All PS3’s could play PS1 games too

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2553040199

But the store piece is the only problem.

For community, there’s tons of different communities for every game and Steam is usually one of the least active anyways.

For mods, as far as I know there’s no exclusivity there. In fact, it’s kind of a pain to mod Bethesda games because they don’t go through Steam. It’s similar to DLC in that it’s just a better experience to have mod support included in the launcher.

For the launcher, that seems like once again a huge blow to consumers to have a separate steam store vs steam launcher. You can already add non-Steam games to the steam launcher or launch games without the steam launcher.

The problems identified in the article, and what they are getting sued for, are solely related to the store. So I don’t see how breaking out these supplemental features would solve that.

So what’s your solution?

Break them up… How?

You can split off business units like their hardware sales or dev studios, but that isn’t going to reduce their storefront market share at all.

Are you suggesting that they just split users up randomly? That would be probably worse for consumers- suddenly the friends and communities people have built up through Steam would be fractured, and users would look to find ways to get around it.

Split up by what publishers they have deals with? Well then those new companies would only be indirect competitors, not to mention that would also be worse for consumers as I’d have to suddenly make a new account with each new platform just to keep accessing my current library.

Like… How do you want to split them up in a way that doesn’t hurt consumers and publishers more than it helps?

So what solution do you propose then?

Ideally I’d like to see media distribution be nationalized. Video streaming, audio streaming, videogames, e-books. There have been multiple cases of companies selling digital goods, then ceasing to provide those with consumers left holding the bag. Multiplayer games whose servers are gone. Movies “purchased” on Amazon that become unavailable when their agreement with the publisher expires. I am concerned about what Valve will look like when they inevitably get new leadership.

But I suffer no delusion that nationalizing that is realistic. Certainly not in the US where I live, where even libraries are under attack from conservatives. I’m doubtful that would happen anywhere else either. So what’s the next-best thing?

Seems to me like the capitalist response would be to try to encourage competition. A lot of companies have tried and failed, so I’m not sure what else can be done on that front.

So… What do you suggest be done about it?

Monopolies are often great for consumers… When they’re nationalized. Obviously that’s not going to happen with Valve any time soon.

What would the benefit be to breaking up Valve? How would you even go about doing that? The obvious choice is to break out different business units- break things like the hardware sales and game development into separate companies. But that still doesn’t address the issue of them having too much market share for software sales.

The next beat thing I can think of would be to have some sort of regulatory body just to place restrictions on the industry. Which, of course, would vary from country to country, and would probably have to include all of their competitors: Epic, GoG, and the various publisher-specific stores, maybe even other storefronts like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Google, and Apple. It would be hard not to also hit the mobile games industry too (which, to be fair, might be a good thing). But this kind of thing is usually reserved for things like utilities, communications, financial markets, etc. Such an organization for a luxury recreationak market… I have to wonder how much political appetite there really would be for that? Is that really what people want their governments to be focusing on?

Do you have a better solution to propose?

Just looking through my HLTB at things I’ve done recently:

The Ace Attorney series Sucker for Love Coffee Talk Haven (good for co-op)

If you want a bit more gameplay, but still chill:

Paradise Killer Braid Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

More gameplay focused:

Control Portal Wargroove Cat Quest Knack (I know it’s a meme, but the games are actually pretty fun)

Gomes then sued, alleging absentee ballot mishandling and supplying video footage showcasing Geter-Pataky, a member of the Democratic Town Committee, repeatedly dropping absentee ballots into drop boxes or handing them to others, who then did the same.

If I’m interpreting this correctly, it sounds like a couple of election officials just put absentee ballots in with regular ballots instead of… I assume they should have been set aside for vetting? The article doesn’t say what should have happened. The article doesn’t really go into the impact- seems like they just really, REALLY wanted to print a headline about Democrats meddling in the elections process.

When I think of “stuffing” I think of people creating wholly illegitimate ballots, which does not seem to be what happened here.

Also worth noting that this was for the Democratic primary for a mayoral position in 2019, and some of that info probably should have been in the headline.

Do you mean Scarlet and Violet? I largely agree, but the Blueberry Academy DLC was pretty good. It is set in Unova with a lot of Gen V pokemon added and references to those games.

In general, I’d say that the SV main game is one of the worse ones, but the post-game is among the best.

Gen 5 is still the best though.

Why is this story suddenly getting posted to dozens of communities that in seeing in my feed?

