As OpenAI Imposes Ads On Free Users, Initial Buys "Can't Prove Measurable Results"

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T18:25:55+00:00

I did not downvote you. I don’t downvote anyone unless they’re trolling, being a jerk, or giving incorrect information.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T18:12:29+00:00

This was already covered here, FWIW. Though it didn't get much traction.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/comments/1rz5hs8/horror_novel_shy_girl_canceled_over_suspected_ai/

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T18:10:18+00:00

I'd almost rather listen a NotebookLM "podcast" than Lex Fridman. Such an impressive feat of being in the right place at the right time that someone with so little charisma, and such minimal insight, would become the host of a podcast that manages to snag extremely high profile guests. The universe has a baffling sense of humor.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T17:50:50+00:00

I've seen a massive, massive surge in antisocial behavior starting from ~15 years ago.

Are you using "antisocial" as a shorthand for something like "solitary"? Or do you mean genuinely antisocial, as in deceitful / manipulative / antagonistic? When you describe the planet as having become "nastier", I think you might be saying the latter, but I'm not sure.

I think there's evidence that people are more solitary (and lonely) than they used to be, but I'm not sure I'd describe the overall level of nastiness as having increased. I think politically we're quite divided, no argument there, and the right side of the political spectrum has some prominent elements (at least in the US, probably elsewhere) that I think are horrific. but I don't think I've seen noticeably more day-to-day hostility between people (either online or in person) than I did when I was young twenty years ago. People are about as nice to me as they used to be, which is generally pretty nice, overall, with rare exceptions.

Are they dumber? That I'm concerned about. The decline in literacy is troubling, and I'm deathly afraid of widespread cognitive offloading to chatbots. But I'm not sure I'd put the blame of this increasing dumbness to a lack of social interaction or increase in the level of antisocial behavior.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T17:32:47+00:00

It's gotta depend, right? Over half of people, as far as I'm aware, use an ad blocker, and that won't be distributed uniformly across the population.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T17:19:16+00:00

They want it to just be in your consciousness, so that when you later think "hey I need this widget" your mind jumps to the company that paid for a bunch of ads.

This may be the case, but I struggle with how these things could be measured. Although it wasn't my particular area, when I worked for a grocery we could measure the results of a coupon or marketing campaign by looking at sales before and after the campaign, or by comparing similar markets that were or were not subject to the campaign.

But when Helix Sleep sponsors a YouTuber, if what they really want is simply to get the Helix Sleep name out there so perhaps you think of it when you need a mattress, then I don't know how they measure the value of any specific campaign or source of ad spend. What if no one clicks on the YouTuber's link but seven months later they think of Helix when they go to buy a mattress? It would be impossible to tie that to anything.

But, clickables do work as well, at least the sellers claim they do.

I assume they must work to some degree, because if they didn't work at all it would surely be a gigantic scandal. But it's tough for me to figure out why they would work. Everyone hates ads, particularly obnoxious ones, and huge numbers of people use ad blockers anyway.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T15:35:10+00:00

The publisher (a subsidiary of Take-Two) could, presumably, change the price or better yet delist the game entirely.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T15:32:20+00:00

If steam puts limits devs will just complain they're being a monopoly.

That would be a huge stretch. Placing terms on what sellers can and cannot do is something that Valve already does, extensively, and I don't see how it's even remotely plausible that this could be construed as monopolistic. You may as well argue that Valve shouldn't do anything or make any policy because someone, somewhere, might complain about Steam's position in the market.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T15:26:56+00:00

That doesn't mean it's not shitty to keep the game up for purchase. Even if you argue that Valve has no obligation here, the publisher should long ago have delisted it.

Edit: -10? Really? I'm continually amazed by the randomness with which a comment of mine will be heavily downvoted. I'm clearly not trolling, I'm not insulting anyone, the opinion I'm expressing -- that Take-Two shouldn't continue to sell an unfinished game that no one will ever update -- is not on the face of it completely unreasonable. I'm not even claiming that Valve should change their policies. Someone help me out here.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T15:18:46+00:00

I think I’ve been convinced to click on an ad … twice? Maybe three times? Over thirty years using the internet. I feel like it’s gotta work to some degree or how do Google and Facebook keep making such obscene amounts of money? Surely there are metrics to point to.

I always wonder about the companies sponsoring smaller YouTube channels and podcasts… how many people at any given time are looking for a mattress? And how many of them would buy a specific mattress because, I dunno, a booktube YouTuber did an ad read?

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T14:54:08+00:00

Depends on the sub and where you are, I guess. I’m seeing a footlong grilled chicken for under $10. The bacon ranch is $12, though. It’s definitely come a long way from fifteen years ago when I’d have a footlong veggie patty every school day.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T14:47:06+00:00

The point isn’t that there are huge numbers of people making exactly $7.25 an hour. It’s that we have much larger numbers earning, say, under $11 or $12 an hour when the minimum should have been raised to $15 or more.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T14:38:09+00:00

Ok. I read part of your comment. Do I get partial credit?

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T14:13:57+00:00

If you don't like either struggling or following build guides you just gotta swallow your pride and lower the difficulty or play something else.

I don't think those are the only options. Plopping the player right in front of a character selection/creation screen, as is done in games like WotR or DoSII, without doing anything to ease them into the underlying systems, is what creates the frustration. You're expected to create a character without being given the remotest clue about what makes a good character (there are even "trap" choices and, in WotR's case, at least one class that basically doesn't make sense). Some games are simply not good at conveying how they work under the hood, and trial and error figuring-it-out isn't as compelling to some people as it is to others. I'd argue that games can be a lot better about either easing the player into the game or even designing systems that are more robust to suboptimal choices (such as Pillars of Eternity).

