#instead of fucking renting software

[ooc-miqojak]

Honestly I'm reblogging because I had no idea that OpenOffice had died! I'll clutch my copy closely, indeed.

i have always used MS Word for writing, but my laptop wheezed and went into a coma last fall and took my MS 2007 with it.

i carefully switched some projects to Google Docs, but now it's promoting its "AI" software to me.

so i just downloaded LibreOffice and moved my GDocs over to that.

anyway, if anyone has bad news for me about LibreOffice, tell me now, please, thx

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A sexy, skinny defeat device for your HP ink cartridge

Animals keep evolving into crabs; it's a process called "carcinisation" and it's pretty weird. Crabs just turn out to be extremely evolutionarily fit for our current environment:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-animals-keep-evolving-into-crabs/

By the same token, all kinds of business keep evolving into something like a printer company. It turns out that in this enshittified, poorly regulated, rentier-friendly world, the parasitic, inkjet business model is extremely adaptive. Printerinisation is everywhere.

All that stuff you hate about your car? Trapping you into using their mechanics, spying on you, planned obsolescence? All lifted from the inkjet printer business model:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

That GE fridge that won't make ice or dispense water unless you spend $50 for a proprietary charcoal filter instead of using a $10 generic? Pure printerism:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#filtergate

The software update to your Sonos speakers that makes them half as useful and takes away your right to play your stored music, forcing you to buy streaming music subscriptions? Straight out of the HP playbook:

https://www.wired.com/story/sonos-admits-its-recent-app-update-was-a-colossal-mistake/

But as printerinized as all these gadgets are, none can quite attain the level of high enshittification that the OG inkjet bastards attain on a daily basis. In the world championships of effortlessly authentic fuckery, no one can lay a glove on the sociopathic monsters of HP.

For example: when HP wanted to soften us all up for a new world of "subscription ink" (where you have to pre-pay every month for a certain number of pages' worth of printing, which your printer enforces by spying on you and ratting you out to HP over the internet), they offered a "lifetime subscription" plan. With this "lifetime" plan, you paid just once and your HP printer would print out 15 pages a month for so long as you owned your printer, with HP shipping you new ink every time you ran low.

Well, eventually, HP got bored of not making you pay rent on your own fucking printer, so they just turned that plan off. Yeah, it was a lifetime plan, but the "lifetime" in question was the lifetime of HP's patience for not fucking you over, and that patience has the longevity of a mayfly:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/06/horrible-products/#inkwars

It would take many pages to list all of HP's sins here. This is a company that ships printers with half-full ink cartridges and charges more than the printer cost to buy a replacement set. The company that won't let you print a black-and-white page if you're out of yellow ink. The company that won't let you scan or send a fax if you're out of any of your ink.

They make you "recalibrate" your printer or "clean your heads" by forcing you to print sheets of ink-dense paper. They also refuse to let you use your ink cartridges after they "expire."

HP raised the price of ink to over $10,000 per gallon, then went to war against third-party ink cartridge makers, cartridge remanufacturers, and cartridge refillers. They added "security chips" to their cartridges whose job was to watch the ink levels in your cartridge and, when they dip below a certain level (long before the cartridge is actually empty), declare the cartridge to be dry and permanently out of use.

Even if you refill that cartridge, it will still declare itself to be empty to your printer, which will therefore refuse to print.

Third party ink companies have options here. One thing they could do is reverse-engineer the security chip, and make compatible ones that say, "Actually, I'm full." The problem with this is that laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) potentially makes this into a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, for a first offense.

DMCA 1201 bans bypassing "an effective means of access control" to a copyrighted work. So if HP writes a copyrighted "I'm empty" program for its security chip and then adds some kind of access restriction to prevent you from dumping and reverse-engineering that program, you can end up a felon, thanks to the DMCA.

Another countermove is to harvest security chips out of dead cartridges that have been sent overseas as e-waste (one consequence of HP's $10,000/gallon ink racket is that it generates mountains of immortal, toxic e-waste that mostly ends up poisoning poor countries in the global south). These can be integrated into new cartridges, or remanufactured ones.

In practice, ink companies do all of this and more, and total normie HP printer owners go to extremely improbable lengths to find third party ink cartridges and figure out how to use them. It turns out that even people who find technology tinkering intimidating or confusing or dull can be motivated to learn and practice a lot of esoteric tech stuff as an alternative to paying $10,000/gallon for colored water.

HP has lots of countermoves for this. One truly unhinged piece of fuckery is to ask Customs and Border Patrol to block third-party ink cartridges with genuine HP security chips that have been pried loose from e-waste shipments. HP claims that these are "counterfeits" (because they were removed and re-used without permission), even though they came out of real HP cartridges, and CBP takes them at their word, seizing shipments.

Even sleazier: HP pushes out fake security updates to its printers. You get a message telling you there's an urgent security update, you click OK, and your printer shows you a downloading/installing progress bar and reboots itself. As far as you can tell, nothing has changed. But these aren't "security" updates, they're updates that block third-party ink, and HP has designed them not to kick in for several months. That way, HP owners who get tricked into installing this downgrade don't raise hell online and warn everyone else until they've installed it too, and it's too late:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

This is the infectious pathogen business model: one reason covid spread so quickly was that people were infectious before they developed symptoms. That meant that the virus could spread before the spreader knew they had it. By adding a long fuse to its logic bomb, HP greatly increases the spread of its malware.

But life finds a way. $10,000/gallon ink is an irresistible target for tinkerers, security researchers and competitors. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the true parent of jaw-dropping ingenuity is callous, sadistic greed. That's why America's army of prisoners are the source of so many of the most beautiful and exciting forms of innovation seen today:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention

Despite harsh legal penalties and the vast resources of HP, third-party ink continues to thrive, and every time HP figures out how to block one technique, three even cooler ones pop up.

Last week, Jay Summet published a video tearing down a third-party ink cartridge compatible with an HP 61XL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

The third-party cartridge has what appears to be a genuine HP security chip, but it is overlaid with a paper-thin, flexible, adhesive-backed circuit board that is skinny enough that the cartridge still fits in an HP printer.

This flexible circuit board has its own little microchip. Summet theorizes that it is designed to pass the "are you a real HP cartridge" challenge pass to the security chip, but to block the followup "are you empty or full?" message. When the printer issues that challenge, the "man in the middle" chip answers, "Oh, I'm definitely full."

