I reread the narcissist thing and I’m really not sure what you mean then. Are you calling the Brave CEO a narcissist?

I was referring to a theoretical corporate defence version of the narcissists prayer and was again bitten by my ridiculous expectation that meme/reference knowledge is universal

Specifically your defence of brave sounded to me like this slightly altered version of that prayer

That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not their fault.
And if it was, they didn’t mean it.

I wasn’t trying to imply you are they were narcissists, only that your reply sounded a lot like that prayer.

I wasn’t sure if you were referring to either or both, so I responded to both versions of what you could mean by that. Based in your last comment I have a feeling I didn’t hear something recent about them, as far as I know everyone still likes them.

ah, again, with my assumptions:

TL;DR; A mullvad founder donated a large amount of money to what is largely considered to be a right wing political party

Here’s a small selection links, should be easy to search once you know what to look for:

Note, there is obviously bias and opinions here, have a look in to the actual details yourself for a full picture.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4

I do see a pattern, which is why I said I don’t fully trust them …etc

I agree with all of that up to this part:

Brave I trust a little less, but I see them in a similar way: often trying to find a crackpot method to make money off their product so they can stick around.

If their crackpot experiments are at the expense of the things i care about i’m out, but that’s a personal opinion, not a universal viewpoint.

I can’t say I’m a fan of their CEO. Then again, I can’t say I particularly like any CEO of any company,…etc

Again, all reasonable takes up to the end part:

I’m forced to pay Microsoft for licenses and support at work, and that bothers my conscience more than using a free browser by a guy who didn’t support gay marriage in 2014 before it went through federally, like just about everyone I grew up with, most of whom have since gotten over themselves. Not saying it’s OK or right, just noting that was at least half of Americans back then.

“He’s not as bad as musk and gates, plus everyone of that generation was like that” sounds a lot like an excuse, even if you specifically state that it isn’t.

I agree with your assessment that Firefox used to be the default good option and get steadily worse every day. …etc

Agreed

Does this make Firefox a stupid option that I’d criticize people for using? No. It is still one of the best options we ha…etc

Again, agreed, until the end.

“I’m gonna do it anyway” VS “Hey guys what about this?” “WTAF were you thinking Brave?” “Oh, sorry…”

That’s entirely glossing over the nature of the sketchy shit being pulled.

As we said mozilla are just stacking those shitty decisions like they were bricks of gold.

but they haven’t done anything even remotely a sketchy as :

• Referral injection/affiliate jacking
• Replacing ads with their own
• This

Presenting it like they are doing comparable things is disingenuous at best.

Not strictly, there are usualy hurdles to overcome for home usage of datacentre tech, but it’s possible.

An easy example that comes to mind is that the datacentre GPU’s might have cooling configurations that rely on a large amount of airflow from the surrounding cabinet, which you’ll get in a datacentre, but not so much in a personal tower.

Also, noise, in a datacentre, noise is much less of an issue than in a personal computer, so they can eschew noise reduction in favour of performance.

Many people that live near data-centres would disagree, but i mean strictly from a usage point of view, not a broader community perspective.

edit: well shit, i just realised i used a meme/reference that might have been mistaken for me specifically implying an economic reason not to use mullvad.

That’s my bad for assuming universal meme knowledge.

<X>, in this economy? was predominantly used to reference economic reasons to not doing something, it has broadened in scope to encompass the idea that the proceeding statement is nonsensical in general (not just for economic reasons)

So “mullvad, in this economy ?” roughly translates to “mullvad is a questionable choice in this current (specific or general) context”

What a strange comment. Can’t say I’ve ever been called a narcissist for recommending privacy browsers before.

No one was calling you a narcissist, read it again.

Mullvad is pretty much the most trusted VPN provider. If you don’t want to pay for a VPN, don’t. I explicitly mentioned it is still a good privacy by default Firefox based browser without the bloat of Firefox.

And my comment had nothing to do with its technical competence (nor it’s economic impact, see note at the top)

Have you really not seen any stories related to mullvad recently?

Sure, let’s go through your list, why not.

Not my list, a list.

And all of those explanations are the handwaving I mentioned.

Your take on them all seems reasonable if not exactly the same as mine.

In aggregate though they indicate a potential pattern.

My response was specifically to your implication that because their many shenanigans were in the past and nothing was a current problem that we should only judge them on their current technical competence.

I also noticed you didn’t mention the current CEO and why someone might have an issue with them.

I just think it’s really weird that Brave gets so much hate when it isn’t warranted when compared to what other browsers do.

Then you probably aren’t hearing all of what people are actually complaining about.

hint : they aren’t usually complaining about the technical competence.

Also other browsers get plenty of shit, a lot of it justifiable.

Ungoogled Chromium, for example…etc

All valid, and I agree.

I could list some you haven’t mentioned as well.

I personally use a variant of Firefox that has a whole bunch of questionable shit turned off or removed.

