please remember to stay concise and professional. Don't curse at them, don't call names. State that you are disappointed with the cancellation of the show, maybe add an anecdote about what it meant to you, and I would even recommend attaching some articles that emphasize people's displeasure with the platform abandoning shows on a whim and Netflix's flippant attitude toward queer shows in particular. Dead Boy Detective Agency on Twitter has retweeted every article on this topic so far, you can find their page here.

You can also use graphics such as the ones below to affirm that the cancellation was unjust.

(Source 1, Source 2)

I know this feels like a lot: know your limits and take care of yourself. Whether you do every single one of these things or just a few of these things, every llittle bit helps!

Even in the worst case scenario where nothing changes, this gesture will mean so much to everyone who made this show. We owe it to the writers, cast, crew, and each other to TRY. We can all agree that this show deserves at least another season and if Netflix isn't going to do it, they need to be open to selling it to someone who will. We cannot keep allowing them to axe these queer and diverse shows with little regard for their customers and their employees, but also because it sets a harmful standard in the industry that is destroying television.

Let's crack this case and bring our agency back! I truly believe in this community!! 💜 We can do this!!

If there are any spelling errors or issues with links let me know! I did this on mobile because I want to mobilize this information as quickly as possible! I'll be adding on to this with new developments and can answer any questions you all might have. Lets save our show!

[icewindandboringhorror]

golf

[lexyeevee]

crossposting from cohost because i'm too bummed about this for only one website to contain it

there's a new OG doom release or whatever

tbh i think it massively sucks that a massive corporation — which is now owned by fucking microsoft — bought a GPL game and started working on it again and made new releases no longer under the GPL and on fewer platforms (windows only! how do you fuck this up), when the game is only belovéd in the first place because of the staggering amount of work the community put in for free over the last thirty years

doom was like the one grand success story of an open source commercial game. without the GPL release it would've ended at doom 95. there would never have been boom or mbf, never have been any such thing as a limit-removing port. even sigil would not exist. a handful of people would still play it in dosbox and that'd be about it.

they even reimplemented boom from scratch. feels weird. most of the original boom authors aren't even alive any more. maybe i'm a hypocrite for feeling uneasy about that since i reimplemented chip's challenge, but i did that to make it more free, not to make it proprietary. i'm not using community work as a marketing bullet point for my paid product. (chip's challenge 2 did that though)

they hired some doom community people for this, and, good for those specific few people, i guess. that doesn't feel worthy of applause though. like you'd be stupid not to hire the only people around who've worked on this game recently

and no one on doomworld really cares? they care about the thing they get in their hands right now. jingling keys. people are excited that more unreleased doom beta stuff is included and all i can think about is how bethesda got mad at romero and told him to stop posting that kinda thing publicly. now we know why! they can't sell john romero's doomworld posts, but they can sell adrian carmack's unused sprites

just feels sad. thirty years of stuff built on the back of an open source release and no real appreciation for how powerful that was

thanks for all the free labor, everyone, but now it belongs to microsoft. look how magnanimous they are, with all their embracing and extending

[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.

[backwzzds]

ೃ⁀➷ spoil you, plug!eren

eren hated when you spent your own money, but you don’t listen.

thinking about the way plug!eren would take you on his drops with him. you were so quiet and in your own world, he never minded the fact that you had your freshly white painted toes resting against the dash of his mercedes AMG coupe. the entire car was blacked out with expensive ceramic tints, protecting you both from your usual…late night activities.

your glasses rested on the cute bridge of your nose as your left leg was sat in eren’s lap while your right rested against the dashboard. eren was lucky that he fucked with most of his customers heavy…you two had been waiting for the dude to meet y’all for nearly thirty minutes now, and had it been someone else, eren would have sped away long time ago.

eren comfortingly rubbed your baby soft feet in the grasp of his tattooed hand, one with beautiful realism art of your own eye. with a turn of his head, he could see you practically nose deep in the bright screen of your phone illuminating through the car. “you growing bored mama?” his voice is concerned. “ian think we was gonna be waiting this long on dude…my bad baby.”

you hadn’t said much since you’d gotten in the car, just wanting to hurry and add all of your things to your shopping cart on the skims website. “nah, ‘m just…trying…to do somethin’ real quick,” you bite your lip as you tap away on your phone. you were trying to add as many things to your cart before it was gone. “before this shit sell out.”