In their writeup, Hackaday identifies the chip as "a single IC in a QFN package." This is just so clever and delightful:

https://hackaday.com/2024/09/28/man-in-the-middle-pcb-unlocks-hp-ink-cartridges/

Hackaday also notes that HP CEO Enrique J Lores recently threatened to brick any printer discovered to be using third-party ink:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/

As William Gibson famously quipped, "the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." As our enshittification-rich environment drives more and more companies to evolve into rent-seeking enterprises through printerinisation, HP offers us a glimpse of the horrors of the late enshittocene.

It's just as Orwell prophesied: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a HP installing malware on your printer to force you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink – forever."

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Image: Jay Summet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ya184uaTE

[shieldfoss]

AI Artposting

(This covers everything AI does but right now but I'm on tumblr so we're talking art instead of software development or literature or...)

A brief history of the destruction of art careers

(1) The printing press

If your career was *the creation of books* ca. 1439, either as a scribe or as a person doing detail illustrations, printing undermined your career entirely. You could keep making money by doing things the printing press wasn't good at - bespoke illustration or books with very low production runs.

(2) Cameras.

If you are a traditional fine-arts artist - e.g. oil painter or water colors - then your *commercially viable standard career* was undermined by the black-and-white photograph and it was utterly destroyed by the color photograph. To make money here you have to employ skills a camera does not replace, e.g. composition or client relations management, or drawing things a camera *cannot* photograph because the subject does not exist - fantastic art, surrealism, charicature.

(3) Photoshop

You probably already know what photoshop does. Imagine doing all of that work *without* digital tools. Well, the people who did that for pay now don't do that for pay (though they might do the same - but with photoshop).

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

Intermission

Let me put down multiple bullet points about AI art, and then answer them with a single screenshot:

It is bad- It has no soul

It devalues human art

It takes no skill

It derives from human art with no compensation

It is unnecessary, you can learn to create art

Figure 1: Good ensouled valuable human art, created with high skill by people who learned in a vacuum without observing any other human art, that I could also learn to make.

End of intermission

\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-

(4) AI art

Man good luck. Truly. But making money off an art was hard before you AI, you were already competing with "Views Across The Cove Canvas Framed Art £4.99."

(And the internet made it easier for you to find customers, though it also made it easier for customers to find other artists that weren't you and worked for much cheaper because they were paying rent in Burundi).

If you already had a successful career creating art in the "ensouled human" sense, you probably still will - you probably never sold specifically due to high skill, that's been available for near-free since we were born. You sold due to other qualities - qualities AI probably doesn't replicate, and the people who use AI aren't looking for, so you wouldn't have sold to those people in the first place.

What I'm getting at

You have some ideas about art. They are your ideas and do not apply universally to humanity. You do not understand every human on earth, nor do you know what they want from pictures.

Like a buddy of mine, name withheld, who's very fascinated with AI art. He had human-made art on his walls before AIs got good. You know how much he paid you? Dollar Fuck-All. $0.00. Nothing. He found nice images on the internet and had them printed out.

Because he doesn't care what you think art is - he cares to have interesting things to look at on his walls.

[gayturians]

So what do you consider to be middle class in this day and age?

tbh i hate the term bc it feels like an old metric in a new century of capitalism. i think the middle class is far tinier than people want to say it is, but! people above that line are not immediately rich and people below it are not automatically poor. (it's why i was wordy with "not-poor-but-not-wealthy")

my view of middle class is financial stability. you have savings. rent and bills may pinch but you still have money to put back most paydays. if the water heater breaks, you fix it and replace what you spent in a few months.

a lot of people calling themselves middle class don't fit that description, and that's precisely my problem with it. a lot of people who think they're middle class aren't, and a lot of people who notice that difference think that's what poor looks like. i know people like this, who eventually have their "Oh." moment when they realize, oh wait, there's a basement under that rock bottom.

for example. i have three uncles, who all have wives and kids:

uncle 1: prison job. wife's a receptionist. they rent a modest home and sometimes struggle but always find a way. they once saddled my grandfather with minor debt they couldn't afford to pay off and bought five season passes to disneyworld the same year. wife thinks minimum wage should be lower because "lazy bums shouldn't get paid closer to what i do when i have a degree."

uncle 2: cop. (acab) wife's a stay-at-home mom. they were given a decent chunk of property and he can afford it. they've had medical bills that didn't crush them. she spent ten years calling us poor and disgusting.

uncle 3: software job. wife's a teacher. he built his own nice house. they never hurt for money. he is classist in every way you could imagine. he's the one to say you're poor because you don't budget, because you buy $50 work boots instead of $500 work boots that last longer.

my uncles would appear to be in different financial groups, but they are all middle class, and are prime examples of my post. They Could All Be Me One Day. someone would tell me to show solidarity with them (maybe not the cop) but where's the solidarity from them?

it's incredibly nuanced and i'm not trying to lash out from a place of "middle class people don't want or worry for anything, fuck you." i'm trying to speak constructively on the perspective of someone who is very poor and very angry, bc a lot of people talking about solidarity don't seem to realize or want to accept that in order to achieve that, you have to undo the harm caused by classist "not-poor" people.

it is not enough to preach solidarity at poor people. they cannot stand in solidarity with someone who does not want to be associated with them. that work needs to be done by the middle class first, and then you can try building something worthwhile.

[rogha]

I think a lot of subscription services would be doing a lot better if they were more flexible for people to build super custom packages for their needs. like especially software packages like Adobe - like you can get in touch and they’ll sort something out alledgedly but literally if they pushed even something like buy one get one half price without having to reach out I think they would find a lot of people who are like using one Would Get Another if it wasn��t so expensive and are getting by on something else or a moveable license where you can switch to a different software once every 28 days.

This transcription software i was recommended has a certain number of hours per month depending on the tier but allegedly you can get in touch to buy more hours? Like that is a better service. I am using the free version because the only thing I need this software to do is transcribe audio recordings but as soon as my hour for the month is up a window should pop-up directing me to where I can buy more time. I don’t need ten hours a month I need 4 hours every six all at once. I’m tired of looking through long lists of features per tier to see what Paid Tier Gets Me The Handful Of Features I Actually Want Plus A Million I Don’t.

