A reminder that “cashback” credit cards are paid for by big fees on transactions which the store pays, forcing them to raise prices. It’s literally anticompetitive
Dead internet here we come.
This is the direction Reddit has been pointed in for years now.
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That’s from The Truman Show, yeah?
Yes
I’ve tried other cocoas— this one’s the best!
hello guys yea i love [insert ad company name] products please buy [company product name] its so good trust me
hello guys yea I love Linux products please buy Enterprise Support it’s so good trust me
The other Red Hat
Having just migrated some legacy stuff off CentOS 7, I would rather fly to south africa and give mark shuttleworth a blowjob myself than pay a single cent to redhat.
I’m just like you. Perfectly relatable. And definitely no an AI bot Using fifty forged IDs.
While [insert ad company name] products are a little more expensive, the quality and customer service are unmatched. It evens out when you use the [insert ad company name] reward card which gives 5% off each purchase.
Great. Saving to use when appropriate.
Would you like to join me for some food intake and exchange of emotions?
I use {branded reward card} but use their {branded delivery service} for the low fee of {half average emergency fund} for the opportunity to feed their logicistic system my house data when I use {branded subscription model} and be charged what they feel the product is worth they week. The best part is the reduction in basal calorie needs as I slowly get too fat to leave the house.
I was just reminding a discussion with a guy about Reddit, who thinks Reddit is getting close to the real dead internet theory, just bots talkimg about whatever.
I’ve definitely had moments where I found myself in some random r/ and realized I wasn’t sure if this was bot spam or actual humans. It’s pretty dissociating to actually fully internalize the dead Internet theory.
user_name, the username so generic it has to ironically be human. Only thing missing is a number at the end
Best way to have forgetful username.
Hello, generic cousin
the small subs seem to be the only place real interaction happens. local sports teams and city subs some of the fan based subs, etc …
anything that gets on the front pages goes to shit
Meanwhile I know people already asking ai what they should buy for this and that. This surely will end very well for
uscorpos
I only go to Whole Foods for a few specific stuff items that I can’t get elsewhere due to food allergies. There is no way they are the cheapest place to get groceries.
All I know is that at least Whole Foods is better organized. I used to live next to a gristedes and I hated that store, I’d shlep to Trader Joe’s.
They actually sell the cheapest veggies and tofu in my area. I honestly don’t bother looking at anything else they have so I can’t speak otherwise.
That seems bizarre based on the prices I see, maybe they are intentionally undercutting the others locally in your area specifically. Whole Foods was by far the cheapest place to buy eggs earliest this year and were obviously using them as a loss leader (we’re talking less than half the price of standard grocery stores in the same area).
Is this the kind of AI ads they were talking about?
Maybe. Some people are this basic though. Not that that’s a good excuse.
Last night I brought up a Burger King meal I saw on a commercial to my friends in IRC. We all agreed it was less expensive than we thought it would be and one guy actually ordered it. Some of us ARE that basic, lol.
Gots to be
What does the comment history look like on those accounts? I’m guessing when you pay for the spam package, they create fake comment histories for the bot accounts.
Making sense tbh.
Report them for hate speech.
Ooh that’s a good one. Sounds legit.
Kinda wanna embrace our AI overlords ngl.
First guy has a short history within one post five months ago, then 3 years prior. Second guy and third guy has a big gap 3-7 year gap in history then suddenly a lot of comments. So yea, bots.
Often times the services have a fleet of accounts, they have them do reposts of old popular posts with titles and some content rephrased, then some of the rest of the fleet copies the top comments and rephrases those and posts them below.
This builds a history of realistic and semi popular looking posts in a way that is fairly easy to automate . Anyone who looks closely could potentially figure out a given account, or even cluster of accounts, is farmed, but it takes effort and time to prove it, more effort and time than it takes for them to spool up another batch of bots.
Don’t forget to add a typo in the title of the repost for extra engagement!
They also buy active accounts with high karma and age. I got offered $100 in BTC for my account one time. I guess they did not look at how horny my comments were.
The horny just adds credibility
fleet of accounts
I like the use of the term “fleet” in this context, bc it brings to mind the Battle of Midway but re-done with bots online.
It’s the word I originally used when bothunting on Reddit years ago but I switched to the term “botnet” since it seems more proper imo
Who’s Yamamoto and Nimitz in this situation?
Well let’s see… first we gotta figure out the analogy:
- carriers = posts promoting a product
- carrier escorts = posts commenting on and upvoting the “carrier” post
- torpedos/dive-bombs = bot-delivered replies that disparage “carrier” posts. They “hit” if they get highly upvoted
- fighters = bots that downvote carrier-fleet posts and upvote torpedo/dive-bomb replies
- carrier “screen” fighters = bots that post attacks on enemy fighters and munitions
- carrier AA fire = bots that downvote attacks by enemy fighter bots
The analogy is still a little clumsy… are “carriers” posts, or are they the bots that make the posts? etc. But a Midway-like battle would involve a modest but strategically-positioned product-promoting community that is about to be surprised-attacked by a rival, who will make several posts disparaging the product. But the attack is identified through corporate espionage. The posts are hard to find, so the “fighters” have to search for them but ultimately they do, and after fierce up- and down-voting, the attacking posts are deeply downvoted.
