I've got two off the top of my head:
First is that the design of the USB drives needing to be oriented up or down was the result of a minor cost cutting choice. The inventor regrets it because it wouldn't been easy made so that USB drives were reversible.
Second is the abundance of pointless SEO stuff on recipe pages. It would be a cool opportunity for the creator to add a personal touch to the recipe page beneath the recipe, but they pop in first along with ads and suggested links. And they're so frustrating to navigate that they had to incorporate a 'jump to recipe' button.
Shoving ads in my face everywhere I go, causing me psychological harm as my ADHD brain has to contend with things that are designed to be attention grabbing but which I do not want to pay attention to. So it's like an assault on my ability to think clearly. I'm being robbed of my fucking capacity to reason so that it will increase the likelihood I hook myself up to the great machine and let Moloch drink of my blood
I dont really go out much aside to work and I have 678 adblockers and don't watch TV or listen to the radio and I steal all my media, so I rarely encounter ads.
so when I do it lights a fury inside me
Same. I borrowed a Hulu premium account and when a car commercial started playing 5 minutes in I closed it and downloaded the show.
It's so immersion breaking too.
Tried to watch Shape of Water on Hulu on a day off and the first ad at 12 minutes destroyed that plan
I really need to get a VPN and another SSD
Holy shit when someone wants to show me a video and I see the experience of what most people get it blows my mind these days. I was essentially able to cut out all advertisements out of my life a few years ago and I genuinely think it's had a profound impact on my mental health. How did this shit get so fucking normalized.
My fucking god I hate how pervasive ads are. I've entirely quit watching cable TV because of commercials and just pirate anything I want to watch, and I just don't listen to the radio for the same reason. Magazines and newspapers lost the war ages ago but those are dying media that no one read anymore. Thank fucking god uBlock Origin exists otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to tolerate the internet. But I can't avoid billboards because I live in a car-centric hellscape where public transportation doesn't exist and I literally have to drive a car if I want to get anywhere. Billboards are a blight upon the landscape and every single one of them should be burned to the ground.
On the rare occasions I actually watch cable TV (usually at family gatherings) it honestly astounds me how mind-numbing ads have become. Like how everything has to have a stupid "catchy" jingle, or be super in your face about manipulating you into buying whatever garbage they're trying to sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
every cool new idea or invention must be made to bend to the will of Capital or extinguished (most often both)
p2p file sharing > subscription streaming services etc
texting (costs basically nothing because it fit in unused spaces within existing protocols) > every carrier charges for it for a decade or more even though it didn't cost them anything and was not a reliable service
Stonewall > Corporate and Law Enforcement Pride Events
there's plenty of examples beyond these if you think for a few minutes
One may dye their hair green and wear their grandma’s coat all they want. Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead…
I feel like digital currency was my break with normies, like how do you really think that Bitcoin can supplant the USD?
Thanks for teaching me a new term!
Also the texting thing still pisses me off.
P2P file sharing is a great example of how capitalism claims to value efficiency, yet will cling on to inefficient methods if it's profitable.
”What do you mean you'd rather just download one song for free than go to the store to buy a CD for $20?”
Forced me to understand insurance terms like "deductible" and "copay" despite never pursuing a career in insurance.
No cellular reception.
Having to pay the water bill by physically bringing a check to the fucking office every few months. I’ve talked to the water company about this repeatedly. They just get incredibly hostile. They’re also a public utility. I’ve talked to government officials and representatives as well. Nothing. My theory is that one or two people will lose their jobs if they aren’t cashing checks or sending bills in the mail. I can’t mail the checks either.
General backwardness. Living in an invisible prison of 19th century ideology. “But we’re in the future now because we have cellphones!” People thought they were in the future in the 19th century too, and for the same silly reasons.
No bullet trains.
No mask mandates.
No community because every relationship is a money relationship.
People realizing only a small portion of their full potential because they spend so much energy on just surviving when there is plenty for everyone.