Some of these companies are hoping I’ll use a free trial and forget to cancel so they can have 24 euro or whatever off me per month of my forgetfulness whereas if they were offering closed short term contracts or more personal packages they would have that 24 euro and also. some goodwill. like I don’t wanna jump through so many fucking hoops to use a software for one project and not pay for it for the rest of my life if we are renting these things at least let me say ‘hey I will give you 24 euro to use this for one month and after the month is over revoke my access.’

Maybe it’s all back end stuff and I’m not computer literate enough to understand that all this is far to complicated to execute on in reality and Celtx is actually three different softwares pretending instead of one in-browser software where features could be turned on and off for individual users depending on a personal package they build, but christ on a bike must i be fighting for my life for every single service.

And not to be working in customer service but quality service comes not just from individuals on the metaphorical/actual floor dealing with people but the policies and structures put in place to make accessing that service and that service meeting my actual needs as easy as possible.

[umflowers]

Invest in anything that may help you with homelessness, in case rent prices are among the prices that skyrocket. If you can afford it, ask your doctor about 90 day supplies instead of 30 day supplies on any of your medications and bank what you can. If you trust your doctor, ask if there's a way to get ahead. He's promised to put RFK Jr in charge of anything health-related. Get your vaccines. Get them now. Don't wait. Much as I hate to say it, take a page from the survivalism handbook. Canned food. Canned meat. Bank it, cuz regulations on food safety are about to go away. Research VPNs and pick one. If you can't afford it, there are free ones. I can't vouch for the security of any of them, but Windscribe has both a browser add-on and downloadable software (and a 2 GB/month data limit), SetupVPN has few domains but no data limit, uVPN, and UrbanVPN has an assload of domains and no data limit. I've been using all those ones for months. Do a deep dive on the privacy settings of your specific phone model and do what you can to protect yourself. Delete period tracking apps, many of which report data to people and organizations you don't want to have it. Turning in immigrants here illegally has always made you a cunt, but now it could really be a death sentence. Do not fucking do it. Keep. Your mouth. Shut. If you know someone had an abortion, no you don't. If you know someone's in a queer relationship, even if it's an affair, no you don't. If you know someone is intersex, no you don't. If it's someone else's business, it ain't your business - and it's not your info to spread, or even speak out loud. If there's something you think you should do before the shit hits the fan, do it. They will have control of the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court. The system of checks and balances is gone. Anyone who was going to defect and tell him to stop would have done so when Cheney and Kinzinger did, and they all saw those two lose their seats for doing the right thing. Moreover, we don't know if the system of government will exist, because this man is a despot openly planning to be a fascist dictator who has already used mass violence when he didn't get his way once. Do not treat other peoples' lives as gossip in a country where being who you are is now not remotely safe. Keep. Your mouth. Shut.

If by some miracle sweet potato Hitler doesn't win come the end of the week, this won't be necessary, but should he win here are some of the first things to be aware of or do.

If you know a trans person, no you don't. Respect them as best you can in private but you know nothing in public.

Be aware that TikTok will likely be banned, find new platforms to spread information. Fuck Twitter and what ever tiktok replacement he's working on.

Learn to Garden, even in winter so you can feed yourself should prices skyrocket

Get an air purifier. The Clean Air Act is likely to be stripped of its power with the EPA deregulated, air quality is going to suffer

Should you have kids, try to supplement history/social studies education. That's the first place they will attack, if you need help ask, history teacher will help

Try and do what you can to be aware of your health before January.

Help one another. That's the best way we can move forward and make change in the future.

[fatcatluver69]

i will have a meltdown about my life once every couple of months and i just had one because why the fuck didn't i listen to gut when it came to career choice? why didn't i just go into biology like real wildlife biology instead of fucking medicine just because my dad said i had to I HATE MEDICINE and now i'm spiralling because i'm sick of my current job and can't do a lesser paying job that might make me happier because of all the fucking debt i have from pharmacy school and rent prices going up so now i'm forcing myself to go to school part time for computer science only to find out that there are like no comp sci jobs right now and something something ai scare with the ai software dev called devin I JUST CAN'T DO IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO

ok yeah that's about it lol

[jade-curtiss]

It's always weird how we're constantly under the pressure that every single of our responsibilities must be accomplished the moment you conceptualize them, because what happens if those requires governmental documents, hm, that just can't work like this. No instead they have to send things to a wrong address for virtually no real reason (it was officialized last year with confirmation and all) and unless everything is in the perfect order. Not out of perfectionism, but like here's the thing: they're allowed to fuck up, normal regular citizens no, that's totally fair. So I sort of have to wait until Monday to sort out something that should have been done a month ago, but, that wasn't because I didn't do my part of the deal. The problem is I know it's always like that, always, but it's so stressful, if it wouldn't have been that I had some money on the side. That wasn't disposable, but anyways, it really piss me off (and it's like what, enough for like...3 months if I hermit and cut on food, like just enough for rent, and bills arent't a thing that really exist in my life (services and utilities? Other than the internet connection we split and unfortunately some softwares I don't really...piracy doesn't work out in every circumstances 😔 otherwise no one would be paying for that shit, like unless there's a real context it's not exactly like paying to help out some software developer not to starve, really, especially since so many do open source and freeware for semi-equivalent stuff, but technically it pays itself in profit, but not right now because medical leave 🫠...

[boredomstrides]

Ok, so here’s some more Takemi Moore, because they are spinning in my brain at a thousand rotations per second.

Security Cam #521-3, 2070, Midday

 Person Identified. Mid 20s, Overweight, Black Hair, Traits indicate three possible SINs. Takemi Moore, Milly Tae, Laineey Ngo. Result: 92% probability Milly Tae. Individual begins using spray paint on wall of apartment complex C-142. Man identified as Lenny Henson, owner of apartment complex C-142, approaches Mx. Tae. Transcription below.

 Henson: So, what’s it supposed to mean?

Tae: Huh?

Henson: The graffiti? Lotsa eyes an’ everything. Let me guess, a critique on the surveillance state?

Tae: Uhhh… yeah, let’s go with that!

Henson: Y’know, you could just tag your streetname everywhere instead of taking all the effort to make this. It’ll be gone by next week.