I think it’s usually a bunch of posts on sports subreddita right? And then a few other things too.
i’m glad you guys think this is bots, i know people who suck this badly
This reminds me of a time when i used to subscribe to Hydro Homies and there was always someone in the comments tryna hawk a Berkey water filter.
Damn that sucks. I prefer the refreshing taste of Mug Root Beer™.
I used to work with a guy who would drink a Mug Root Beer™ at every break. He was obsessed with that shit.
I don’t think that’s actually an unusual conversation for people who live in Manhattan to have. The comments about relative prices are accurate in my experience - I live on the same block as a Gristides and I still never shop there because of how expensive it is, even compared to Whole Foods. I get most of my groceries in Brooklyn on the weekends.
I also know a woman with a whole stack of different credit cards, so she always has the one that gives her the most rewards for whatever specific thing she’s buying. I’m sure she has one for grocery shopping.
I agree. Personally I have made multiple amazon accounts and subscribe to prime on each of them. It costs me more upfront, but I get more cash back on my orders. Plus, by buying different raw materials on different accounts the feds are less likely to discover my moonshine operation
Nah if I’m going to shill for any Manhattan grocery store, it will be Fairway. It’s also really expensive but it feels like being in the sort of store you’d go to if you were rich, not like being ripped off. Their cheese counter has prices per 1/4 pound for some of the cheeses but then if you get some $15 per 1/4 pound cheese it will taste so good that you’ll think it was worth it. I haven’t been there in years but I still long for that cheese.
It’s also really expensive but it feels like being in the sort of store you’d go to if you were rich, not like being ripped off.
That’s kinda how Whole Foods used to feel, before Amazon bought it.
I buy all my groceries from Omega Mart, like a normal person.
Yeah but also, Whole Foods and Amazon and other companies absolutely are doing this. They’d be stupid not to. The companies that aren’t paying for spam bots online will go out of business soon.
Making extensive use of food delivery services is a trait i unapologetically use to filter people out of my life. (Unless they have medical reasons…)
Why? I know several young families that just don’t have the time or a car to get groceries for the whole week, delivery services help them a lot
Also elderly people. Me or other family buy groceries for an aunt, she has Amazon for emergencies.
Unapologetically filtering young families and old people out of my life…
How can you not have time to buy groceries? It’s not that big of a process.
I understand not having a car though. Some places are not very walkable.
It’s not so much that you literally have no time but spending the extra money is a way to get the time you would otherwise spend on groceries to do other things like spend actual time with the kids before they sleep and walk the dog before it’s dark.
That’s an hour or 2 you may not have.
If you don’t have an hour to buy food a couple times a week, there’s something supremely fucked up about your priorities.
It usually has nothing to do with priorities, and everything to do with the crushing weight of capitalism giving you no time for leisure or recreation otherwise. Have kids and two jobs? Good luck spending much time with them.
I don’t personally use grocery delivery services but I can see their appeal and use.
I do have kids and two jobs. I’m not sure what your point is. Half the time I use grocery store runs as way to talk to my kids in an environment where they’re not distracted by technology.
Your experience isn’t the same as everyone else’s, that’s my point. Just because you like to use a chunk of your free time to shop doesn’t mean everyone else does. Many in your situation would prefer to use that time at home with their kids (where you can also avoid technology after ordering if you desire, btw)
Work two jobs? Fuck you. Want rest? Fuck you. Want healthy food? Fuck you. Taking care of someone? Fuck you. Need sleep? Fuck you.
Depending on the situation/ location, it is truly possible. During massively busy times, I have employed these services. It absolutely can be a big process, especially with younger children and 2 jobs.
They’re on that fuckin grindset, workin eight 16 hour days a week lmao they don’t have time to step on a bus or walk down the street
My mom makes extensive use of a good delivery service. It’s called me
I guess I don’t really understand the purpose, here… You don’t like having rich friends?
What do you people think “rich” means?
Able to afford to throw hundreds of dollars per month towards just the convenience of having food delivered.
Important to note that this doesn’t account for the price of the food itself, or the fact that the prices are inflated on top of eating out, just the delivery fees and tips.
You do realize that the people you should be angry at make hundreds to thousands of times more than a person who can afford delivery apps makes, right? You have been fooled into hating your own class.
why would people like having rich friends? it’s not like they’re likely to share their wealth, or they probably wouldn’t be rich…
It sounds like you need better friends, regardless of their financial status 🤷♂️
You know, use of long dash is the same kind of tell as an image having 6 fingers. Not impossible to find in human interactions but generally very rare, especially in online conversation. (I’m not even sure if my phone can do a long dash, just these fellows: —).
