Notices by Ian Betteridge (ianbetteridge@writing.exchange), page 4

Yeah, yeah, I know. Fool me once etc.

https://ianbetteridge.substack.com/p/substack-and-platform-risk

And for those who would prefer a non-Substack version...

https://ianbetteridge.com/2023/12/22/substack-and-platform-risk/

@dogwonder Amazingly, it took all of five minutes: there's a Substack-specific content importer which just takes the zip file you export from Substack. And the subscriber importer accepts a zip file. The biggest tricky bit for anyone is, I think, going to be billing: you can mark someone as a paid subscriber, but they have to authorise payment again (even though it's all done through Stripe, for most publications).

I argued a while ago that VCs putting money into startups purely on the basis they could be flipped to a big company and not on them being viable businesses with potential long term profits was a bad thing. I was told categorically that no, VCs didn’t do this. Now many of the same people are talking about how VCs won’t invest in startups because they can’t be flipped to the likes of Adobe. Odd how they’ve changed their tune.

Do I trust Meta? Nope! But this is not the smoking gun that it is being portrayed as.

And, as I have to caveat every single time, I 100% support any instance or individual that wants to block, mute, or otherwise not engage with a Meta property.

Note that last part, which details how they use data from here - it doesn't contain anything about ads. Seperating it out like this is the lawyer's way of making it clear that this is what applies to third-parties, and that the above applies to Threads users (otherwise it's just repeating what they already have covered).

There's a post doing the rounds which says that Meta's terms and conditions mean they plan to harvest Mastodon users' personal data to target them with ads. Unfortunately that post is misreading the T&Cs, and cherry-picks from a section which is clearly about Threads users, not "third party service users" (ie. us). Here's the full, unedited section.

“And this is how you wipe your WhatsApp messages”

@davey_cakes I don't disagree with your approach at all (you do what's right for you and I support you 100% in that decision) but worth noting that LibsOfTikTok doesn't have an account on Threads now, after their content was moderated out of existence.

@BethanyBlack I guess running up to you and giving you a massive bear hug probably isn't what's best right now, but consider this a metaphorical and appropriate level of care sent in your general direction.

What's better than a crypto Ponzi scheme? A crypto AND AI Ponzi scheme.

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/single/ai-powered-crypto-ponzi

Honestly if Trump gets elected the world is in trouble.

From: @RollingStone
https://mstdn.social/@RollingStone/111556861239956448

I still find it kind of fun that EU people are getting a better version of Windows than anyone else.

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-announces-upcoming-changes-to-windows-to-comply-with-the-eus-digital-markets-act/

No

Pinched from somewhere else, but this was just too good not to share.

@aral If this whole tech thing doesn't pan out, you have a great future in comedy ;)

Listening to the latest "Sharp Tech" podcast with Ben Thompson, and they're talking about how governments can't build things... I had to stop it when James asked "why didn't the government build SpaceX?"

Mate, you never heard of the Apollo programme?

Remember everyone, when a job is so low paid the government has to top it up via benefits, it's a direct subsidy from taxpayers to shareholders, and from the poor to the rich.

I see 30p Lee, a man so dense he warps the gravitational field of the Earth, has had another hissy fit. He thinks of himself as a "man of the people" but he's really the pub bore, the one who wanders over while you're trying to play the fruit machine to give you the benefit of his views, loudly.

@pettter Hmmm, would I trade Britain during any of the years they governed with Britain today? Yes, yes I would.