Tae: I mean, I guess, but that’s boring. Besides, only nicknames I’ve got have bad memories attached or are some username from some game I was obsessed with back in the arcology.

Henson: Yeah, yeah, so when are you paying rent?

Tae: Depends. When are you giving me some work to do? And don’t you dare give me another job about some dipshit office drone going to the most suspicious parts of the Matrix for some porn and catching a million viruses.

Henson: What, you think this old man still knows anyone with skin in the game?

Tae: I don’t know, Old Man, do you?

Silence for approximately 10 seconds. Both identified individuals begin laughing.

Henson: Believe it or not, you little shit, I do know someone who could use a hacker on their crew!

Tae: Alright. And this is a proper Run this time, right?

Henson: Yeah, yeah, and don’t worry, I ain’t giving you a suicide mission. Yet. Just remember to keep your head down, yeah? I’m not helping you if the cops come marching in.

Tae: Old Man, I’m not stupid! In and out, easy! Nothing I… can’t……

Tae begins staring off into space, looking off as though someone else is talking to them. Henson snaps their fingers until Tae returns to form.

Henson: Hey! Are you listening to me?! Hey, kid!

Tae: …Huh?

Henson: You can’t be doing that either! Drift off like that, and it’ll cost a Runner their life!

Tae: Yeah, sorry. Just, send me the address, alright? I’ll get my shit sorted out before I go in.

 *******///////////////****/??????>>>>>>>{{{{}{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} ERROR{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} ERROR/////////////////////*********************************

 A trap waiting to be sprung, my Courier finds the recording.

“Thank you, Courier. Hang on a moment, you have one more task to complete.” The bird of inky black watches curiously, as I take the strand of recording into my hands. My fingers are knives, made to cut the finest of data into nothing, and so I splice the recording, and rip away any audio. I’ll need to add some idiosyncrasies to my SIN, make it look false enough that any recording software automatically goes to a false SIN. For now, though…

“Put this back in, exactly where you cut the original file from. You can decompile from there. Thank you.” The beast stares at me for a moment, malforming itself around the new recording and nodding, before flying back to that little node of reasoning in this miasma of missed calls and worthless data. It… what was the term one of those folks on the forum used? I can only assume that this is resonance, but it feels wrong. Building up like a cancer does. To perceive it as anything more than an endless bog of tar would drive me insane… More insane than I am.

Don’t have time to worry about any of this. A few hours until I meet up with this crew. And I need to figure out a street name. And if I should gray out this hoodie or put a design on it. And goddamn if this fucking headache would stop buzzing in my ears!

 -------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------

Security Cam #521-3, 2070, Midday

 Person Identified. Mid 20s, Overweight, Black Hair. Traits indicate two possible SINs. Milly Tae, Laineey Ngo. Result: 98% probability Milly Tae. Individual begins using spray paint on wall of apartment complex C-142.

Person Identified. Owner of apartment complex C-142, Lenny Henson, passes by. Uncharacteristic lack of investigation noted.

END LOG.

[wuggen]

Like, okay, some quick math using slightly fudged numbers. I made somewhere in the neighborhood of $23000 last year. If that were wages from an employer, without even scrounging for any fancy deductions or credits or anything I could just kinda take out the standard deduction ($14600 for filing single) and have $8400 of taxable income, which puts me solidly in the 10% tax bracket for a total tax obligation of $840.

But it wasn't wages, it was all non-employee contract payments. Which means I have to pay self-employment tax on it. Which is a flat ~14% (details elided) on the entirety of that 23000. I can take out business expenses; claim business use of my home so I can deduct portions of my rent and utilities payments, do some depreciation calculations on my laptop and desktop and stuff, and that knocks maybe a thousand or so off of the net earnings before that 14% is applied, (I'm a software developer, there's not a whole lot of business expenses :P), but that's still $3080 of self-employment tax.

And that's on top of the normal income tax that I still have to pay on the same money! Like, being self-employed means I can deduct a lot more for that; I can still do the standard deduction (23000 - 14600 = 8400), and also take out half of the self-employment tax (8400 - 3080/2 = 6860), and health insurance premiums (6860 - 4000 = 2860), and there's the fuckin ✨Qualified Business Income Deduction✨ that I can take cuz I didn't make all that much self-employment income (it's a whole involved calculation but it comes out to only like $400 in my case, 2860 - 400 = 2460), so I have an income-taxable income of $2460 and owe $246 alongside the self-employment tax.

All told, $3326 of tax obligation. Without changing the actual amount of income, earning it as an independent individual instead of as an employee of a company carries quadruple the tax obligation, unless I wanna get exorbitantly dubious (to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars!!!) about the kinda shit I claim for business expenses. Absolutely fucked.

It seems really fucked how much more you have to pay in taxes in the US if you're an individual making money independently instead of being paid by an employer

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bill Gates will kill us all

2.5b people in Earth's 130 poorest countries have not been vaccinated. The 85 poorest countries won't be vaccinated until 2023. The humanitarian cost is unforgivable - and self-defeating, as each infected person is a potential source of new strains.

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-5-february-2021

How the actual fuck did this happen?

What happened to the early pledges by governments, the WHO, public health experts and leading research institutions to create global cooperation in vaccine development, eschewing patents and secrecy so that we could rescue our species?

That dream was smashed.

Many people helped create our vaccine apartheid, the single individual who did the most to get us here is Bill Gates, through his highly ideological "philanthropic" foundation, which exists to push his pitiless doctrine of unfettered monopoly.

It was Gates who sabotaged the WHO Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), replacing it with his failed ACT-Accelerator, a system of patents and secrecy and vast profits for the pharma industry, ornamented with nonbinding, failed promises of access for poor nations.

It was Gates who convinced Oxford to renege on its promise of patent-free access to its publicly funded vaccine research for the global south in favor of exclusive patent access for Astrazeneca.

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

When we hear ghoul sellouts like Howard Dean pushing the racist, genocidal lie that "patents don't matter" because brown people in poor countries can't make vaccines, we're hearing Gates's talking points:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#the-scream

Gates's role in vaccine apartheid is laid out in exquisite detail in Alexander Zaitchik's outstanding New Republic feature, which delves into Gates's longstanding project to sideline democratic governments and cooperation in favor of monopoly tyranny.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

This goes way, way back. I mean, *waaaay* back, all the way to 1976, when Gates wrote his infamous "Open Letter to Hobbyists," decrying the dominant, cooperative mode of software development and calling its practitioners thieves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Gates's fortune depended on creating a software monopoly, and that monopoly required "intellectual property" protection. Gates has always been a monopolist, and so naturally, he loves IP (before "IP" was a common term, copyrights and patents were called "monopolies").

