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galagawinkle489 commented on Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy   sammobile.com/news/israel... · Posted by u/croes
ebbi · a month ago
When you increasingly lose the court of public opinion, you resort to this sort of gaslighting.

Because the Israeli Hasbara is now failing at this gaslighting strategy, you're leveling ad hominems towards people who see this as what it is - decades of war crimes and a humanitarian crisis.

So either come up with a proper argument, or stay quiet. Gaslighting us into thinking we're being biased, or that we're ill informed, just isn't going to work anymore.

galagawinkle489 · a month ago
The war crime is when Hamas and Hezbollah fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel to kill innocent civilians.

Any and all means are and will always be justified to prevent that.

galagawinkle489 commented on Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy   sammobile.com/news/israel... · Posted by u/croes
MomsAVoxell · a month ago
The “War on Terror” has addled peoples minds so harshly that the notion that there is actually a legal way to wage war seems preposterous - however, there is a “legal means by which to wage war” which does in fact protect you, citizen, and you should learn about it - because when your representatives (and by proxy: you) violate those laws, you become personally liable for the repercussions that other victims will prosecute on you, and your nation state:

https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/geneva-conventions-an...

If ‘no bomb/missile ever is a war crime’, then .. there is no such thing as “terrorism”, either. (Although the argument could be made that there is no such thing as ‘terrorism’ at all, and that indeed, the word terrorism is merely a propaganda crutch used to justify atrocities against so-called ‘lesser cultures’ deemed inferior by the same institutions which used to use the ‘n-word’ to justify their atrocities in decades past, too, before that became difficult to do ..)

You can indeed commit war crimes with sticks too, though, incidentally.

galagawinkle489 · a month ago
The "legal way to wage war" is only relevant when you are waging war against an army. Hezbollah is not an army, it's a terrorist group. It attacks civilians. It doesn't wear uniforms. It ignores the laws of war.
galagawinkle489 commented on 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study   gamesindustry.biz/72-of-d... · Posted by u/mrzool
kakacik · 2 months ago
30% on mobile platforms if generally frowned upon as source of massive overcharging compared to actual costs (since its a massive revenue & income stream for their owners), but somehow for Steam its fine because... they also generate keys? Or what should be the magical justfication.

No its not fine, its a cash cow milking customers. Valve may be better than their competition but they are not saints (same company basically inventing addictive lootboxes mechanism, albeit not in its worst possible form), its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.

Maybe they should have tiers ie 0-10% for first 5k sales, 20% above 100k etc. There are many options to be nicer to customers & developers.

galagawinkle489 · 2 months ago
It isn't overcharging on Mobile either IMO but the difference is pretty obvious: there is only one way to get your app onto an iPhone or an Android and that's through those stores.

PCs are an open platform. It is very different.

>its a for-profit company that has tons of profit. I am not saying 15% is OK or X% is OK, but 30% is too much in 2025.

And you base this on what? Nothing. It is a privately held company and you don't have access to its books.

galagawinkle489 commented on 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study   gamesindustry.biz/72-of-d... · Posted by u/mrzool
ido · 2 months ago
I think what you’re saying is that they are a natural monopoly, which isn’t nefarious or illegal. But is still a monopoly.
galagawinkle489 · 2 months ago
Steam is not a natural monopoly.
galagawinkle489 commented on 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study   gamesindustry.biz/72-of-d... · Posted by u/mrzool
gruez · 2 months ago
>It take more than simply being the best or most successful business in a sector to be a monopoly. Being a monopoly is an active choice you make as a business by intentionally engaging in anticompetitive behaviors.

By that logic are Amazon and Whatsapp also not "monopolies"? Are they simply just the best e-commerce company and chat app respectively? What competitive behaviors are they employing against their competitors?

galagawinkle489 · 2 months ago
Amazon sold products at a loss for years in order to capture market share, then raised prices. That is blatant abuse of market power
galagawinkle489 commented on 72% of devs believe Steam has a monopoly on PC games, according to study   gamesindustry.biz/72-of-d... · Posted by u/mrzool
jorvi · 2 months ago
Valve has market power though, which is a key part of a monopoly.

If tomorrow Steam decided to charge 30% extra to developers with the stipulation that sticker price must equal that of outside Steam, developers wouldn't have much of a choice but to eat the cost, because PC gamers are extremely reluctant to leave their Steam library and features.

A good example of market power is Apple vs Spotify. When Apple launched Apple Music, they changed Music.app into Apple Music on every iDevice in the world, with a handy subscription pop-up the first time you launched it.

This was massively anti-competitive overreach despite Apple not technically being a monopolist. You can easily install Spotify, and Spotify was much bigger. Without making this move, Apple Music would have crashed and burned, but Apple basically forced themselves into the market, using their marketshare and user migration reluctance as a crowbar.

The fair competition thing to would have been to show a pop-up on first Apple Music app launch, asking "hey, would you like to try one of these streaming services?", and show Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Deezer in a random order. Just like Microsoft and their browser pop-up.

Then again, aside from a decade of stagnation (2010-2020 Steam saw very few updates, until Valve started working on the Deck), Valve hasn't really abused their position. Gabe Newell famously said that piracy isn't a pricing problem, it's a service problem, and Valve is a private company, so as long as he is at the helm I assume Valve is going to continue delivering good service. After that.. who knows.

galagawinkle489 · 2 months ago
"Monopoly" is a distraction. The issue is abuse of market power. Having market power is fine. You can't punish people for being successful.

Steam doesn't abuse being successful to lock out competitors. You can sell products sold through Steam via other platforms too. You can sell outside of Steam and give your customers Steam keys for the game. You can install Steam on different platforms alongside other stores and programs.

Nothing Steam does makes it harder for consumers to buy games from Valve's competitors. That's what matters, not whether Steam is very successful.

u/galagawinkle489

KarmaCake day-18October 26, 2025View Original