The way Apple ruined Foundation, via Mister “I’m better than Asimov!” Goyer.

Reciting poems by Silvia Plath.

Yeah I know it’s AI-generated but hear me out:
Put him in a next-gen animated feature, make him super smart and wise, and name him Plato.

Probably the hope, not completely unfounded, that the migration from one “legacy” (from the 00s) platform to a more recent alternative service - twitter to Bluesky - will help inspire people in other legacy platforms to also realize that alternatives do exist now, they are part of a broader conversation that they weren’t a part of even two years ago.

Even a year and a half ago, this place felt like it hadn’t yet installed the drywall, the wiring and tubing was incomplete. Now it feels more seamless, ready for a spurt of growth.

“Hey… Bluesky isn’t all that bad, I’m glad to be out of the clutches of a billionaire asshole, and not feel utterly lost here”, now cue what OP believes a number of people will also think: “Hmm… maybe I’ll check out Lemmy, too. See what the alternative to reddit is like.”

Some of them could have tried it, didn’t like it, might come back and be like: “Hey, Lemmy’s not too bad since last I last looked a year ago”, and here’s a clincher that definitely wasn’t here a year and a half ago: “The app works pretty good”, and there are a lot of new apps, having a choice gives a sense and weight of legitimacy.

We have updated the terms of our service!
Click here for attorney bullying with reams and reams of jargon,
Or click “Consent” here for more pictures of cute kitties instantly!

that they polled customers afterwards points to this being a simple corporate fuckup

Yes, this is my thought as well. They bought their way into the market, somehow thinking it was the chunk of real estate and not the services provided that kept customers coming back over and over again. They didn’t even bother to see what these services were, came in like a bull in a china shop, indifferent to the point of oblivious about it, even as the accounting department back at the home office had to process out all the kitchen equipment, the self-service soda and ice cream machines, etc., from every store in Baja.

Nowadays, 7-11 is still there, puttering along, as a generic clone of Oxxo, the other large mini-market chain in Mexico, offering nothing special, except maybe along the lines of - “Hmm… Oxxo is three blocks this way, 7-11 is one block that way, I guess I’ll go to 7-11”, and Oxxos are everywhere, Jesus… like somebody gleefully abused the copy/paste function.

Now this truly does sound like a horrifying story.
Move over McRib, 'cause here comes Georgie “Please Let Me Die” Pie, even less often than you do!

Imagine if McDonald’s had actually defeated Jollibee in the Philippines, absorbed them, then resuscitated their menu once a year.
But that didn’t happen, I wonder how did Jollibee not only survive, but thrive? What was their crucial chessboard move there?

Gather round, children, and let me tell you a story of the same type of mindless corporate stupidity that happened in my state, about how something successful was ruined because all they could see was at the surface level…

When the mini-market chain AM/PM opened some stores in Baja California, they came up with a hybrid concept that also included a made-to-order fast food kitchen serving burgers, and a sizable seating area, they called this Dave’s Kitchen. It was a huge, huge hit.

Enter 7-11 into the scene. Getting wind of this new phenomenon and armed with corporate cash from their Mexico offices in… Monterrey I think it was… they bought every AM/PM in the state and converted them to 7-11s, surely salivating at the prospect of this large client base that was supposedly built-in with their acquisition.

So what was the first thing they did?
They shuttered Dave’s Kitchen. Poof… gone!
They got rid of the soda machine, the ice cream machine… instead of assimilating the business model of what they had bought, they got rid of everything that made these AM/PMs unique in the market, replaced it with their own bland and generic way of doing things according to the home office in Monterrey.

Within a month, the new 7-11s had lost around 3/4 of their customers. Their emergency response was to send in a squad of corporate poll takers to pester the customers still there and see… why the other ones had gone, I guess?

Asking the wrong questions (why did the customers leave in droves?) to the wrong people (the few remaining clients who didn’t leave). And thus, nothing of value was learned, because when your corporate business school suits are clumsy unthinking hammers, every situation and problem look like a goddamned nail.

Maybe the problem is that they’re all trying to be the same goddamned thing, like how there are 15 or more goddamned hamburger chains.

“We want to be like facebook! Also like Youtube and twitter and tiktok! And like Instagram!”

Maybe if they stuck to their speciality and strengths, pick a lane and stay in it, they would prosper. But no! God forbid!

Nature is based

…it’s lawyers all the way down.

Also, bigger lawyers feed on smaller lawyers, scoop them up in gigantic mouthfuls, can consume up to four tonnes per day.

bizarrefully delight

Oh yes we do, we want the community here to be like it was in Reddit before the meddling of that greedy, right-wing asshole-in-charge allowed maga to flourish there, and before he fully and officially enshittified the interface.

Marketing can be such an immoral, insidious process.
And it takes thousands of people pushing this shit mindlessly, because hey… “It’s just a job, right? Nine to five”.

Physics/nuclear literacy in the general public around the world is lower than bad, even many scientists from other fields seem to be genuinely uninformed or misinformed, then posting wrong and often alarming interpretations in social media, which laymen give weight to because “it’s coming from a scientist”, never mind that their expertise may be in areas of biology or astronomy, nothing to do with the subject they are posting about. And they themselves might have gotten their bad info/interpretation from other figures in academia.

The philosopher of choice for mediocre self-entitled pricks with delusions of grandeur everywhere.

Ooh… capsaicin-powered hot take!

A chronic compulsive content-stealer creature like gallowboob might have encompassed that 15% all by himself.

Back when Australia was still remote and exotic, before Crocodile Dundee even, a lot of people back in the day thought he sang:
“He just smiled and gave me a bit of my sandwich”,
which would have also made for a fantastic lyric in a very silly way.

My recommendations to you are as follows:

My favorite Altman film overall probably might have to be The Long Goodbye. Check out how the camera is always moving, if even slightly; there are no static shots. Midway through the movie, the great Sterling Hayden steals the show. And keep an eye out for a very, very young Ahnold Schwarzenegger in a bit role as literal and figurative muscle for the batshit insane bad guy.

Brewster McCloud is a bonkers twisted fantasy that caught me by surprise by how much I enjoyed it, it’s about a kid who:

1. Lives in the Astrodome in secret, in a forgotten construction nook, a big one, between walls and floors.
2. Wants to be able to fly.
3. Is being encouraged by an older woman, who might actually already know how to fly.

Also, there are people being killed all over town, and it might have something to do with all this.