Intellectual property is a very important part of the inequality story, the story of how we got to a world where billions of people are denied vaccines and where all people face new, more virulent strains as a result.

As UNCTAD chief economist Richard Kozul-Wright told Lynn Fries for GPE: "[IP allows companies] to grab a larger share of what has already been produced in the economy."

It's a means of extracting rents, not for doing things, but for OWNING things.

IP is key to tax avoidance: companies like Ikea transfer "IP" (the Ikea trademark) to a numbered company in a tax haven; each national Ikea subsidiary pays "licensing fees" for the trademark equal to 100% of their in-country profits, so they never earn a (taxable) cent.

The transformation of the world into a monopolized system of IP-heavy, rent-extracting, tax-dodging companies really kicked into gear after 1999, with the signing of the WTO agreement and its IP adjunct, the TRIPPS, and as Zaitchik details, Gates was instrumental there.

For this part of the story, Zaitchik talks to Jamie Love, who was at the UN when NGOs like his were pushing to create vaccine and other pharma pools for the global south, while pharma companies handed out pamphlets bearing the Gates Foundation logo, smearing the plan.

Though the US delegation struggled for credibility, the combination of the Gates Foundation, and former US trade officials fronting for  the global pharma industry managed to sideline the project, which was being driven by the demand for equitable access to AIDS drugs.

With Gates's help, the WTO emerged as an IP enforcement powerhouse. Zaitchik cites Dylan Mohan Gray: "it took Washington 40 years to threaten apartheid South Africa with sanctions and less than four to threaten the post-apartheid Mandela government over AIDS drugs."

Incredibly, the Gates Foundation used this to burnish its humanitarian image: they solicited donations from pharma companies and used them to subsidize AIDS drugs in the global south, a maneuver that let them seem like philanthropists.

When in reality, they had overseen a program to systematically deny the world's poorest and most threatened people the right to make their own drugs, making them dependent on the whims of multinational corporate charity instead.

Sound familiar? Today, Gates runs around repeating the lie that poor people can't make their own medicine,  saying that patent exemptions won't make a difference now - to the extent he's right, the world *now* is the crucial one.

Having sabotaged the efforts by poor countries to engage in the kind of production ramp-up the rich world saw as vaccines were being developed, it may *now* be too late. "Because of my bad ideas *then*, it's too late *now*."

The connection between IP and elite philanthropy is deep and important. IP's rent-seeking and tax-dodging has made poor countries beholden to offshore monopolists in health, agriculture and IT, and then starved them of taxes to build up domestic alternatives.

This, in turn, makes them dependent on "gifts" from the billionaires who arm-twisted them into IP treaties, forced them to pay rent on all domestic production, and then profit-shifted the funds out of the reach of their tax-collectors.

As Anand Giridharadas reminded us in his seminal "Winners Take All," the core purpose of elite philanthropy has been the same since the robber-baron era: to burnish the reputations of monsters who take everything and give back crumbs.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/10/winners-take-all-modern-philanthropy-means-that-giving-some-away-is-more-important-than-how-you-got-it/

Reading Jamie Love's quotes in Zaitchik's article reminded me of my own time working with Jamie and Knowledge Ecology International at WIPO in Geneva, when I was an NGO delegate to a global DRM treaty.

You see, at WIPO, the vast majority of NGOs aren't human rights organizations or other public interest groups - they're industry associations representing tech, entertainment, broadcast and pharma monopolists.

These guys - almost all guys - were just aghast when real NGOs started showing up for these meetings and were absolutely shameless in their sabotage of our efforts to balance their corporate lies (absolutely bald-faced lies were routinely entered into the debates).

How petty? Well, they had been accustomed to writing up "fact-sheets" for the day's debate and handing them off to WIPO staffers working for the secretariat, who would photocopy them and set them out on literature tables for the national delegates.

So we started doing this too: we'd take careful notes on the day's debates, convene with global experts to debunk industry association lies, get our Indymedia friends to translate them into six languages, and hand them off to the secretariat in the morning for copying.

So they got the secretariat - a former US textiles negotiator who made her bones helping create the conditions for slave labor in places like Bangladesh - to end the practice of photocopying papers for all NGOs.

Of course the industry bodies had cushy offices in Geneva, whereas we stayed in flophouses and youth hostels. They could ask their underlings to come in early and do their copying for them, whereas we had to take a bus to the all-night copy-shop to get our handouts copied.

Here's where it gets super-weird: our handouts started to go missing. We'd set out our stacks of paper on the literature tables before the morning session and an hour later, they'd all be gone, but none of the delegates had managed to get a copy.

We found those missing handouts...in the garbage, behind potted plants and in the *toilets*.

No, seriously.

And here's the kicker: during the ensuing furore, the main response from the pharma lobbyists was to object to us calling ourselves "public interest NGOs."

I'll never forget this smarmy sociopath in his expensive suit, with his shit-eating grin, standing there saying, "Phamaceuticals serve the public interest, and our industry association is a nonprofit. We are a non-profit, public-interest NGO."

It was a remarkable sight. 20 years later, their version of the public interest - the doctrine of Gates - has produced a multi-billion-person reservoir of the sick and vulnerable who are doomed to serve as factories for highly virulent variants.

This is a literally genocidal doctrine, and it threatens our very civilization. It's a funny kind of non-profit, public interest move for an industry and its billionaire ideologue funders to have made.

But hey, at least no one's "intellectual property" took a hit.