Oh, that’s me–I’m the exception! I use them all the time. Blame autism, not AI.
Emdashes might also be a sign that the commenter is a nerd
Yeah, or just someone that has read books before…
same thing, nerd
I use the em-dash a lot. It’s not just about the presence of one, the issue is that LLMs know they exist but don’t know where they go. It’s sort of like a semicolon, which goes where neither a comma nor a period feel right. An em-dashes simply goes where neither comma nor period nor semicolon feels right
Edit: I should clarify, that’s simply how I use them. I’m not smart enough with words to know stuff like “parenthetical clauses” or w/e. Point being, AI just throws them in like they’re sentence enhancers
On my keyboard, I just click the button on the bottom left to see punctuation, and then long-press the hyphen
Single em dashes can almost always be used interchangeably with semicolons—they typically separate independent clauses without a conjunction.
Paired em dashes—used to demarcate parenthetical expressions—can be replaced by commas, but not by semicolons.
It has less to do with what feels right and more to do with the mechanics of the sentence. There is a good bit of wiggle room, figuratively speaking, in deciding whether to use commas or paired em dashes—likewise, whether to use a single em dash or a semicolon is almost entirely a stylistic choice. But I feel like the way you explained it is a bit misleading to people still learning the difference.
An em dash can also be used to delineate an abrupt break in the direction or structure of a sentence or dialogue in a way that commas or semicolons simply—fuck, I just shit my pants.
Not trying to be a pedant, just sharing what I’ve learned over the years.
Well em-dashes can be used in place of other punctuation that is typically used to denote parenthetical information — such as commas and parentheses — but it also has other uses. Similar to a semicolon it can also be used when changing the idea of a sentence — it’s versatile and often an overlooked and underutilized piece of punctuation. Additionally, when you have multiple parenthenthical levels, such as this which is commonly placed within commas — or parentheses — which can be overused, it allows you to segment different layers of parenthetical information.
i always thought that em-dashes were used instead of commas whenever
- your sentence already has too many commas, or
- you want to be fancy
An em dash — when used properly — is perfectly fine, but a little academic. iOS will do one automatically with two hyphens and a space.
Lemmy markdown — which is better than Reddit markdown in some ways, but worse in others — will automatically do a similar conversion, except it takes three hyphens instead of two (two hyphens gets you an en dash). It’s nice, but also unfortunate because it messes up people’s muscle memory since using only two for it mimics what was customary when writing in ASCII, on mechanical typewriters, etc.
This is a bad take. I use em dashes if I feel it’s called for. It’s just proper grammar. We probably shouldn’t be making people dumb down the way they write so as to not be mistaken for AI.
Read some books, you’ll see that it’s used all of the time.
I use dashes all the time, but em-dashes? I don’t even know how to type those. I guess I could long-press the dash on my phone and select it, but… why?
Because people have their own styles of writing, and some people like the way they look/the rhythm they provide a sentence or paragraph.
I’m not kidding when I say to read some books. They’re everywhere in actual literature.
Because that’s how typography works? Why do you capitalize the first letter in each of your sentences?
Amazon “grocery” delivery is bullshit and stupid expensive, plus there’s a ton of shit they don’t carry.
it’s such a fucking baffling concept to me, i don’t even understand ordering groceries from the fucking grocery store, just go there and buy the stuff
ordering stuff just… isn’t better…
there’s no benefit unless you simply cannot buy the thing in a nearby store.What do you mean there’s no benefit? The entire concept is beneficial, which is why it’s often so goddamn expensive. It’s 100% convenience.
Nah grocery stores fucking suck. You can go inside and walk around for an hour in the cold, surrounded by people, squinting through the shitty florescent light, searching for a thing they may not have.
I will sit in my bed, comfortable and unbothered, and have shit sent to me. This is worth $5 - $10 or whatever.
you might consider talking to a medical professional because being that uncomfortable is not normal…
two steps ahead of you lol
It used to make sense during the COVID lockdowns, but at least where I live most stores stopped offering that service soon after the pandemic
grocery stores have offered it here in sweden for years now and i still do not understand the value proposition, like they’re charging like 20 bucks for delivery…
in what situation is transport of my food worth 20 euro? I’m going to have to go outside every day regardless, why wouldn’t i just bring the food with my on my way home?
If they charged 5 bucks for it then i would understand, but then it wouldn’t be profitable for them…I used it during the worst of covid, especially because where I lived had multiple accounts of people being assaulted for wearing a mask. I had no desire to have to fight some disease spreading moron just so I could get groceries.
I’m always worried about this whenever I talk about the fairphone or framework laptop but I also sell Linux like a merchant so I think people get I’m just a nerd
TBF those companies don’t have the budget for a astroturfing bot campaign, or at least can’t afford the PR hit.
