Given the context of your post, I would suggest starting with the basics. Taking the time to learn how to write properly may give you some ability to speak properly.

I have a really pacific issue

I don’t know if this is typo or if you think your issue is as big as the ocean.

Who needs another big chain?

For the same reason we want locally owned hardware stores as well as Home Depot - the selection. The big chains can afford larger real estate and book sections as large as some book stores. Especially for technical and reference books. Sure, you could buy that stuff online but I’d rather shop in person. Sometimes I need something now and sometimes I don’t know what I need until I’m walking past it. I love the curation and personality of small stores but there’s still a reasonable argument for big chains. I would love to see some sort of beneficial collaboration between chains and indie shops across all industries.

That’s number is staggeringly lower than I would have guessed.

No. It’s because it’s you. Blocked.

OP is really shilling for Bluesky.

Yeah. I was actually fifteen pounds lighter this time last year. It’s been a rough year. I cut out all bread, pasta, cheese, and beer, and walked an average of 15 miles a week.

Dude.

Dude.

DUDE.

The penises carved into desk and walls because the sewer backed up? What the fuck??

So, not judges and not based on any law?

I’ve got about 10lbs on this guy. I’m obese. I know it. I’m ashamed of it. My body knows it and tries telling me every day I need to lose 30lbs.

It’s called freedom, libtards. We want the freedom to order a gallon of soda with our king size fries without the government telling us how to eat or food producers how to make their food. And we certainly don’t want the government to work on our behalf to lower the cost of insulin. We want a free market to shop around for the best price.

If you’re on Bluesky, maybe bombarding him with followers there would shift him in that direction https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social

Edit: For the record…
https://www.threads.net/@stephenking 268K followers
https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social 223.9K followers
https://x.com/StephenKing 7M Followers

Wouldn’t be too bad if they did the model of showing you a persistent banner ad with the option to pay $35 a year to get rid of it. I’d be down with that.

Pft. Ain’t that the truth. Gotcha journalism has been around for over a hundred years and we still suck it up.

Strike a window = illegal.
Murder someone = legal.

I’m generalizing. But the larger issue is who the heck is reviewing these “policies” to determine if they’re legal (or smart)? Would it take bringing this to the Supreme Court to determine the legality?

The report said the shooting was within police policy because the officers reasonably feared that Amaya’s life was in danger when he stood in front of Ghaisar’s stopped vehicle and it began to roll forward.

I am not familiar with the case but this statement alone appears ridiculous. What’s reasonable here is that if a vehicle is approaching you, standing in front of it is stupid and killing the person operating it is even stupider. This isn’t self defense, this is attempted suicide (or attempted lawsuit). Police Policy should be: don’t be a dumbass.

Yeah - it feels more organic to me. Bluesky feels like a more well thought out Twitter. Mastodon feels like something built from Google Wave scraps.

I’m not sure how much of Dorsey’s DNA is left but it’s hard to imagine someone who has had so much success wouldn’t know what they’re doing. The board could certainly screw it up, just as Twitter’s did by selling, but it seems like they’re growing slowly and doing things in a productive way. Slow and intentionally growth seems to be the growing trend in tech.

With that said, I’m aware of the funding concerns and I’m trying to pay attention. Where will their money come from is still a question. Will they use ads or subscriptions? I’d prefer the option for either and not both. Is it actually an issue that someone tied to blockchain is involved? I’m not sure but I’m open to a plausible argument.

I don’t know what this is supposed to mean. I’m making a correction to the claim that more than one person is doing this and saying it’s possible other companies could start manufacturing these parts.

I fully agree. This is why it won’t work. I dunno - maybe Gen Alpha or Gen Beta will care about this, assuming there’s a pendulum swing?

So, what a lot of people get wrong about tariffs is that, if they’re used properly, they “incentivize” an increase of American businesses and jobs. By making it uncomfortably expensive for importers, businesses sprout and flourish locally to offset the costs. Alternatively, the government can literally hand out incentives.

If we could remove the bullshit-politics of it, we’d be having more productive conversations about whether the consumer should be paying for goods and services they directly or tangentially use (tariffs) or if the nation as a whole benefits by using tax payer dollars (congressionally approved federal spending) to lower costs.