[froggibus]

Caught Wet Handed - Cypher

Pairing: Cypher x f! reader

Genre: smut/NSFW

Word Count: 2.8k

Summary: cypher catches you sexting someone else, and his jealousy tips him over the edge

CW: porn with plot, dom! cypher, sub! reader, sexting, cypher being a creep, touch starved! reader, voyeurism, degradation, sir kink, praise, choking, spanking, biting, brat! reader, use of slut/good girl/sweetheart/baby, oral (m! receiving), face fucking, facial, slight overstim, unprotected sex, creampie, finger sucking, fingering, slight dumbification(??)

i think i covered everything but if i missed something lmk!

dear god what have i done...this is quite literally the filthiest thing ive written in a long time lmfao. also im new to the val fandom so pls tell me if i got anything wrong! also thank you to my bsf @l0serloki for helping me w some of the details i didn't know! enjoy <3

————

After a long mission, all you needed was to cum. 

You’d been pent up all day. Brimstone had sent you and Cypher on a mission, and something about the Moroccan man was driving you crazy. The two of you had barely interacted and touched even less—maybe a tap on the shoulder to gain your attention—but that’s all it took to have him living in your head rent free.

As soon as you enter the base, you’re already tugging off all of your armor. It’s late, most of the agents have already retreated to their rooms, but you don’t bother to be quiet. You make it to your room with half of your gear already off, tossing it into a pile in the corner and making quick work of the rest of your clothes.

As soon as you’re completely undressed, you’re throwing yourself into your bed and grabbing your phone off of your nightstand. As much as you wish you could be fucking Cypher, you know the man is much too withdrawn for that. So, you go to the next best thing: the old Tinder date you still have added on Snapchat.

You send him a selfie of your jaw and bare collarbones, captioned only with a question mark. He answers within seconds, sending a picture of his bare abs with his gray sweatpants just barely in the frame. 

You take that as a yes, and move the camera lower to the tops of your tits. He sends back a picture of him grabbing the bulge in his pants and that’s all you need to get started. You trail your hand down between your legs, rubbing your wet clit. You send him a picture of you touching yourself, receiving a video of him starting to stroke himself in return.

You pull your wet fingers out of your cunt and send him a video of you licking them clean. You put your phone down for a minute to focus on working yourself open, using your other hand to pinch and twist your nipples. You can’t help but picture they were Cypher’s hands instead, though.

Cypher leans back in his desk chair, doing his nightly routine that consists of checking the internet for anything on the other agents. He’s done that pretty quickly, though, and his mind is sent wandering to the mission earlier. You looked so pretty, and the way you shrunk when he tapped your shoulder? The images that flooded his mind afterwards were enough to keep him satisfied for weeks.

He hovers his hand over the mouse, tempted to check on you. Cypher had tapped the phones of all of the agents, with the excuse that it was to track it in case something ever happened. And that was true, for the most part. 

Except when it came to you. He couldn’t help but check on you every once and a while. It was never anything too far—just doxxing the anonymous man who dm’d you a dick pic without your permission, or smiling at the cute conversations you have with your friends.

His impulses get the best of him and he finds himself clicking on the software that lets him see your screen. He expects it to be black, you fast asleep just down the hall from him. He’s gravely mistaken when the application loads and you’re on Snapchat, completely naked and posing for the camera.

His cock twitches in his pants at the sight and he stares for a few seconds before he remembers he should look away. He does, but only for a second until his eyes drift back to your naked form on their own. 

It’s only then that he realizes you’re sexting someone. He scoffs when the man sends you back a video. Cypher is much bigger, and he just knows he can fuck you better than the man you have saved as ‘Tinder Douchebag’ in your phone.

Jealousy bubbles up inside him when you send him back a video of you fingering yourself furiously with the caption: I want you to fuck me so bad! Cypher doesn’t even know what he’s doing until he’s stomping down the hallway, headed for your room.

You freeze in your tracks and drop your phone when Cypher bursts through your door. You’re so shocked by the sight of the masked man that you don’t even cover up. He’s only wearing track pants and a t-shirt with his mask now and you wonder if he was about to go to bed.

Finally, you come to your senses and manage to tug your comforter over your naked body. “Cypher? What are you doing?”

Your face heats up. How much did he see? What was he even doing here? Sweat beads roll down your temples and you try to keep a straight face.

“What are you doing, y/n?”

“I-I was about to go to bed.”

He shuts the door and locks it behind him. “Don’t lie, y/n. I know you were sexting that Tinder guy on Snapchat.”

“How did you—did you tap my phone?”

He approaches you, only inches away now. You can see the bulge in his pants, and despite the awkwardness of the situation, your cunt gushes onto your sheets. 

He grasps your chin tightly. “Did I turn you on during our mission earlier? Were you thinking of me fucking you while you sent naughty pictures to another man?”

You say nothing, but Cypher knows that he hit the mark based on the look on your face. He can’t help but smirk, only getting more and more turned on.

“What a slut,” he laughs cruelly. “Too shy to ask for a real man so you turn to that idiot?”

The lightbulb in your head turns on at his words, and it's your turn to smile. “You jealous, Cyph?”

He snaps, hand moving from your jaw down to your throat. He squeezes gently, not enough to even restrict your airflow, but just enough to make you wary. You look up at him through wide eyes and wonder if you should be as turned on by him choking you as you are. 

He moves down to whisper in your ear, “do you want me to fuck you or not, y/n?”

You nod eagerly.

“That’s what I thought,” he releases his grasp on your neck. “Then shut up and be a good girl, okay?”

“Yes, Cypher.”

He shakes his head. “That’s sir to you.”

“Yes sir.” This pleases him, and he rewards you by ripping the blanket off of your body. The blood rushes to his cock at the sight of you—nipples hard and sensitive, thighs trembling and coated in your slick.

He dips his fingers in between your legs. They come back glistening, only egging him on. He pushes the bottom of his mask up so that he can taste your juices, licking his fingers clean.

You sit perfectly still, in awe of the man in front of you. This is the most you’ve ever seen of him and you want to savor it all. 

He moans, “you taste so good, baby.”

The sight of him sucking your arousal off of his fingers is enough to make you lightheaded, a fever settling over you. Cypher keeps part of his mask flipped up, leaning in to kiss you. His lips are soft against yours and he wastes no time in shoving his tongue into your mouth.

You grab onto his arms, trying to ground yourself despite the way your head is spinning right now. He pulls back, a trail of saliva connecting your mouth to his. He leans in again but connects his lips to your neck this time, biting you. 

You whine at the pain which only pushes him further. He kisses down your neck, making his way to your collarbone. He bites you just above it and you can feel him smirk against your neck.

