2025-12-01 21:30:42
Another banger from Hank Green on why Threads fucking sucks. His benign attempt to get attention from his followers for his charity-oriented store during Black Friday was served to basically none of his audience. It wasn't rage bait and it included a link off the platform: the poison combination for Threads to have any interest in showing that post to people.
Then he decided to try making snarky replies to other rage bait posts and include the link to the store in those posts. Turns out, that was a much more winning strategy for him, and he got a lot more views on those posts, which drove a lot more sales at his store. That's business in 2025, babyyyy.
If I had to sum up one of Hank's complaints, and my own personal bugaboo about X/Threads, it's that one of the main points of building up an audience online is getting the ability to do something with them. Hank Green makes things that people enjoy, they follow him, and he can let that audience know about things like sales at his store or his latest drive to bring money to good causes. This is good for users who get entertainment, it's good for the social networks who earn ad revenue on the chatter, and it's good for Hank who gets to use his influence. I think platforms like YouTube do this well (as well as Mastodon and blogs, of course), and everything from Threads to X to TikTok actively fight against this. I hate it.
Of note, he remarked that Twitter was still even worse, and made a bet how long it would take him to scroll and find some white supremacist content. It was 10 posts down with someone wondering who would have the courage to make it okay to say the n-word again.
Anyway, back in 2022 I wrote that I don't think people want another Twitter, and I don't think that was totally correct, as X and Threads have done pretty well since then, but I personally am not happy with them. Threads has the most vapid shit you've ever seen, and yes, everything I see in my feed are people talking about how terrible someone or something else is with no actual insight. X at least has some people posting interesting threads (heh) about product releases and new tech, but that's nestled in between the most racist shit you've ever seen, which the platform also rewards. Mastodon and Bluesky don't make my blood boil as much as the others, but I still wish there were more people there so I felt like I was seeing a more representative slice of the world and not a thin, specific slice.
2025-12-01 04:00:00
Mike Winters: writing for CNBC about a woman who has "mini-retired" at 37 years old:
In April 2024, Florence Poirel left her $390,000-a-year job at Google for what she calls a “mini retirement.”
I know these posts are easy rage bait, but I still find it fun to find the catch that enabled this person to have amazing financial independence. Usually it's a rich parent, but this time it's that you and your partner make a combined $1 million or so per year in salary (they don't specify her partner's salary in the article, but considering he also worked at Google and was 17 years older than her, I'm putting my money on it being at least as much as her).
So yeah, if you too can get yourself a job that pays in the top 3% of Americans (and top 1% in Switzerland, where they live) and a partner who does the same, bringing you into the top 0.4% of household incomes, then you are likely going to be in a good spot. "This one simple trick!" 🫠
I guess it is worth saying that someone who is bad with money when they make $50,000 will likely be decently bad with money if they suddenly earn $500,000, so there are some things most people can do to be smarter with money. I presume this is what this article is trying to do, but my god, they really should profile people who are remotely normal as their success stories in these things. "Here's how someone in the top 1% is able to live comfortably" just doesn't hit, you know? Wow, think you!
2025-12-01 02:38:44
Hey there,
I love your work on YouTube, I've been subscribed for years, and I never miss a video. That said, I find it morally reprehensible that you would try to make any money on this. I won't say it out loud, and I might even tell myself that this isn't what I think, but I really can't stand it.
First off, I hate YouTube ads, so I use an ad blocker that makes sure an ad never plays in front of your videos. This is a good deal for me, and it means you don't get that fraction of a penny of ad revenue you would have gotten if I waited 5 seconds to skip it.
I also hate that you do sponsored segments in your videos. You expect me to listen to 30-90 seconds of you saying you like a product? Get out of here.
You sometimes do fully sponsored videos, and these are absolutely the worst. Yes, you say it's "sponsored" in the title, but I still click into them so I can comment on them that I hate you for doing these.
I also hate that you pitch Nebula or some other video platform as the solution to all my problems. Sure, it's ad-free, but I gotta pay? No thank you.
And I hate that you hawk your Patreon or membership program. Don't even get me started on how annoying it is to see content I'd like to see is only available to those members.
Oh, and I've seen some other channels coming up that have higher production values than yours, so damn man, invest in some production work so you can keep up.
Anyway, just wanted to write to say I really value what you do, but I will go out of my way to make sure you don’t get anything back in return.
With love,
Too many people
2025-11-30 22:00:25
In reality, lines are never so straight. There are no lines. We stumble and spiral, haunted by doubt and ambivalence. That's the curse of modernity. Or maybe that's too harsh, it's the challenge of modernity. And while we all face it, who can begrudge us a few fantasies here and there?
In an online world obsessed with nitpicking everything, this line resonated with me.
2025-11-28 21:07:33
Kevin Williams writing for CNBC: Americans Are Holding Onto Devices Longer Than Ever and It's Costing the Economy
While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations.
What a positively insane article. In short, "the economy would grow faster if people would be less selfish and upgraded their phones and computers more often." Was this written by an iPhone?
2025-11-27 20:00:46
A preview of the best games I played (and that came out) in 2025.