#shopping comparison site

[toppicksreviews]

Egypt visa-free countries

Egypt offers visa-free entry to citizens of several countries for stays up to 90 days. These include Bahrain, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Lebanon, Macao, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, some nationalities are eligible for visa-on-arrival, while others must obtain a visa in advance. The list of visa-free countries can change, so it's advisable to check with the Egyptian embassy or official government sources for the most up-to-date information before planning travel. More info: https://toppicksreviews.com

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The CFPB is genuinely making America better, and they're going HARD

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

Let's take a sec here and notice something genuinely great happening in the US government: the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau's stunning, unbroken streak of major, muscular victories over the forces of corporate corruption, with the backing of the Supreme Court (yes, that Supreme Court), and which is only speeding up!

A little background. The CFPB was created in 2010. It was Elizabeth Warren's brainchild, an institution that was supposed to regulate finance from the perspective of the American public, not the American finance sector. Rather than fighting to "stabilize" the financial sector (the mission that led to Obama taking his advisor Timothy Geithner's advice to permit the foreclosure crisis to continue in order to "foam the runways" for the banks), the Bureau would fight to defend us from bankers.

The CFPB got off to a rocky start, with challenges to the unique system of long-term leadership appointments meant to depoliticize the office, as well as the sudden resignation of its inaugural boss, who broke his promise to see his term through in order to launch an unsuccessful bid for political office.

But after the 2020 election, the Bureau came into its own, when Biden poached Rohit Chopra from the FTC and put him in charge. Chopra went on a tear, taking on landlords who violated the covid eviction moratorium:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/20/euthanize-rentier-enablers/#cfpb

Then banning payday lenders' scummiest tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/planned-obsolescence/#academic-fraud

Then striking at one of fintech's most predatory grifts, the "earned wage access" hustle:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

Then closing the loophole that let credit reporting bureaus (like Equifax, who doxed every single American in a spectacular 2019 breach) avoid regulation by creating data brokerage divisions and claiming they weren't part of the regulated activity of credit reporting:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

Chopra went on to promise to ban data-brokers altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/13/goulash/#material-misstatement

Then he banned comparison shopping sites where you go to find the best bank accounts and credit cards from accepting bribes and putting more expensive options at the top of the list. Instead, he's requiring banks to send the CFPB regular, accurate lists of all their charges, and standing up a federal operated comparison shopping site that gives only accurate and honest rankings. Finally, he's made an interoperability rule requiring banks to let you transfer to another institution with one click, just like you change phone carriers. That means you can search an honest site to find the best deal on your banking, and then, with a single click, transfer your accounts, your account history, your payees, and all your other banking data to that new bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

Somewhere in there, big business got scared. They cooked up a legal theory declaring the CFPB's funding mechanism to be unconstitutional and got the case fast-tracked to the Supreme Court, in a bid to put Chopra and the CFPB permanently out of business. Instead, the Supremes – these Supremes! – upheld the CFPB's funding mechanism in a 7-2 ruling:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/05/supreme-court-lets-cfpb-funding-stand/

That ruling was a starter pistol for Chopra and the Bureau. Maybe it seemed like they were taking big swings before, but it turns out all that was just a warmup. Last week on The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner rounded up all the stuff the Bureau is kicking off:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-06-07-window-on-corporate-deceptions/

First: regulating Buy Now, Pay Later companies (think: Klarna) as credit-card companies, with all the requirements for disclosure and interest rate caps dictated by the Truth In Lending Act:

https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/06/cfpb-applies-credit-card-rules

Next: creating a registry of habitual corporate criminals. This rogues gallery will make it harder for other agencies – like the DOJ – and state Attorneys General to offer bullshit "delayed prosecution agreements" to companies that compulsively rip us off:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-creates-registry-to-detect-corporate-repeat-offenders/

Then there's the rule against "fine print deception" – which is when the fine print in a contract lies to you about your rights, like when a mortgage lender forces you waive a right you can't actually waive, or car lenders that make you waive your bankruptcy rights, which, again, you can't waive:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-warns-against-deception-in-contract-fine-print/

As Kuttner writes, the common thread running through all these orders is that they ban deceptive practices – they make it illegal for companies to steal from us by lying to us. Especially in these dying days of class action suits – rapidly becoming obsolete thanks to "mandatory arbitration waivers" that make you sign away your right to join a class action – agencies like the CFPB are our only hope of punishing companies that lie to us to steal from us.