I don’t know!!! They just mail them back to me unopened!! It’s insane! And it’s like this for everyone! So many houses have late payment warnings stuck to their front doors every few months! All of us feel this way and nobody cares! When I talked with someone at the state agency that’s supposed to regulate these utilities she was like “yeah the situation sucks it’s the same here maybe someone should do something about this but not me lol.” Fucking maddening!!!!
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.
Not really "little" in the grand scheme, but de-industrialization which has led to people becoming "influencers" and making all their content around themselves instead of their contributions to the world. Be it LetsPlays or whatever else, far too many people are in the way of the actual interesting happenings they're engaging in, because to stay competitive means to be ever increasingly obnoxious and hysterical. The entertainment/attention industry basically dominates Western discourse these days. Tougher to find good amateur content, unless you really know where to look.
Tougher to find good amateur content, unless you really know where to look.
This applies to so many things under capitalism.Like music; large venues, and insane ticket prices, and reasons I don't understand have driven out/under the small bar / local band places near me
Oh, absolutely. I've actually said the exact same thing when talking to people about the trend of modern influencer celebrity types. An endless and ever escalating glorification, flaunting and worship of wealth that's caught millions of desperate people in a cult-like flytrap. Just watch, it'll continue decaying over time and we'll all eventually move onto a post-glamour society, though I won't hold my breath since it's gonna be a while.
Edit: That bubble can't grow forever. Sooner or later it'll pop just like every other bubble under capitalism.
unnecessary ''smart'' products
a few years ago our family got together to buy a new fridge for my grand grandmother and trying to find one without some bullshit 'smart' functions was a nightmare. no one needs to have their fridge connected to the internet, but especially not a 90 year old woman who barely understands what the internet is
seems like the smart trend has died off though thank god
It's called the Internet of Shit and it's fucking awful
They never think about security when implementing those awful things, either
There have been entire botnets made out of those e-waste generators
Paid public restrooms
This will be in a history textbook someday and kids will meme about how bizarre it was like Roman vomitoriums
Gendered public restrooms too, no one has gendered bathrooms at home (except probably Mormons but fuck them anyway)
But if there are no gendered restroom what's to stop a man with a sledgehammer from knocking down the stall door and entering? Checkmate liberals
literally actually want to murder people who erect paywalls between the public and pissing, and then the cops try to arrest you if you simply piss on the road
all the random dumb shit in my inbox. i'm applying for jobs and an apartment rn, so i've had to give out my serious stuff email and personal phone number like 30 times in the last week. i'm getting constant texts and calls and emails from people trying to sell shit, and i have to answer the calls because some of them could be jobs
Capitalism is why sports games fucking suck, especially American football games. Technology is at a point where we could have the most realistic simulation Xs and Os football game but we have Madden (absolute dogshit) and a couple small indie games that are either arcade leaning or just not good if we're being honest. It's so stupid.
Madden became the exclusive series because Sega sold their game cheaper one year, and their games were also better liked than Madden at the time. EA signed an exclusive license with the NFL because they were spooked by how well Sega's better, cheaper game did. Yet another case of capitalism driving competition and making things better for everyone
This is the thing actually. Ok, yeah, I'm getting fucked up by capitalism, but I live in the west and I can just about live. Yes, I spend 70% of my wages on rent but I can live just about alright.
If it wasn't just about alright, more of us in the west would be open to the idea of revolution, and militant left wing groups. I'm not out there doing militant activity.
What I can say though, is that it has absolutely ruined all of the mediums of media that I enjoyed. Film, music, gaming, sport, etc etc etc, it's all been hollowed out by capitalism almost completely. Everything is ripping the maximum amount of profit out of you. Everything is low quality, bloated shite. All that was once fun has been ripped apart so that a good film or game isn't the norm, but an anomaly.
Don’t worry about being “militant”, the country which causes and benefits from imperialism the most isn’t going to turn around overnight. You know what little things annoy you, so if you want to help, rally people around those. The rest follows from there.
Websites constantly asking you to disable your adblocker for them, makes some parts of the internet unusable
