I work for a retailer and have been loosely involved in a project like that a few years ago.

Basically, it felt like it was mostly a very inexpensive way for the company to get everyone involved feel good about themselves. The free advertising was definitely an argument to get the higher-ups on board, but my impression was that it was kinda secondary compared to the kinda fake good conscience it gave everyone.

There was definitely no tax breaks for that initiative though, so at least in my country that is indeed a myth

EDIT: You also get to say in your annual report to the shareholders that the company helped raise x millions euros to charities at no cos, which in turn makes them feel good about themselves without impacting their profits.

You can do it but only once

Wait, when they say “Bob SquarePants” they mean it as an answer to that question? Honestly that seems a bit far fetch, you’re reading into the lyrics too much

Very true in YouTube’s comment section

The UD absolutely could, but Microsoft couldn’t without facing massive legal trouble. That is, if the US legal system follows through and actually enforces EU court orders.

Regardless, unless specifically being forced to do so by the US, Microsoft wouldn’t have any reason to leave a billions-dollars market

I think you can call her the fediverse chick

I didn’t know I needed this in my life but this strikes a chord in me

That documentary made me feel a bit sick at the time, especially given how popular it was despite making a ton of unbacked claims and taking weird sides

And decision-makers at that company feeling good about themselves at no cost whatsoever for the company or themselves.

Reminds me of the french politician who talked about “Larry Skywalker and that weird bear”

I think the word genre comes directly from the french word (“genre”, meaning “type”), which in the plural form is “genres”. I don’t think “genera” means anything, it’s probably a typo

You should probably specify which country you’re from

Thank you for that, my brain was stuck on “Chupacabra”

Selling only DRM-free games has always be GOG’s whole thing (well, that and selling oldies compatible with modern OS), it’s weird that this meme specifically would be considered “aknowledging piracy”

No offense intended since I’m fully incapable of pronouncing tons of English words properly (fuck “squirrel” specifically), but as a Frenchman who has lived near Mulhouse for a few years and interacted with a lot of foreign students, what you said probably wasn’t close to being the exact same as that guy

Agreed, Big Tech’s quest for UX and frictionless Interfaces has lead to a generation of people who vastly overestimate their tech savviness and are basically only great at navigating walled gardens made specifically to be easy to use.

It’s not really their fault though: in addition to frontends becoming ever easier to use, backends are also becoming increasingly complex. 20 years ago you could learn a bit of HTML and CSS and throw a decent website together, but nowadays you need to master tons of other skills (graphical design, scripting, etc.) to make even so much as a web page that won’t scare people away immediately. It’s hard to get interested in this stuff when the barrier of entry is getting higher and higher, while tons of GAFAM-made alternative are already available for “free”