There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world right now, and much of it – including an active genocide – is coming from the Biden White House.

But there are people in the Biden Administration who care about the American people and who are effective and committed fighters who have our back. What's more, they're winning. That doesn't make all the bad news go away, but sometimes it feels good to take a moment and take the W.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/10/getting-things-done/#deliverism

[kanmom51]

I have always wondered why JM Stans hates JK. I have seen posts about how JK is being the Company's favorite and that Scooter is trying to use JK to out sell JM. I don't believe it but I do want your opinions on this. I know you will probably say that's a very stupid thing to ask for but I see it a lot and I wonder why they keep saying that JK and V are the companies favorites. And also do you think the company didn't actively promote JM? This Fandom has finally twisted things around. I just need to know your thoughts on this matter. Thanks

Hey love.

Ok, where do we start?

Maybe from the end.

It being that it does feel at times that JM gets the raw deal from the company. If it's intentional or just because he's too nice and doesn't speak up enough I don't know. But this has been going on for years. The way the promotions for Face were handled, the way his name or photo somehow seem to disappear at times from official sites. For example the official BTS US store had all the members apart from JM in the index.

The issue has been since fixed, but it took angry JM stans posting and sending messages and emails to the company to notice it and make it happen.

Or, another example is JM's Like crazy Korean and English version streams being counted separately by Spotify.

Little things that make you ask "why him?" or more so "why is it always happening with him?"

Now, it's not that Jin has been forgotten at times as well (being cropped out of group photos at times). Somehow it's always those two, but with JM it's way more frequent and feels off.

Saying that, I do feel that some JM solos tend to make JM out as a constant victim (perhaps part of allowing them to be his saviors). While doing that they are constantly making comparisons with the others and while doing so also try to tear the others down.

I think this is part of the issue with solos. Forgetting that these 7 men are part of one band. A band they ALL want to be part of. Something they have said multiple times in the past and recently as well. 7 men that love each other (not to mention the elephant - cough couple cough - in the room).

It's more than ok to have a preference. A member you feel you like more or feel more connected to. It's a different matter to call yourself a fan of a single member elevating him by tearing down the others and constantly calling for said member to ditch the others and go solo. Spewing hate at the other members in that person's name, supposedly for him. Obviously you are not a fan of BTS when you do that, but more so you are not a true fan of said member who loves the others you constantly attack and wants to stay with them as a group, as he constantly and repeatedly tells us all.

Like the whole comparison made between JM's promotions and JK's (two totally different stories, different artists' objectives, different markets). And let me be clear here. I am not saying it felt like JM's success, which was, I feel, unexpected, was downplayed or not properly formally and publicly recognized. At the time it certainly felt that way. What we don't know is what JM's feelings were on the matter. Did he want it that way or was it a company decision? I know how it looks, but at times we need to understand that there are so many undercurrents and we don't get to see most of what's under the water. We only see what's shared or not shared with us, by the powers at be's decision. For example: Later on, in his documentary we saw that JM did get a cake for the #1 billboard achievement. So was it his choice not to post a pic? At the same time we saw his success, again, kind of being downplayed in articles, in BPD's interview, so this is one of those things I am leaving with a big question mark. Was he given the well deserved acknowledgement (even if not publicly)? Was it downplayed from the start, even towards him? And if so, why?

That being said, attacking JK, writing hateful posts about him, his looks, his artistry, his character not only would not make a damn difference as to how JM is being treated by the company but goes against everything that JM is and everything that JM feels towards JK.