Despite almost all of their recent moves having been to announce some bullshit that actively makes them a worse option for me they are still currently , barely, the least worst option (for my preferences)

And only then it’s mostly because of the variants.

What I was getting at is that playing down the continuous bullshit from these companies weakens your arguments.

It also genuinely seems you don’t see why the non-technical aspects of these companies might be a point of contention for some people.

Recommending mullvad, in this economy ? That’s a bold strategy , if nothing else.

I suppose if you’re going to do that then following up with handwaving brave’s historic shenanigans and current CEO is consistent.

“They previous did and continue to do some shit i don’t care about , i like their products” at least shows some backbone.

The corporate defense version of the narcissists prayer is weaksauce.

Im not sure that applies here, isn’t he literally a prisoner because of all the raping.

Depends on what the definition of bad means here.

If it’s “bad” as in low quality work, i agree.

If it’s the employer version of “bad” as in limited productivity/throughput then no, fuck 'em, they get what they pay for.

That’s why understanding the difference between “cheap” and “inexpensive” is important.

Sounds like they want the governing bodies for certain open source technologies to be picked up by the UK.

They’d use the term govern rather than control id imagine, though thats a fine line and not a distinction the UK has been good at observing historically.

Thats a fucking terrible title, even though its technically accurate.

Read the article, it’s actually pretty interesting.

What do you mean instead? why is what they are doing now insufficient ?

At this point i doubt they give a fuck what the general populace thinks, unless it affects their bottom line.

But you seem to want an answer, so let’s work through the “options”

This would depend on what their goals are.

Assuming they want to continue with their track record of maximum capitalism, their best option is to eat shit, and by that i mean do whatever the fuck they want and ignore anything that isn’t inline with profit/control.

Complaints from the populace, sure. Maximum profits, also yes.

If they really want to stop people complaining about them their best best would be to stop doing sketchy, illegal and unpopular things.

That wouldn’t stop all complaints, this is the internet, but it would probably bring it down quite a bit.

if they wanted partially rehabilitate their image over this specific instance of terrible PR, they could:

• Release the data of the scanned books directly.
  • if they can afford the lobbying and legal costs to ignore copyright for their environment destroying slop-machines^*1, they can probably afford the same for straight up releasing the scans.
• Use any of the myriad of non-destructive means of scanning books + release the books in to the wild after
  • More expensive, requires you to do something with the intact books after
  • See the previous comment about the affordability of lobbying/legal fees
• Not do this at all

*1,

“Environment destroying slop-machine”

&

“Useful tool in some circumstances, as long as you can personally square away the ethical and moral concerns”

aren’t mutually exclusive, if this is the hill you choose to die on you’re going to die mad about it.

That’s true, but sitting in a warehouse is costing someone money and I’m sure they were more than happy to sell the books even if they knew they’d eventually get destroyed.

Sure, thats a possibility, I wasnt arguing otherwise.

But the other thing is, what should these companies do instead? They scraped the internet and got skewered for that. They pirated books and got in trouble for that. Now they are legally purchasing books to scan.

For me, them doing sketchy and illegal shit, mostly getting away with it and then charging you for access to said ill-gotten gains is a valid reason for people to be upset at them, rage inducing, even.

That aside the equivalent of mass book burning isn’t a good look regardless of legality, even less so when its the same people that did the sketchy shit before.

There is no benefit of the doubt left.

I can see how someone could get to:

“all they do is sketchy shit so even though this might look legit, let’s vocally show our disdain for them and anything they are doing”

It’s one of those lore things, like the SCP Foundation or any folk tales, this one just happened to come from 4chan.

The idea of liminal spaces being creepy or unnerving isn’t new, the cumulative lore around an example of that is where you get this particular story.

The SCP Foundation is another good example of this.

Is it full nerd to read through fictional files on pretend beings, sure.

Is it enjoyable, also yes, for a particular subset of people.

The reason I think this is a good example is because this particular aggregate folk tale is bleeding into other projects.

The game Control has strong SCP vibes, as does abiotic factor.

You’ve also got niche stories like "There is no antimemetics division"

Here is a short (15 min) film covering the opening of that book

Spoilers obviously

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

They aren’t in current circulation, not the same thing.

Not arguing that they are useful, just that sitting in a warehouse and physical destruction aren’t equivalent in terms of potential use.

Iirc affordable housing isn’t unavailable because of the cost of construction.

I could be wrong though

If their parting message is to be believed it’s because they are the last bastion of sanity.

Can’t link to the original because they added a script that ddos’d an instance they don’t like…you know…like a well adjusted saviour would do.

The “small steps” comment was me.

The shift described in the overton window is the shift in the perception of normal.

If 5 steps down are taken, then the window shifts, followed by another 5 downward steps, you’re still down 10 steps from where you started.

Are those designations mutually exclusive?