While 177 countries sounds like a lot, it's not where the majority of players are. PSN operates in the top 15 countries by GDP and the top 4 by population.

Of course there's still the question of why they work in so few countries when literally none of their competitors (that I know of) have those limitations.

For religious people they're sure eager to sell used "personal massagers" for $10.

Also, frankly, here in the Reno area it's basically impossible to find a thrift store that's not run by incredibly religious wackadoos. Best you can do is Goodwill, which is far from irreligious. Salvation Army is one of the few that isn't blasting Jesus Rock on the speakers when you're in there.

The guild is seeking contracts that include staffer protections in the event of the sale of the company, improved severance offerings, and basic protections from AI.

In other words they've noticed that a bunch of greedy venture capitalists bought them and aren't gonna let 'em just liquidate/automate their jobs for a quick buck.

They're also probably feeling a bit paranoid after watching Hard-Drive have the same thing happen.

As others have said, Twitch adblocking still works just fine. There are multiple plugins which block their ads, and you can even paste in a few custom filters to uBlock Origin and bypass them.

In other words, it's not inevitable.

Think of it this way: YouTube has to pay people to work on anti-adblocking tech, whereas pissed off nerds with a permanent "fuck you I do what I want" energy will figure out how to defeat those measures for free.

I still act respectful in churches and other "sacred" places, not out of any fear of the Magic Sky Wizard, but simply because other people respect them and it seems like a useful thing to encourage, even if I don't agree with the underlying reasoning. Having a place which most of society agrees should be a quiet, comforting sanctuary is not the worst thing at all, even if the comfort is derived from extreme wishful thinking.

Also, Christmas. Christmas music is great. A Charlie Brown Christmas is one of the best holiday albums ever, though we always skip "Hark the Herald Angel Sings" 'cause it's such a tonal shift compared to the rest of the album.

In fact we'll provide you with a handy list of all of the places you should absolutely avoid. Indexed by interest and type even!

Another one that gets me: buying things but not actually owning them. You buy a game but you don't actually own the game, you own a license to play a game on a service that might shut down sometime in the future or change their mind about the license they sold you. You buy an e-book but the storefront you bought it from might change or remove it, and then forcibly update or remove any copies you have on e-readers. Most people don't even buy movies or TV shows, they just subscribe to some streaming service, and if they do "buy" an electronic copy it's the same issue as e-books.

At least physical copies of movies and tv shows and books are still a thing, but even then we're heading towards a future where physical media may require phoning in before it'll play.

Communists? Nah, not a problem. I mean I'm a Star Trek fan, and while it's not played up that much the Federation is a post-scarcity socialist-adjacent society. I'm all for everyone having their basic needs met without condition or obligation, and money being obsolete.

Tankies though can fuck right off. North Korea is not a bastion of democracy. China is not more free than the US. This is not difficult to see.

Yes, let's enter discussion with the literal Nazis so we can try to understand them. There might be nuance to their calls for mass genocide.

Fuck off OP.

What a horrible day to have genitals.

"Problematic usage". IT WAS USED FOR SNORTING COKE. DRUGS. DRUG USE. This isn't Facebook, you don't have to come up with cutesy euphamisms and self-censor yourself.

To quote a great poet, a haiku:

ha ha ha ha ha

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

ha ha ha fuck you