Same issue, btw, with all solos. JK solos and the hate towards JM, the person JK loves the most in this world.

Do you see what I mean?

That was a little long winded, lol.

So, I do take issue with the need to cut down at another members success only to lift JM's up (he don't need no lifting, he's bloody amazing). I can assure you that is something he personally would not want, being the beautiful soul that he is, he wants the others to succeed and is not in competition with them.

I also hated this need to cut down JK even before his music came out, during JK's promotions, when he was choosing to mirror JM, a clear friggin calculated choice with a clear friggin purpose, by calling him lazy and a copy cat.

First of all you could see, if only you had eyes and kept them open, how throughout ALL of his promotions JK was mirroring JM. It was with similar outfits (even using the same exact black leather pants). It was with wearing the top part of an outfit to which JM wore the bottom part in his promotions. It was with his hair style and colour choices and references to JM's album. Anyway, point being once again that attacking another member does nothing to help lift JM up.

I always find it funny that JM solos hate JK so much.

The person that JM loves more than anyone else, and who loves JM more than they could ever.

The person who knows JM more than they could ever.

The person that JM chose to spend the 18 months of his army service with together, 24/7!! This was not forced on either of them. This was their choice.

Could it be jealousy perhaps? You know, JK gets to get JM and they don't.

Or perhaps this need to be the savior - poor JM needs them to save him from the big bad JK and the big bad company.

p.s. - maybe, just maybe, if indeed JM is being targeted by someone in the company, that's the issue that someone has with him. The fact that he will always come first for JK. The fact that because of him they can't control JK. Well, JK is not someone easy to control, but a. with JM in the picture some of his priorities are different (like wanting to spend time with him, like wanting to go public with their relationship) or perhaps the effect JM has had on JK, being his catalyst (JK's words) and all; and b. Outright homophobia. JK is the golden goose and he is in a long term relationship with a man, a bandmate. It makes life much harder for those that would rather milk the badboy hetero fuckboy image to the limit when said person wants to be accepted for his true self...

Well, that was definitely me digressing from your questions. Oopsy.

Bottom line:

Something kind of feels off with how things seem to go with JM and official content at times over the years (that includes photos, sites, spotify etc.) including his solo promotions.

That said, the comparison with other members, in my opinion, is unjustifiable. Because first and utmost they wouldn't want their fans to be comparing them. They all put themselves out there for their fans and all heartedly supported each other on that journey. Every single one of them had a different kind of solo debut. This is about different music genres, collabs or not, writing their own music or not, promoting out side of Korea or not, even down to the language of the songs. And with this also comes the different kind of promotions. Music shows or live/recorded performances for army, in bigger or smaller venues or even a tour, like Yoongi did.

The comparison with JK is just unfair to both of them. Especially given the very special relationship those two have. Both being the other's biggest fan and supporter.

That aside, the two went on two very different journeys. JM went on a personal journey releasing his first album taking part fully in it's creation, it being a very personal story he was telling us. JK, on the other hand, for whatever reasons (some of which he told us some of which he most likely didn't) decided to go with songs written by others, choosing to challenge himself with singing in English, and new genres and vocals. The choice for an album in English could very much have been pushed by the powers of be, and I do not want to go into the discussion of just how much influence SB has or not, other than say that Bang PD, a very smart and savvy man, knows his way around the music industry and business worlds and has much more influence on JK than anyone else, and that JK is a grown ass man and has told us on more than one occasion that he tends to make decisions for himself, even if at times they might not be the right ones, he goes with his gut. JK also told us he wants to be a huge superstar and singing in English, what can you do, opens up the US and other markets for him in a way that singing in Korean wouldn't.