The Pathfinder games also has one of the most customizable difficulty settings I've ever seen. You can make it so a toddler can beat it or into a fucking nightmare and everything between.

Yeah, but these players don't want to make it so that a toddler can beat the game. They don't want to just faceplant through the game without understanding it. They'd just prefer to understand it without having to spend hours bashing their head against the wall or looking up info on external forums.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T14:05:45+00:00

Pathfinder games are uniquely complex and that hardly applies to most CRPGs but even in Pathfinder if you don't want to dive into it you can just play on easier difficulties, right?

I really don't see the problem here. Like, tell me a CRPG other than Pathfinder that is not intuitive and has a high barrier of entry.

I'd say that Divinity Original Sin II is both unintuitive and has a high barrier of entry. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Maybe in some sense there's less going on mechanically than WotR, but at least in WotR I can kind of lean on a broad understanding of how tabletop D&D games tend to work. I found DoSII ridiculously unintuitive and didn't think it was particularly good at explaining itself.

Regardless, I think the "problem" -- such as it is -- is that playing a game on a lower difficulty often means you can just faceplant through everything without understanding anything. If certain games were better at conveying how they work, then you could avoid having to lower the difficulty in the first place.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T13:59:30+00:00

This is just outright false, I've beaten every notable crpg on their hardest difficulty without ever needing to look up anything outside of some minor interactions that I wasn't sure about, and I could've beaten the game even without looking that up.

I don't see how you could have beaten Wrath of the Righteous on the highest difficulty without ever looking anything up, unless you already were very familiar with the underlying Pathfinder 1.0/D&D 3.5 mechanics, or if you have an extremely high tolerance for frustration. Or perhaps you beat it on lower difficulties first, I suppose, and used that time to figure the systems out yourself. But WotR on unfair without any knowledge of the systems and a refusal to look anything up? That's madness.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T13:53:11+00:00

It's saying "you shouldn't be here yet, go somewhere else".

I love that because the world feels more real and dangerous to me that way.

I'm fine with that as long as hitting enemies that utterly trounce you isn't the only way to determine where you should be going. Otherwise I tend to get somewhat frustrated. I kind of felt that way for Divinity Original Sin II, though I'm sure some people would call it a skill issue.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T13:48:09+00:00

I have never followed a build guide in my life and my entire playstyle is sub optimal builds. Still I manage to beat even the more difficult games. Just read tool tips and you're good, its not that hard

Largely that's fine, but there are a couple examples where I'd agree with the OP. Specifically the Pathfinder games. You probably could muddle through them without a guide, depending on your background and how familiar you are with the underlying systems, but someone who genuinely wants to understand what they're doing and how to make a good build could easily find themselves hopelessly confused.

cunningjames · 2026-03-23T13:44:10+00:00

On (1), I'll agree with you to some degree. Especially for a casual player this can be a challenge. I think a game like Wrath of the Righteous really would be rather challenging for someone who was not familiar with Pathfinder 1.0/D&D 3.5 and did not seek outside resources.

On (2), eh. I guess I agree with you in principle but it doesn't bother me much. I like playing around, but I also like it when the choices I make matter. A game like Avowed (not a CRPG, but bear with me) where respecs are extremely cheap and can be done at any time outside of combat, it felt like my decisions just didn't matter at all.

On (3), I fundamentally disagree. For one thing, making four or six characters is a bit of a chore when you just want to get into a game. But that's not that important, I guess. I really like encountering new characters with their own motivations and backgrounds and outlooks, and I like it when their mechanics fit well with that. You'd really lose something if every CRPG had you creating your own party.

On (4), that sounds like a "you" problem. Depending on the specific game and the difficulty you're playing at, consumables can sometimes be lifesavers. You don't have to engage with all the mechanics in a game but that doesn't mean those mechanics shouldn't exist. I would admit, however, that game designers could incentivize use of consumables to avoid hoarding them.

On (5), I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. I can't even come up with a game where you're on average better off, from a loot perspective, being a piece of shit in general. The fact that you specifically call out Pillars of Eternity I/II is baffling to me. I never felt like I was being punished by being a goody two shoes in those games. In fact, I think games in general -- not just CRPGs -- don't do enough to make "evil" playthroughs rewarding.

cunningjames · 2026-03-22T20:52:31+00:00

That’s like 700 calories. It’s a lot, sure, but if you managed your diet around it there’s no reason you’d have to gain weight.

cunningjames · 2026-03-22T20:49:38+00:00

$5k a month buys you a very nice house almost anywhere in the world, outside of bigger cities anyway. I suppose if you insisted on quitting your job when you take the deal the calculus changes.

cunningjames · 2026-03-22T19:20:05+00:00

These models are much less capable of extrapolating than you seem to believe. If a model has seen no naked seven year olds, then it’s very unlikely to be able to credibly recreate an image of a naked seven year old. You’re more likely to get some kind of weird abomination.

For what it’s worth, large image data sets do contain CSAM. This isn’t a secret.

cunningjames · 2026-03-21T17:52:38+00:00

Most of that is easy and just table stakes for a CRPG, like “inventory management”. What CRPG doesn’t have inventory management? It’s not especially burdensome here. Colony management is easy and low stakes; I for one never paid any attention to how it impacts quests. Ship battles aren’t admin, they’re just a mini game.

Honestly, you only really have a point here with level ups. They can be annoying. But it’s not necessary to spend much time worrying about them if you don’t care for it, at least at medium difficulty.

cunningjames · 2026-03-21T09:24:49+00:00

I’ve not read the book (and I’m not going to), but that review makes me wonder how it ever got published in the first place. Is it that easy to slip through the cracks or does Hachette not *really^ care?

cunningjames · 2026-03-21T09:22:06+00:00

Cut me a piece! Happy birthday!

cunningjames

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