This here is one of the distinct differences between Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans want to eliminate federal sending on practically everything not in the constitution and leave the rest up to the States and Wall Street investors. A lot of the conservatives I know resent having to pay for things they don’t use. Democrats believe a rising tide lifts all ships and there are certain services that benefit the entire population of a nation when funds are pooled; even from people who don’t directly use a service. These are fundamental differences that are worthy of debate.

The media today drives me mad. They’re lazy and feeding off each other. One outlet runs a headline and that’s the lede for all. Sure, Trump is an idiot and it’s entirely plausible that has no idea how tariffs work. The fact that he’s saying 50% or more in some cases is evidence of that. Or, what I have not seen discussed at all is how tariffs have been used and the repercussions/benefits of them. We’re all so fucked because no one wants to seem like they’re defending the guy. Giving him an inch gives him legitimacy. In the meantime, people are being misinformed and not learned about the larger picture - by the media.

Anyway, I hope people realize how incredible Biden has been as a president. We’re so obsessed with bullshit-politics that the man’s actual accomplishments go unnoticed without any appreciation. Maybe he’s just old or maybe he’s actually humble enough to not make a big deal about his administrative accomplishments. I forget how Presidents and normal news coverage used to be to make a comparison. One thing is for sure, anything positive of the Trump administration will be thanks to the Biden administration.

Mastodon emerges as the clear winner. It’s free from investor influence, ad-free, and controlled by a community that values user autonomy over profit.

That’s a gross assumption that people care about any of this. The tech-abled and tech-writers are in as much of a bubble as the Democrats were this past election.

The vast majority of people using social media do so for entertainment and passive news consumption and a ton of rage bait. Who owns or controls it is entirely irrelevant - ex., TikTok.

Ads? You think people in 2024 still care about ads? I think a lot of them enjoy it. Moreover, if you’re a small or local business, you want a platform that allows you to promote your goods and services. This kind of opportunity is what made social media explode. If you were a community business, would you prefer to operate on a platform that was strictly chronological or one that allowed you to pay to get noticed? What if you were an “influencer”? While normal people may dislike this stuff, it’s this stuff that generates revenue for the platform and, like it or not, increases engagement.

This lack of openness confines users to BlueSky alone, making it difficult to connect with friends on other platforms without creating a separate account.

How has this prevented Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube from succeeding?

You’re trying to force a platform to do what you want it to do. You’re not objectively looking at what the majority of social media users want. When I tell people about interconnected platforms, they have no clue what that means or why they would want that. They just want one platform.

You and I recognize the benefits of the Fediverse meaning one application to access many platforms. That may be a reality we observe one day but for now, nothing is fully developed. You’re trying to convince people that robotaxies will replace vehicle ownership today when they’re not done deploying them.

Mastodon’s structure, lacking an algorithm to push specific content, gives users freedom to create a feed that genuinely reflects their interests. For those who are politically inclined, Mastodon has communities and accounts covering all sides, but there’s no algorithm driving you toward any specific viewpoint.

If Bluesky has an algorithm, I haven’t seen it. I get chronological posts from the accounts I follow with an occasional and subtle suggestion to follow other similar accounts. Many of the accounts I follow are news outlets, journalists, civic leaders, etc. Some of the accounts I followed on Twitter are finally joining Bluesky while less than a fraction of those are on Mastodon.

I’ve been using Mastodon more than Bluesky. I like the instance I’m a member of which is operated by people in my physical community. Today I saw that more and more members of my community have joined Bluesky, including my local paper. I can not express the joy I’ve felt this afternoon seeing a platform blossom like the Twitter of old.

Betamax was superior to VHS. DVD Audio was superior to SACD. You may think the flexibility of Windows or Android makes them superior to MacOS or iOS. Ultimately, it comes down to marketing and convenience.

How do you make Mastodon better? You have to get brands over there. You have to get journalists and news outlets over there. When CNN reports that someone said something on Twitter, that’s marketing for that platform. When [the news] starts reporting that [celebrity] or [president] posted on Mastodon - then maybe you’ll start getting some traction. But why would that person post something so important on a platform with so few users?

“People” = literally one guy who has the tools and skills to disassemble an SSD board. Sure, it does leave the door open to third parties doing this as a service. Kinda jumping the gun on this though.