eren being the nosy boy he is leans against your shoulder to see what you were doing. but the moment he’d seen you type in numbers that belonged to what he knew as your own debit card, he kissed his teeth in annoyance. “man how many times i gotta tell you to stop using your card to go shopping bae?” you roll your eyes at his words. “i’m serious, you got all three of my cards on ya phone for a reason. fuck is you typing in your info for?”

don’t get him wrong, eren loved the fact that you were independent and knew how to handle money almost perfectly now that you were in your twenties. but being together with you for so long, he continued to step up with his provider capabilities by always taking care of you. whether it was paying your bills, rent—everything in between.

but of course it was a struggle when ms. i can do it all by myself meets mr. i know you can but let me do it for you

“because i’m spending like 600 dollars,” you point out to his previous question with an obvious scoff. “i’m not asking you for that.” eren mirrors your actions and rolls his eyes again.

eren looks at you as if you’re insane and suffered memory loss for the past four years you’ve been together. “babe…i make that shit in one night. actually—fuck a night—i make that shit in two hours!”

it wasn’t like he was lying either, with the way that eren was one of the only trusted plugs in town, it was very easy that he’d bring at least a band a night on a consistent basis. selling for almost six years was finally paying off.

you two hardly ever fought, but if you did, it was always about money. eren knew how long you’ve had to do things on your own physically and financially. you couldn’t go to your mom for help, you didn’t have a dad to beg, so it was all on you since you’d been 16. but now that he had eren, he’d just wish you’d let him take the burden of money of your shoulders and take care of you the way you take care of him.

after a few minutes, your boyfriend holds his hand out. you give him crazy eyes, but eventually follow orders by putting your phone in his hand. “don’t know how many times i gotta tell yo stubborn ass, forreal,” he grunted. “‘s never a problem spoiling my baby. you don’t ever ask me for nothing. let me feel useful and get you stuff, mama.”

with a sigh, you nod your head, like you always did. there was no way eren was gonna take no for an answer when it came to spoiling his wife.

in response, eren uses his free hand to delete your information and instead place the correct numbers—the information to his amex black card. all the money he has, he sits and does nothing with it, so why not buy you all the things you’ve never had before?

when you hear the chime of your phone confirming your order, eren hands you the phone back and goes to look out his dark window.

with your acrylics, you grab eren by the neck and slowly turn him back to face you. “thanks papa,” you gave him genuine eyes.

eren leans forward and pecks your lips. with a serious face, he pecks you one more time before wrapping his tatted fingers around your neck erotically. with a look in your eyes he tells you, “always tell me what you want, no matter how much, mama. you know daddy gonna get that shit for you one way or another, regardless.”

[scam-alerts]

🐝Scams to Bee Aware of on Tumblr: 🐝

(posted: 2/6/25 - Updated 2/12/25)

The art commission scam.

Are you an artist? Were you DM'd, sent an ask by a blog with no posts or little to no content, or had a comment on a post asking about a commission and to DM them? Did they ask you to draw their son, daughter, or pet? Did hey offer you $200-$500? If so, you should learn about this scam and how to avoid it.

The sugar baby/daddy scam. / Free money scam.

Did you make a post asking for donations? Did someone DM you wanting you to be their sugar baby or promising you money in exchange for something? Did they tell you that you need to send them money to verify you want to 'do this' or pay for 'shipping' or 'transaction' fees? You're about to get scammed!

The muse scam.

If you post photographs frequently, you may find your posts receiving comments from 'artists' saying how 'inspired' they are and how eager they are to make art or a mural for your work. This is a fake cheque scam and you should avoid it at all costs!

The (read more) / Click here! scam.

If you see a post ending in a link that says (read more...) or Click here! This is an attempt to get you to click a link that will lead to a malicious website in an attempt to steal your information, or possibly even install malicious files onto your phone or computer.

is Now Hiring! Scams. ✨New(ish)✨

See a post like this on your dash or in a tag you frequent? Was the user once a normal user and now they're spamming ads like this in unrelated tags? This likely means that user got their account hijacked by clicking the link via a different post. Avoid clicking links like these at all costs!

HRT Medicine / Therapy services ✨New(ish)✨

This scam is targeting transgender people, and is likely stealing peoples personal information and likely their credit card information. If you see or find a blog like the above commenting on your posts, in #transgender or other such related tags, block and report them immediately. (Selling stuff like this is illegal btw.)

Recruitment for the Illuminati.

This scam tries to recruit people into the Illuminati by offering people mass amounts of wealth, homes, and even cars. This is all an attempt to steal your money, or worse, your identity...

Recovery Scammers.