“You better not cover these up,” he mumbles, mouth moving farther down your body. “I want everyone to know what a slut you are for me.”

You can only moan at his words when he makes his way to your sensitive tits. Your nipples are already swollen from your earlier treatment, so when Cypher smacks his hand against your tits, the feeling overwhelms you.

“F-fuck, sir—I’m really sensitive right now!”

“Aw, do you want me to kiss it better?”

He doesn’t give you a chance to respond before his wet mouth is on your aching nipples, giving them each a wet kiss. You sigh in relief when the cool air hits the wet spots he left behind. The relief is sweet but brief. 

Cypher grazes his teeth across your nipple. It stings, forcing a whimper from your lips. “You’re so pathetic,” he bites your nipple again. 

“I-I—“ you whine, unable to form a full sentence. 

“I-I-I,” he mocks you, slipping one of his hands between your legs. 

He rolls your clit between his index finger and thumb, gathering your juices on his fingertips. He slips a finger inside of you, pumping it in and out of you a few times before adding a second. His fingers move expertly inside you—curling into your walls to press against your sweet spot.

You can feel yourself getting close, walls tightening on his fingers. You try to stay still but your thighs clench on his hand without you trying. Cypher just shakes his head at you and forces your legs open with his other hand.

“I’m gonna cum—”

Cypher slips a third finger in and speeds up. You squeeze your eyes shut and arch your back, forcing your cunt farther onto his fingers. He scissors them inside of you, spreading your gummy walls farther apart. It’s more than enough to send you over the edge.

You cum with a scream, walls spasming around his fingers. Your legs are shaking, chest heaving with every breath. Cypher could cum on the sight of you writhing below him alone.

He pulls his fingers out of your pussy and forces them past your lips. Your head feels fuzzy, but you still manage to pop them into your mouth and suck them clean. Your mouth is soft and warm, and Cypher wants nothing more than to replace his hand with his cock.

He rushes to undo his pants, tossing them to the side. His boxers are bulging, straining under the pressure of his hard cock. He pulls them down slowly, making eye contact with you the whole time. 

His cock springs out of his boxers, coated in pre cum. The sight makes your mouth water around his fingers. Cypher tugs them from your mouth and wipes your spit onto your swollen nipples.

He grabs your hair and yanks your head so that you’re level with his throbbing length. “It’s not going to suck itself, sweetheart.”

You kneel forwards on the bed wrapping your hands around his cock. It’s long and smooth, the tip red and dripping with precum. You stick out your tongue and lick a bead off of his tip. You slowly lick up his shaft, making eye contact with him while you do so.

He throws his head back, moaning. He tugs on your hair and thrusts his hips forehead, the head of his cock pushing past your lips into your warm mouth. You open your mouth wider to take more of him in. He tastes salty but it's addicting—you want to suck every drop of his cum out of his balls.

You bob your head up and down, hollowing your cheeks to apply more pressure to his cock. You use one hand to squeeze whatever you can’t fit in your mouth and use the other to cup his balls. 

He shivers from the sensitivity, his dominant side melting away for a brief second. “F-fuck,” he clutches the back of your head to force more of himself down your throat, “I always knew you’d be good at this.”

He tangles his hands in your hair and uses it as leverage to start fucking your face. You don’t fight back, instead, you move your hands to his thighs, squeezing them to take as much of him as possible. He pulls away for a second, letting you catch your breath, before slamming his cock back down your throat.

“Fucking slut, so desperate for my cum.”

You hum in agreement through his cock, the vibrations sending shockwaves of pleasure through him. That’s all it takes to send him over the edge.

He gives you no warning that he’s cumming, just shooting his salty seed into your mouth. He jerks himself off, pulling himself out and shooting some onto your lips and chin. The milky substance drips down your chin and coats the tops of your tits. 

Cypher makes a mental note to check the camera in your room later to save this image.

He grabs your hips and tosses you onto your stomach, making you stick your ass up in the air. “Are you gonna be a good girl and let me fuck your sweet little pussy?”

“Y-yes sir!”

Cypher teases his throbbing cockhead, plunging it through your folds. Your pussy is gushing, making a mess of his cock and your sheets below it. He hits his tip against your clit. You try to move your hips against him, desperate for him to be inside of you.

Cypher doesn’t like this, though, and smacks your ass hard. “Have some patience, slut.”

Your butt stings from where he hit you, skin burning. You try not to move and let him continue teasing, rubbing his cock up and down your soaking pussy. He dips the head in every once and a while, making you think he’s going to fuck you, before going back up to your clit.

Finally, Cypher rams his cock into you. He feels much bigger when he’s inside of you, his cock reaching spots that your toys and fingers could never. You scream out but Cypher reaches around and covers your mouth with his hands.

He uses his hands as leverage to keep fucking into you, cock ramming inside of you and balls slapping your clit with every thrust. “You’re so wet,” he grunts, “your pussy takes me so well.”

You whimper into his hands, reaching one of your own to rub your clit. Cypher is unrelenting with his pace—forcing his cock harder and harder inside of you with every thrust. He smacks your ass again and smirks at the way it jiggles from the momentum.

“It’s like you were made for me, sweetheart.” 

Your cunt gushes at that, telling Cypher exactly how you feel about his praise. He speeds up, both of you nearing your finish. You can feel his cock twitching against your tightening walls and now it's just a matter of who’s going to finish first.

He smacks your ass once more and you finally reach your peak. You collapse onto the bed, body too weak from your orgasm to keep yourself up any longer. Cypher thrusts once more, before cumming inside of you. You can feel his hot cum fill you up and drip out of your aching pussy, further ruining your sheets.

You’re panting, covered in sweat, cum and spit, face down on the mattress. Cypher has pulled out, letting himself collapse on the bed next to you.

He reaches out, wrapping an arm around your waist and flipping you onto your side so that you can breathe easier. “How are you feeling?” His tone is gentle now, the dominant edge completely gone.

“G-good,” your voice is raspy, throat still aching from his harsh fucking. 

“Was I too rough?” You shake your head, eyes fluttering closed. You’re exhausted, your whole body sore. He reaches out and pets your cheek, brushing away the strands of hair that’s been matted to your face with sweat.

“Y/n,” he mumbles.

“Hm?”