But even putting that aside people seem to forget that from the get go JK was always the Golden maknae, the one that not only the company saw as their golden goose, but also all other members put on a pedestal. Not saying that's right. Not saying that's fair. But it is what it is. The company is a money making business. And now that BH are under Hybe, although they have autonomy (mostly) on the music, the costs and promotions, they don't have free reign over. And if it's about money making and profits, at times these will be the guidelines as to into what and where the money goes as far as promoting an artist. Let me be clear here. I'm talking here about costs and profits as in how much hard cash was put into a member's promotion over another's. This here isn't about other shit that's happened, such as no public acknowledgement or counting streams of different versions of the same song together or separately. That is another issue. What I'm trying to say here is that the starting point was and never will be the same also due to financial decision making.

Ok, so I think that maybe I've made more of a mess here than anything else, lol.

My bottom line is that even if I feel that JM is being wronged by the company in one way or another (and this goes for any member that might be wronged as well), I would never turn on another member and blame them for it nor would I compare between them. You can like or dislike the music each and every one of them released. That's fair enough and makes sense too. But belittling a member just to try and lift up the other one, that is just wrong in my books.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hi derin! i’ve been following you for a little while, and also bemoaning the nature of publishing fiction (indie or trad) for a little bit longer than that, and i only just realized today that…of course web serials are a thing i can also do!

i really love the idea of publishing serially (though i’m not totally sure i CAN, i’d like to try), so while i add this to my list of potential paths, do you have any advice for getting started? building an audience? marketing? figuring out if writing/publishing this way will work for you to begin with?

i know that’s a lot of questions, and you don’t have to answer all of them! i’m throwing spaghetti at a wall out here. i hope you have a good day though, and thanks in advance!

Getting started in web serial writing

Web serial writing has the lowest barrier of entry of any major method of publishing your story. You can literally just start. There are two steps:

start writing your story

decide how/where you want to publish it

The writing part, I assume you have handled. The important thing to note here is that you gotta see the project through. Start and don't stop until you're done. For publishing, you have a few options:

1. Publish on a website designed for web serial novels

There are a few of these around, they're usually free to publish on (although most offer a paid account to give you ad space or boost you int he algorithm or whatever), and your best choice generally depends on which one happens to gravitate to a niche that best suits your kind of work. The big names in this industry are Royal Road and Scribblehub, which, last I checked up on them (about a year ago) tended towards isekai and light erotica respectively. (You absolutely can publish outside these niches on these sites, it's just much harder to get traction.) Publishing somewhere like this comes with multiple advantages. Firstly, there's a writing community right there to talk to; there's usually a forum or something where people gather to talk about reading or writing on the site. Second, the site itself is designed specifically to publish web serials, and will come with a good layout and hit trackers and 'where you left off' buttons for the reader and all that; generally all you have to do is copy-paste the text of a chapter into the page and the site will do everything else for you. Third, there's an audience sitting right there, browsing the 'latest arrivals' or 'most popular' page of the site; if you can get high in the algorithm, you have to do little if any marketing.

The downsides of such places usually come down to the same things as the advantages. Such sites are a flooded market. Your story absolutely will drown in a sea of other stories, a great many of them terrible, and most of them with the advantage of catering to the site's niche. Gaining an audience there is often a matter of trying to game an algorithm, and the community can be... variable. Some of these places are nice but most of them are a bunch of authors trying to tear down everyone around them to make their own work look better by comparison int he hopes of poaching audiences for their story instead. If you go this route, I'd recommend shopping around for a site that fits you personality and writing style (or just posting on many sites at once; you can also do that).

These places also tend to get targeted by scrapers who will steal your story and sell it as an ebook, which is very annoying.

2. publish on another site

Plenty of people publish web serials here on Tumblr. I do not know why. This site is TERRIBLY set up for that. It makes tracking stories and updates a pain in the arse (people end up having to *manually tag every reader whenever they post an update*), building and maintaining archives are annoying, community building is surprisingly difficult for a social media site, and it's just generally far more work for both writer and reader than it needs to be. You often do have a ready-made audience, though.

This does tend to work better on other sites. Reddit has multiple communities for reading and writing various types of fiction; publishing on these is a bit more work than somewhere like Royal Road, but not very much, and many of these communities are very active. There aren't as many forums around as there used to be, but you might be able to find fiction hosting forums, if that's what you prefer. And of course, many writers who simply want to write and don't mind not being paid choose to write on AO3.