It’s one 73 year old tribal elder who complained that today’s youth don’t respect tradition. This same story has been pre-printed for thousands of years.

I keep scrolling through all and seeing this re-posted over and over again, so to save anyone else the trouble- the NY Times interviewed one 73 year- old tribe elder who complained about the youth not following traditions.

I think we’re done here.

It absolutely can be sustainable without exploiting labor. All it takes is for owners to settle for less profit.

I’ve typed up and re-written a couple of paragraphs a few times just to realize I’d be better off linking this video. Basically, there used to be more business models in the food industry that helped to feed it an laborers- people who may not have a kitchen and probably didn’t have time to go buy groceries, cook, and clean. These businesses (automats, lunch wagons, diners) took a more utilitarian approach to food to make it affordable and nutritious, rather than the luxury experience “eating out” is today.

Economists are pretty famous for fighting amongst themselves. The vast majority of economists don’t agree on anything with each other.

The loudest economists tend to agree with each other. The ones whose views and supported policies happen to result in more wealth being funneled to capital holders. For some reason those people are the ones who get interviews on TV and articles published by major outlets. I wonder why that could be?

I’m not saying every “indie” economist on the Internet is valid as there’s plenty of bad ones too. But the idea that deflation is terrible certainly deserves scrutiny. Just look around… Is the populace happy with the results of the current systems and policies?

To quote one of the most famous economists, Hayek, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design”

How many people can afford to keep their money under a mattress though? According to studies last year, 57% of Americans could not afford a $1,000 expense.

Why is saving such a bad thing? There’s so many articles about how people aren’t saving enough for retirement (especially with pensions disappearing as a concept over the last several decades). I know it’s been a couple of decades, but just a couple generations ago consumers used to actually benefit from the interest on their savings. My mom likes to talk about how she used Certificates of Deposit to slowly get low-risk, passive income that exceeded the rate of inflation and her mortgage rate and helped to pay off her house. I check every few years and even now CD’s just aren’t worth bothering with because the rates are so low.

“Savings lowers spending, that’s the paradox of thrift. Keep that money in your pocket and the growth will never lift” has some truth to it, but why do we need to perpetually grow on a planet constrained with finite resources? When will our hunger be satisfied?

A lack of savings creates more volatile markets and a worse quality if life for everyone because of it. Toyota famously led the way with their “just in time” business model- reducing inventory down to the absolute bare minimum to operate (savings is not just limited to money). Pretty much every manufacturer in every industry followed suit. Toyota learned it was a bad idea when Japan was hit by an earthquake and they struggled to get parts to make cars- they then reversed course and kept a modest supply of parts on-hand. Most other companies saw this during Covid when “logistical issues” (really the greed of these businesses leading to inadequate insulation from supply chain disruption) led to shortages of almost every consumer good.

Economists seem to forget sometimes that money needs to be used for things other than passively making more money.

That’s a gross oversimplification of consumer behavior. Consumers react differently to market changes for different types of goods.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-chart

Only compared to recent prior rates. The full picture is that rates are final normalizing after being held absurdity low.

Cool story. Not sure how it’s relevant.

I would disagree with you on the pedantry. There would be two separate transactions: a buy buys the property from the seller, and the borrower borrows from the lender.

The property is treated as collateral, but the buyer/lender is the owner of the property. Mortgages are a bit special different from most common consumer debt because of the timing- the transactions need to be simultaneous because you need to have the collateral to get the money, and you need the money to get the property, but afterwards you still have ownership of the property.

Whether it’s a mortgage, a car, putting a latte on your credit card, or a multi-billion dollar corporate acquisition it’s the same.

That aside, the rest of your comment I agree is good advice to consider, but it’s just part of the equation. You’re assuming the mortgage is actioned as plan throughout it’s lifetime. However, the borrower has options. They might want to pay early and will save a lot of interest that way (maybe more than just interest if they have PMI). There’s also the option to refinance out of a higher rate later on.

Also… You’re comparing two different things by asking if a house listed for $300,000 is worth $700,000. In order to do a fair comparison, you need to do the same calculation for every house you consider and for the entire market you’re basing your expectations around. The only houses worth $300,000 when you factor in the interest of a 30 year mortgage would be a fraction of that cost. Or if you’re comparing to the alternative of not buying, then what you really need to compare is the cost of renting vs the interest you expect to save in whatever period you expect to defer buying for.