So companies go there to die

Another way to look at it: When a companies bubble bursts, when people realise that it is just a note taking app (or whatever), and that its never going to grow 10x again, VC investors want shot of it.

Without a constant stream of new investment, the company simply can't afford to be loaded up with SV staff producing features that nobody will pay for. Bending Spoons change the business model to 'normal business'. They move to much cheaper European staff, stop work on nonsense 'features', concentrate instead on servicing their existing customers with a stable platform and well thought out incremental advances.

So they take businesses that are dying because nobody will give them free money any more, and make them into real sustainable businesses that can stand on their own two feet?

Nono, this is a pro-scammer point of view. They absolutely go for a minimal upkeep, maximum dark patterns strategy.

It's not about sustainable business, they are literally enshittifiers. I know quite a few employees, they literally debate whether a UX change to make a X to close a payment modal almost invisible is "too evil or not" and they go with it anyway.

So, we're not kind to companies who ruin their product for a short-term revenue increase then why all this positive spin for a company whose business model is to do exactly and only that?

I can't see them NOT sanitizing the old cartoons

Because some of us need to have the servers that the "serverless" people use.

Also a product of the mentality that you get ahead in your career by adding new features, not by maintaining existing features. Maintenance is boring and the new kids straight out of college don't want to do the boring thing.

Not only that, but the young have to support the old in their retirement. This becomes a huge problem when there are multiple elderly per young person and the young find that they are spending most of their time and effort supporting the aging population. The elderly start being seen as a burden on society.

Deadly Tide on Windows 95 was amazing. I still consider it to be one of the best rail-shooters ever made.

Why did this comment require vouching?

I'm going to guess the poster was banned for something a while back. When you're banned on HN, you aren't locked out of posting, but everything you post appears as dead by default and requires someone to vouch it.

dang has talked about this before, but there are a number of users who were rightfully banned, go on to post nothing but healthy, constructive comments that almost always get vouched, and then immediately turn abusive again when they're unbanned. So the current moderation philosophy is to leave them banned and let users vouch their comments, which works out better for everyone.

Something automatic due to post history maybe?

One of the reasons I used to swap out the OS on my android phone. Back then I used CyanogenMod (now LineageOS) and they weren't able to track when I was using tethering and when I was just using my regular data.

Yeah, the US is big. Movies and TV shows usually only show like 2 or 3 cities which makes everything seem like it's close together. For instance I live on the east coast, and I've never been to LA California, which might seem weird but it's over 2500 miles away. Different regions have basically different sub-cultures that emerge because we're so spread out.

I remember when Second Life was new and touted as "The Future". Gamers jumped into it but many left because there was simply nothing to do unless you were a creative type who had the skill to create and sell items in the 'game'. I'm guessing today it's just creative people hanging out with creative people, which is probably a fun experience for them, but not something that will appeal to a wide audience.

Also it came out at a time where the focus for 3D games was still pretty much realistic graphics and competitive gameplay. Especially the graphics thing to me kinda seems to have stagnated since the days of Far Cry, Crysis etc.

Mainstream games, even MMPORGS which focused less on graphics tech, still had to participate in the conventions and expectations of single-player and/or competitive games.

That makes 2nd life relate to my perspective, which at the time (early 2000s) already had shifted to that of a non-gamer, despite heavily playing video games as a child.

Maybe Second Life was not only an interesting continuation of Chat rooms, but also a precursor to the revival of casual and socially oriented games.

The nice continuation of the "game with no goals" was probably Minecraft.

The not-so-nice version is mobile and easy pay-to-win games which try to rent-seek on real or simulated social interactions (Farmville was an early version of this I guess).

I remember how awesome The Incredible Machine in "Free mode" was (one of my favorite games as a child), but still never picked up gaming again.

A good and modern version of second life might appeal to me though. I always followed the articles about this at the time, without any interest in playing, but fascinated by the content.

Since I skipped Minecraft and could imagine some kind of VR version of Reddit with shared screens etc, I don't think that Zucks Metaverse vision is completely of the track.

I know a person with a quest Headset who enjoys watching football matches with strangers from English (voice chat and shared immersive screen, avatars are not important as of now I guess)