If you make a post talking about how you've lost money, be it bitcoin, crypto, or were scammed in any sort of way, you may find yourself receiving an ask from a recovery scammer. These are people claiming they can offer 'recovery services' while claiming to be 'ethical hackers' that have 'back end knowledge' to online services. Claiming they can retrieve your money, account, photos, and other such lost items. All you have to do is give them your account information and some money! :) (Do not do this, obviously.)

These scammers also target people who post in #scam and/or other related tags like #scams or #scam alert, posting things like this in the comments on peoples posts:

Dropshipping Websites. (Curtsy of @ai-art-thieves)

See a post of an object or a piece of clothing by a popular tumblr user that has 10k+ notes, does it say 'I got this here!' or '>>GET YOURS HERE<<' at the bottom with a link to a store? That user is a part of a dropshipping advertising scheme and are being paid to advertise these scummy websites. These websites are usually malicious in the manner that they sell cheaply products. In the worst case you'll get a bootleg or flawed product, or even a different product completely, or in even worse cases, you'll never get it at all.

(Or they will steal your information in the case of those shopify websites that popup online with deals you 'just can't refuse!!!' So buyer beware.)

Campaign boost/mutual aid support scams. (By @kyra45)

If you or anyone you know has posted looking for donations, and you receive an ask, DM, or even a comment about someone offering to 'assist you in boosting your account/campaign,' all you have to do is pay them <amount>, then this is a fake check scam you should definitely read up on and learn about to avoid.

Pet donation Scams. (by @kyra45)

See a post about someone needing help with a vet bill? Do they stress the pet is in peril and will die soon? Is their PayPal from the Philippines yet the vet bill is from the United states? Those are just two things to look out for with this scam.

Donation / Mutual Aid scams. (by @kyra45)

One of the most common and well known scams on tumblr to this day. These scams mainly revolve around brand new accounts made within a day or week reblogging very few posts and then suddenly asking for money via donations through PayPal. These blogs will send out the same copy/paste ask en masse to dozens if not hundreds of people, change their name frequently over the course of days if not weeks, and will even lie about being Palestinian, stealing stories from legitimate gofundmes, and even having conditions such as diabetes while not even knowing how it works.

Here is a current list of documented PayPal scammers: Part 3

-----

Some helpful blogs to follow:

@kyra45 @ai-art-thieves @u-reblogged-a-scam

Tags to follow/check if you need to check on scams:

#scam #scams #scam alert #scammer #scammers

I also have a very extensive list of scammer call out posts on my main blog, @slenbee under my #scam tag which can be found here if anyone's interested in scrolling through it. Just note that I kindly ask that minors do not follow that blog as it is my personal blog and is not a blog dedicated to scam busting/documenting.

You're 100% ok with looking through the scam tag and reblogging things from it, as well as checking out the links on my pinned post. :)

------

I think that's it for Tumblr scams, If I think I need to add more later I'll update the post and make an update note about it.

Take care everyone and don't get scammed!

-----

Check out the Index of important posts I've made!

Here's a post on some tips and tricks on spotting scam blogs.

How to guide: Reverse Image Search. (now with web extensions!)

Scammers pretending to be Palestinian v6 by @kyra45

[marzipanandminutiae]

I hate how doing any kind of yarn craft basically means you can only produce plastic clothes or it's going to be 300$ in yarn minimum. Every yarn has some acrylic and the natural stuff is so wildly expensive. I would love to use 100% natural fibers but the options are limited

God, yeah. The price of natural-fiber materials is insane.

My average budget for like a full silk gown, trim and notions included, is around $200- and that's ONLY because I live near a discount fabric store that gets bolt-ends from big fashion houses and sells silk for like $10/yard. Wool is insane, for some reason- that place only has coating (heavyweight) and suiting (lighter but feels like plastic even though it's not), so making a dress or anything not outerwear from wool involves shopping online and some painful spending.

I just bought 6 yards of wool to make my Dream Dressing-Gown. It was $210 for JUST the wool- I still have to get lining fabric, possibly an embroidery machine pattern, embroidery thread (because my friend who's generously letting me use her machine only has polyester and rayon). Part of that was shipping from freaking Poland because finding a website that has non-stretch, dark green wool at any weight below "snow gear" in the States is nigh impossible.

(Or that actually discloses the weight in a meaningful way; that's another problem I've encountered. "Brushed wool!" Great, but how heavy is it? "It's wool!" Not helpful. It's like they can't fathom wanting to use wool for anything besides heavy outerwear. Which they probably can't, because that's all we're accustomed to seeing it as nowadays.)