These sites are a good middle ground compromise for people who want a ready-made community and don't mind putting in a bit of extra work.

3. make your own site

This is what I did. You can make a website for free, giving people a hub to find you and all your work, designed however you like. You can also pay for a website if you want it to be a little bit nicer. This option is the most work, but gives you the most control and leaves you free of having to worry about any algorithm.

The obvious downside of this is that there's no community there. If you host your work on your own website, you need to bring people to it. You need to build an audience on your own. This is not an easy thing to do.

Building an audience (general advice)

Here is some general advice about building an audience:

1. Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

If you want people to read your writing, the best piece of advice I can possibly give you is have an update schedule and update on time, always. If you need to take a break, give people as much warning as possible and tell them exactly when you will be back, and come back then. Do not take unnecessary breaks because you don't feel like writing. (Do take breaks if you get carpal tunnel or need time off for a major life event or something -- your health is more important than the story.) If you're taking a lot of breaks to avoid burnout, you're doing it wrong -- you need to rework your whole schedule from the start and slow down updates to make these breaks unnecessary. Two chapters a month with no breaks is a billion times better than four chapters a month with frequent burnout breaks.

Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

A reliable schedule is the #1 factor in audience retention. If readers need to randomly check in or wait for notifications from you to check if there's an update, guess what? Most of them won't! They'll read something else. You want your audience to be able to anticipate each release and fit it in their own schedule. I cannot overstate the importance of this.

2. If you can, try to make your story good.

We writers would love to live in a world where this is the most important thing, but it actually isn't. Plenty of people out there are perfectly happy to read hot garbage. How do I define 'hot garbage'? It doesn't matter. Think of what you would consider to be just a terrible, no-effort, pointless garbage story that the world would be better off without. Someone is out there writing that right now, making US$2,500/month on Patreon.

It is, however, a real advantage if you can make your story good. At the very least, it should be worth your audience's time. Preferably, it should also be worth their money, and make them enthusiastic enough to try to get their friends into it. Managing this is massively advantageous.

3. Accept that you're not going to get a big audience for a really long time. Write consistently and update on schedule every time anyway.

It took me over a year to get my second patron. For the first year, I updated Curse Words every single week, on schedule, for over a year, and had maybe... four readers. One of them was a regular commenter. One of them was my first patron. There was no one else.

My audience has grown pretty rapidly, for this industry.

You're not gonna start publishing chapters for a big, vibrant community. You're just not. And you have to keep going anyway. These days, I have a pretty good readership, and those couple of loyal readers (who I appreciate beyond words) have grown into a much larger community, who hang out and debate theories with each other and liveblog and drag in new readers and make fanart. My discord has over 550 members, with volunteer moderators and regular fan artists and its own little in-jokes and games and readers who make a point of welcoming newcomers and helping them navigate the discord, all with very little input from me. I start crying when I think about these people, who do the bulk of my social and marketing work for me just because they want to help, and my patrons who, after writing for over 4.5 years, have recently helped me pass an important threshold -- my web serial (via patreon) now pays my mortgage repayments. I can't live off my writing alone, but boy is that a massive fucking step.

You're not gonna have that when you start. You're gonna have a couple of friends. And that's it. Maybe for a year. Maybe less, if you're good at marketing and lucky. Maybe longer.

You have to update on schedule, every time, anyway.

Building an audience (more specific advice)

"Yeah, that's great, Derin, but where can I find my fucking audience?" Well, if you publish on a web serial site, then the audience is there and you jsut need to grab their affention using the tools and social norms offered to you by the site. I utterly failed at this and cannot help you there. You can still use these other tips to bring in readers from off-site.

1. Paid ads

I've never paid for ads so I can't offer advice on how to do it. I've Blazed a couple of posts on Tumblr; they weren't helpful. This is, however, an option for you.

