Journalists have long used Google News to track news cycles. But for years users have documented a steady decline in product quality parallel to similar complaints about the quality of Google’s broader search technology. Many stories and outlets are often no longer indexed, low quality clickbait and garbage are everywhere, and customization seems broken as […]
“They’re not sending their best.” – Donald Trump, June 26, 2015 I hear ya, Donnie. Just look at the jamokes you’ve inspired to set fire to the Constitution, if only because they failed to set fire to Capitol Hill following the 2020 election. Florida’s full of them. The state legislature is infested with people who […]
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It’s kind of pathetic how desperate Elon Musk is to convince people that ExTwitter is a good platform for posting their video content. I assume it’s a perfectly okay place to post videos, but it’s hardly where most people go to watch videos, and Elon may discover sooner or later just how difficult it is […]
Read the latest edition of The Sky Is Rising at The Copia Institute » Twelve years ago, we released our very first research report, the Sky is Rising. Back then, in 2012, the commonly accepted wisdom was that the internet was killing various creative industries, from the music industry (especially!) to movies, TV, and books […]
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous comment about Ubisoft saying people need to get used to not owning games they play: What the world needs is a DRM-ed digital currency you can use for buying DRM-ed digital content. If the seller makes the product vanish, the buyer can […]
Five Years Ago This week in 2019, an appeals court let the FBI off the hook for breaking the law during its Playpen investigation, while a federal judge said compelling people to unlock their phones with fingerprints or faces violates the Fifth Amendment, and another judge recommended vacating the sentence of one of the FBI’s […]
We’ve done a metric ton of posts here over the years pointing out one unfortunate trend that has come along with the move from physical products to digital purchases: you don’t own what you’ve bought. In some cases, it’s you don’t own what you think you’ve bought, because nobody actually reads EULAs and all the […]
Join our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928! » The latest edition of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1928, is well underway. As always, we’re calling on designers of all stripes and all levels of experience to put this year’s newly public domain works to use in digital and analog […]
The state-based attacks on social media take all different forms. And the specific attacks on TikTok are some of the most notable in how little state officials seem to care about basic concepts like the 1st Amendment. The most obvious example is Montana’s failed attempt to just outright ban TikTok, but we’ve also seen other […]
Things become heated and tangled when it comes to free speech, religion, and the government’s attempt to control either of these things. Government entities tend to feel the best way to avoid the appearance of favoring any religion is to stay out of it completely. A wise move by the government, but not the best […]
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Here are two separate stories regarding the mess that is modern copyright law, that is now mostly “mediated” by companies that half-ass randomly deal with things and sometimes do not. While this is, perhaps, a better setup than stupidly suing kids for daring to like or share a song, it still suggests the entire copyright […]
We’ve noted numerous times how U.S. communities are increasingly tired of substandard, expensive broadband caused by market failure, so they’re building their own broadband networks at a record pace. These efforts take a wide variety of forms, whether it’s via a local cooperative, a collection of municipalities, or a city owned utility (see Chattanooga’s huge […]
Last summer, we brought to you the delightful news that Trader Joe’s had joined the list of bad-acting companies that were attempting to play stupid trademark games with their own employees’ unions through bullshit trademark disputes and lawsuits. This appears to be something of a trend brewing, with other companies engaging in this same sort […]
We’re back with another post in our ongoing series on web monetization, the Error 402 series. Before the holidays, we had talked about some of the earlier attempts at monetizing content, which included paywalls, banner ads, search ads, and eventually concepts around upselling into premium services under the banner of “freemium.” I originally was going […]
There’s nothing more urbane than omnipresent surveillance, apparently. London is considered one of the classiest places on earth, what with its wealth of history, iconic landmarks, and… thousands and thousands of surveillance cameras. It’s also home to knife crime, pervasive racism, and soccer hooligans, with plenty of residents exhibiting all three of these traits simultaneously. […]
Ron DeSantis continues to govern Florida as though the Constitution doesn’t exist. It may froth the voting base a bit, but it’s doing almost nothing for DeSantis, much less the people he’s supposed to be serving. Law after unconstitutional law has been passed by the legislature, followed almost immediately by lawsuits and injunctions blocking the […]
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The Florida legislature (with the support of goon-in-chief Ron DeSantis) really has a thing for unconstitutional bills that piss on the 1st Amendment. I mean, the state is still in a 1st Amendment fight with Mickey Mouse, which should tell you something. The Florida legislature is only in session at the beginning of the year, […]
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