Like I'm tempted to blame militant v*gans for the inaccessibility of silk and wool, but honestly, capitalism was probably just waiting for the excuse to turn all our clothes to crap. I doubt there's been enough outcry about them to push those fabrics out of reach, the way there has been for fur and leather (to clarify: pro-treating animals humanely, anti-plastic clothing, not opposed to the use of aforesaid materials if those animals are properly cared-for and humanely killed).

At least you can still find cotton and some linen things in stores- for now. They're still more expensive, though, and limited in what weaves are often seen. Cotton velvet, for example? Forget it.

It's so disturbing and frustrating.

[drferox]

There’s a couple of things happening on the information technology side of the veterinary industry at the moment:

Practice owners are increasingly aware that they need an online presence (website plus social media), but most of them have minimal interest in actually making one because they want to focus on patients. You know, the work they signed up for in the first place.

Various tech companies sell packages to most vet practices doing some or all of this, including ‘writing SEO optimised articles for your website’.

While many of those articles were copy-paste, now they are often ‘unique’ which looks more and more AI generated.

At best, this looks like shoddy articles written for a machine instead of for people. At worst it generates information which is not current or outright false. In the middle, you get articles reminding you to brush your bird’s teeth.

So I find myself wondering if it’s even worth the effort to write informative content and it mostly feels like it doesn’t. Not compared to how fast and easily AI stuff can be churned out. Seriously, there are so, so many articles and videos out there about how to use AI to automate content generation or digital shops… it’s depressing.

But it probably is still worth writing things because it’s always been worth trying to combat misinformation. It’s just that misinformation and weird information can be generated so much more rapidly.

And I realise that whatever I put out on the internet might be chopped up and rearranged in the AI blender, but somebody has to keep telling the internet that you don’t have to brush your bird’s teeth.

[ms-demeanor]

if we're like, showing graphs and stuff, this is the type that i think a lot of people on tumblr are thinking of when they think about the economy.

Only one third of people with family incomes below $50k spent less than their income each month. I would guess that a lot of people on tumblr who get aggro about this topic (and the vast majority of people on r/povertyfinance, who discuss this sort of thing a lot) fall into this earning category.

Real wage increases only matter if you got a raise (one third of workers got a raise last year, which means that 2/3rds didn't - included in the economic wellbeing report linked above). Whether or not rent is outpacing wages only matters if you're not going to be rent burdened (more than a third of renter households are cost burdened in every state and 12 million rental households spend more than half their income on rent). Employment rates lose a lot of meaning when you're working multiple jobs to make ends meet (the percentage of multiply employed workers was falling in the US from 1996 to the 2010s, when it plateaued, then it started rising slightly then collapsed in 2020 and has been rising steeply since then and it's too soon to tell if it's going to go back to the plateau or keep going up).

Four in ten adults in the US is carrying some level of medical debt (even people who are insured) and 60% of people with medical debt have cut back on food, clothes or household items; about 50% of people with medical debt have used up all their savings.

Tumblr is the broke people website and yeah, people who are working two jobs to afford $900 for one room and utilities in a three bedroom apartment are not going to feel great about the economy even if real wages are raising and inflation-adjusted rents are actually pretty stable. "The Rent is too Damn High" has been a meme for 14 years so, like, yeah. Even if it's pretty stable when adjusted for inflation it is stable and HIGH.

It's hard to feel good about the economy when you're spending the last few days of the pay period hoping nothing unexpected hits your account, and it's VERY frustrating to be told that the economy's doing well when you've had to start selling blood to buy groceries.

Sure, unemployment is low, that's neat. It's good that inflation has stabilized (it genuinely has; prices are not likely to fall back to pre-inflation rates and eventually you'll likely be paid enough to reach equilibrium, but a lot of people aren't there yet).

But, like, it costs eight thousand dollars a year out of pocket to keep my spouse alive. I'd guess that we've paid off about a third of the 40-ish thousands of dollars he's racked up since his heart attack. His medical debt is why I don't have a retirement plan beyond "I guess I'll die?" So talking about how good the economy is kind of feels like being chained in the bottom of a pit that is slowly filling with water while people on the surface talk about the fact that the rain is tapering off. Neat! That's good! But I can't really see it from where I'm standing.

Inflation really is getting better. My state just enacted a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. The Biden administration has worked hard to reduce many kinds of healthcare costs. A lot of people have had significant portions of their student debt cancelled.

But a lot of people are still having trouble affording groceries and it doesn't seem helpful to say "your perception of the economy is decoupled from the reality of the economy" on the "can I get a few dollars for food today?" website.