2. Actually tell people that your story exists and where they can find it.

I used to have a lot of trouble with this. I didn't want to bother people on Tumblr and soforth by telling them about my personal project. Unfortunately you kind of have to just get over that. Now I figure that if people don't want TTOU spam, they can just unfollow me. If you're like me and want to just politely keep your story to yourself... don't. You're shooting yourself in the foot doing that.

You need to mention your story. Link your story in your bio on whatever social media sites you use. Put it in your banner on forums. Make posts and memes about it. Eventually, if you're lucky, extremely valuable readers will start to talk about your story and meme and fanart it for you, but first, you need to let them know it exists.

It will always feel weird to do this. Just accept that people can unfollow you if they want, and do it anyway.

3. Leverage existing audiences and communities

Before I started doing this web serial thing, I used to write a lot of fanfic. The original audience that trickled in for Curse Words comes from AO3, where I was doing a full series rationalist rewrite of Animorphs. They knew how I wrote and wanted more of it. Nowadays, I still occasionally pull in readers through this route. Most of my new readers these days come from a different community -- people who follow me on Tumblr. Occasionally I bring in people who don't follow me because we'll be talking about how one of my stories relates to something different, and fans of that thing might decide they want to check my stories out.

Your first readers will come from communities that you're already in and that are already interested in something similar to what you're doing (people reading my fanfic on AO3 were already there for my writing, for instance). Keep these people in mind when you start out.

One additional critical source of existing communities is your readers themselves. A huge number of my readers are people I've never been in any group with -- they were pulled in by their friends, relatives, or community members who were reading my stories and wanted them to read them too. This is an absolutely invaluable source of 'advertising' and it is critically important to look after these people. enthusiastic readers, word-of-mouth advertisers, and fan artists are the people who will bring in those outside your immediate bubble.

4. Your "where to find me" hub

If you're publishing on your own website, you can simply link everything else to your homepage, and put all relevant links there. For example, I can link people to derinstories.com , which links out to all my stories, social media I want people to find me on (you don't have to link all your social media), patreon, discord, et cetera. If you don't have your own website, you're going to have to create a hub like this in the bios of every site where you garner audiences from. This is the main advantage of publishing on your own website.

Monetisation

There are a few different kinds of monetisation for web serials, but most of them boil down to 'use a web serial format to market your ebook', which to be honest I find pretty shady. These authors will start a web serial, put in enough to hook an audience for free, and then stop posting and release an ebook, with the intention of making readers pay for the ending. Now, to be clear, I am absolutely not against publishing and selling your web serial -- I'm doing exactly that, with Curse Words. I am against intentionally and knowingly setting up the start of a web serial as a 'demo' without telling your audience that that is what you are doing, soliciting Patreon money for it, and then later yanking it away unfinished and demanding money for the ending.

Monetisation of these sorts of stories is really just monetisation for normal indie publishing with the web serial acting as an ad, and I have no advice for how to do that successfully.

Your options of monetisation for a web serial as a web serial are a bit more limited. They essentially come down to merchandise (including ebooks or print books) or ongoing support (patreon, ko-fi, etc.) Of these, the only one I have experience with is the patreon model.

This model of monetisation involves setting up an account with a regular-donation site such as patreon, providing the base story for free, and providing bonuses to patrons. You can offer all kinds of bonuses for patrons. Many patrons don't actually care what the bonus is, they're donating to support you so that you can keep writing the story, but they still like to receive something. But some patrons do donate specifically for the bonuses, so it's worth choosing them with care.

The most common and most effective bonus for web serials is advance chapters -- if people are giving you money, give them the chapters early. You can also offer various bonus materials, merchandise, or voting rights on decisions you need to make in the future. 'Get your character put in the story' is a popular high-tier reward. If you're looking for reward ideas, you can see the ones I use on my patreon.

Patreon used to offer the ability to set donation goals, where you could offer something when you were making a certain amount total or had a certain number of subscribers. They recently removed this feature because Patreon hates me personally and doesn't want me to be happy, so you kind of have to advertise it yourself now if you want to use these goals. I release chapters of unrelated stories at donation goals, and I found this to be far more effective than I thought it would be.