“I-I like you a lot…and I don’t want you to have sex with anyone else.” That’s enough to make you open your eyes. “You—you do?”

He nods, cheeks slightly red. You’re in pure shock at how he can go from dominant to adorable so quickly.

“I want you to be my girlfriend.”

Your head spins but you manage to mumble out a yes.

 Cypher just laughs at how sleepy you are, planting a quick kiss on your forehead. “We’ll talk about it more in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.” You nod, eyes fluttering shut again, “Cypher?’

“Yes?”

“Can I sleep in your bed? We kinda made a mess out of mine…”

“Of course,” he chuckles.

Cypher pulls on his pants and tugs his earlier t-shirt over your shivering figure. He lifts you into his strong arms, head laid against his bare chest, and he carries you to his bedroom.

masterlist

[bluebellthesponge]

how i sleep knowing i don’t use expensive adobe products where i have to rent out products for the rest of my life and instead use free software that can do the job just as good without selling all my earthly possessions

also adobe supports nfts so fuck you adobe

[deepseasmetro]

wait hold on lmao i reblogged this bc i thought it was somebody here to agrer with me and you (mostly) did only to end with....um. fuck you! thats really cool and awesome. you obviously understand then that generative art isnt fucking "theft" and the issues are more complex than that! so im not sure why youve decided to be a cunt to somebody who agrees with you who you dont know fucking anything about, and assumed a fucking lot from by seeing a single post where i make fun of people being concerned about ART THEFT instead of LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE. like the slave labor used to train it. or the facial recognition software. or the rent control.

fuck YOU! read better next time, asshole!

when the """anti-AI""" crowds arguments havent literally changed at all over the course of, what, 1-2 years? it becomes very obvious that nobody is really interested in, idk, using their critical thinking skills to understand generative art, how it works, what workflows look like, etc - they are interested in how it makes them feel and it makes them feel bad so. obviously its Bad! yeah its not theft but it feeeels like theft, okay? i know you didnt really murder me, you just called me a bitch, but it feels like murder, okay? why does precision of language matter! all that matters is my own feelings, which i will also not investigate at all and just assume are right and correct :)

[itsbenedict]

taking a week off last week reminded me how great it is to not be beholden to a job most of the time- being able to meaningfully plan my day and use my productive energy for things i care about was a feeling i hadn't felt in ages, and i desperately want it back.

job is where money come from, though, and... it's really pretty fucked up how much money is necessary to live reasonably comfortably in a city with public transportation. i'm making $100k/year right now, which feels like a ridiculous amount of money- more than i've ever made, more than most people i know have ever made, and- you'd think- way more than i need. living at my parents' house for cheap, with monthly expenses around $400, i could live for 20 years on the amount of money i make in one year. (...except half of that goes to taxes and paying for my share of "benefits" i don't use, so more like ten years. still.)

but i don't need ten years of living per year! i need one year of living per year, maybe a little more for retirement and/or cryo. but there is no arrangement where i do one-tenth as much work for one-tenth as much money! the job that needs to be done needs to be done all the time, and it only costs that much to do it because wages are a function of competition between labor and not a function of how much value is produced, and programming is not a common skill.

...but i make ten years of living per year paying $245/mo in rent, instead of paying somethousand bucks/mo for the privilege of having a place to live and being able to go to other places also. i do need to be making about this much money to live decently, in my own house, and that's...

...it feels ridiculous, the way wages are a function of competition for jobs and also cost of living is a function of competition for living in a place people want to live, so how much money i have and how much money i have to give away is just totally disconnected from the value i'm producing and the cost of me occupying a building. it's madness! i make an obscene pile of money for no good reason, and i have to give away most of it because all the places to live are already owned by other people who can get away with charging thousands of dollars for doing jack nothing, because they own property nearby lots of other people who are creating value!

...and maybe that's poetic justice, because it's hard to believe writing middleware to connect someone's HR recordkeeping software to a website that offers legally-mandated dumb-as-rocks corporate "training" videos to comply with ill-conceived regulations is creating $100,000 of value a year no matter how many people are being forced to use it. oh, 70,000 people can now watch a video about Ethics in the Workplace that explains to you that "if something makes you feel embarrassed, it's probably the wrong thing to do"? great, wow, incredible, what a fucking gift i've given to the world

...it's like 2am and i've completely lost the plot. let me start over.

[theshopislocal]

Dear Devs of software tools for artists/writers/musicians/etc,

Subscription plans are garbage and you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. 

And stop fucking pretending like you’re doing it for our benefit, you greedy bitches, you’re clearly fucking not. If the goal was to make your product cheaper so that us poors can access it, you’d have either (1) lowered the price and taken a pay cut, or (2) offered a payment plan that lets users pay off your ludicrous asking price over six months/a year/two years, whatever. But nooo, that’s not what you’re doing. Instead, you’ve decided that a better solution is to have us rent your software for the rest of our natural lives, at which point you’ll have made twenty times a fair asking price for it.

AND. The excuses are hilarious. “Well, you’re using the product, so why shouldn’t you be paying for it?” Bitch, I’m using the chair I’m sitting in right now too, what’s your fucking point?? I paid for it already (actually technically I stole this one from work, but for argument’s sake), and if it conks out on me, I’ll buy (um, steal) another. That’s how it goes for every other tool that exists, why should software be any different?

Because you’re fucking greedy, that’s why.

Another favorite of mine: “Well, we’re updating the software all the time to make it better for you!” Lol, no. Even if that’s true (which it often isn’t; lord knows you guys love to call bugs ‘features’ and add in shit that no one asked for), I don’t fucking want that. I wanna buy (not rent) this software because it does precisely what I need already; I’m not gonna pay you to make it do stuff I didn’t want or need.

Now, if you’re a dev working on a project currently in beta and you have a roadmap you’re chugging along with plans of a full release at a specific date in the near future, I’m happy to support you. You want $8/month from me for the next two years, while you get it finished up and ready to sell for a flat fee of, idk, $75? I’m glad to do that.

What I’m NOT going to do is literally pay you money forever to use a tool you made. You don’t see carpenters paying rent on a hammer for the rest of their lives. And the fact that y’all thought this was a “good solution”, even having seen empirically the way that paying rent causes a constant stress on people that never goes away, even knowing that the average starving artist is, well, starving...

Y’all can eat a dick.