The important factor for this kind of monetisation is that it's ongoing. The main advantage of this is that it makes your income far more regular and predictable than normal indie publishing -- your pledges will go up or down over a month, but not by nearly as much as book sales can. The main thing to keep in mind is that it's not a one-time sale, which means that however you organise things, you want to make sure that donating keeps on being worth it, month after month. Offering bonuses that aren't just one-time bonuses, but things that the patron can experience every month, helps here. So does making sure that you have a good community where patrons can hang out with other patrons. (Offering advance chapters does both of these things -- the patron can stay ahead in the story and discuss stuff with other patrons that non-patrons haven't seen. I've found that a lot of my patrons enjoy reading an emotionally devastating chapter ahead of time, discussing it, and then all gathering a week or two later to watch the unsuspecting non-patrons experience it for the first time.)

Whatever method you use for monetisation, rule #1 is (in the words of Moist Von Lipwig): always make it easy for people to give you money. The process of finding out how to give you money should be easy, as should the process of actually doing it. And, most importantly, the spender should feel like it's worth it to give you money. This is a big part of making it easy to give you money. Make your story worth it, make your bonuses worth it, make sure that they're happy to be part of your community and that they enjoy reading and supporting you. And remember that support comes in many forms -- the fan artist, the word-of-mouth enthuser, the person who makes your social hub a great place to be, the patron, all of these people are vital components in the life support system that keeps your story going. And you're going to have to find them, give them a story, and build them a community, word by word and brick by brick.

It's a long process.

Good luck.

.

[ladala99]

Also, I have thoughts about the prize shop/prize point format for this plot. It's different from before, which has its ups and downs.

And also as this went along I started into a tangent about endgame.

How it Used to Be

Prize shops when I first played were released usually months after the plot was over. While I don't have knowledge of how exactly the figured out the prizes, it seemed that they (probably not in this order):

Had statistics of what all players did, how many times, etc.

Determined how many points each action was worth.

Created unique prizes based on the plot events and player culture surrounding them (at the very least there were meme items in The Faerie's Ruin).

Determined the average amount of the prize shop different levels of participation was worth and priced the items accordingly.

Assigned Trophies based on how many points different players had in comparison to one another.

I could be completely wrong, but that's how it felt and would make the long delays make sense. Prize shops released soon after the plot was over seemed to be balanced worse, anyway.

In summary, though, players played and then TNT balanced points and prize shop items based on participation.

How The Void Within Works

Basically, it's the complete opposite approach. We earn points as we participate in the plot, and the prize shop is available right from the beginning. It includes both new prizes and big-ticket items that already exist.

In addition, unique, directly plot-related items are awarded by keeping up with the story, whereas the prize shop only contains items with theming based on the plot's themes (those being Grey, space, darkness, and the leaders of Neopian lands. Plus a few others that might make sense later?).

The big-ticket items included are going along with the trend nowadays of purposely making rarer, more expensive items obtainable to the average Neopian. Some are R101 items previously released in other plots/events or for purchasing real-world merchandise, others are R90+ items (with several R99s) that are pretty difficult to restock due to their rarity+price. And then there's the Wand of the Dark Faerie.

Wand of the Dark Faerie

The two biggest of the big-ticket items are Wand of the Dark Faerie and Grapes of Wrath. Grapes of Wrath is a Smuggler's Cove item, which puts it basically in the same category as the R99s (before researching this I thought it was practically retired, but actually apparently Smuggler's Cove has been restocking everything for just over a year now).

But Wand of the Dark Faerie is a different beast. It is the top prize of Jhudora's Bluff and one of, if not the, best weapon(s) on the site. And to get it before this, you needed to give her 20 R99 items in a row, only having a little over 15 minutes to obtain each one.

It was a huge investment and, with bots mostly snapping up the R99s that restock, very difficult to achieve. It was the most endgame of endgame items.

And now it's available for a little over a month of daily plot participation.

It's really cool to get one, and I enjoy being able to upgrade my BD set, but really:

Neopets Needs More Endgame, Not Less

I seem to be at odds with a lot of people in this regard. There are many people ecstatic about being able to achieve their childhood dreams much more easily now. I see people saying that having things be so difficult to get was driving people away.

I'm okay with limited-time items being rereleased. Because they weren't really intended to be difficult to get. They were just themed tie-ins and were pretty cheap when they first came out, with the exceptions of useful consumables (stamps, books), and the useful consumables absolutely should be rereleased to give newer players the same chance as older players to complete those collections.

But you know what got me stuck with this site for so long? The fact that there are some things that I can't get yet.

I sucked at plots as a kid. I wasn't good enough to play them yet.

Then I could play the puzzle parts, but some of the later waves of the battle parts were too difficult. I couldn't do them yet.

Next stop is being able to take on a superboss. I didn't have the stats or weaponry yet.

Every plot in-between was filled with me coming back to the site to work towards the next step. (At least during times that I had hope that plots would come back. Some points I just stopped playing because it seemed like we'd never get another one.)

But Jhudora's Bluff is Too Difficult?

As I've mentioned, getting R99s is the big hurdle for the ultimate endgame quest. It is more difficult than it should be, since less people are playing and more of the R99s are going to bots instead of real people.

But there could have been other ways to make it obtainable.

Make a daily that gives R99s out at the same rate as they restock. Hold more Charity Corner events where R99s are distributed. Revamp the shop system so you aren't competing against other players to grab the few items there. And do what they've been doing in making specific R99s much easier to get via Weekly Quest Log prizes and other event prizes.

Anyway.

Back to Prize Shop Discussion

Tangent aside, I don't mind how they're doing it. Most plots in the past have been only a few months long if that. My absolute favorite, Tale of Woe, only lasted through October of that year.

This plot is very different. We have 10 months to play it, if not more (iirc they said it would last at least 10 months).

Imagine playing that long, waiting that long, with no idea what you're working towards. The last time a plot lasted so long, it was a war, so you were working against other players at all times. But other long-lasting plots dragged. Anyone remember Lyra and the Lost Heirloom? I got so bored with her taking several weeks to move 5 feet up the wall that I just took hiatus in the middle of it (and ended up missing the window the prize shop was open completely. Why did they close it? No other plot shop closes aside from the Altador Cup, which actually has a reason to close since the page is reused every year!).

Seeing the plot points coming in and being able to use them gives that boost of motivation to keep coming back. And there's so much time that latecomers will be able to get the top prizes as well, so long as they don't join at the very end.

Completionism

However, there is a downside. When you couldn't tell what anything you were doing counted for, it was easier to just do what you could and had time and attention span for.

But since there is a maximum point total you can get per day, everyone wants to get that maximum. If plot point scores were hidden, I would bet there wouldn't be nearly as many people setting timers and getting up in the middle of the night for hospital shifts.

Getting All You Want

There's also: what will you do when you get everything you want from the prize shop? There'll be no mystery - you'll just be playing for the trophy upgrades at that point. And once you get all those, then what? Just keep going because you have the momentum? Or drop off Neopets from the burnout?

Better or Worse?

I don't really think this is necessarily a better or worse situation. It's just different.

I think the current way is enjoyable, but there are downsides. I don't have a full picture - we're only on Chapter 2 of 21 (the fact that we know this already is kinda immersion-breaking, too). Until the end, I'll reserve complete judgment.

[waitingonher]

44+7 with percy please ?

EMMY'S 100 EVENT CELEBRATION

percy jackson + give me a kiss first. + i'll pay.

content warning: nothing

authors note: pls im on fire rn. 3 fics released in 3 days?!?! i LOVE not being in a writing slump! oh and why the employees would let little teenagers hold a $130 necklace?? idk 🤒🤒

the expanse of the jewelry shop almost seems dizzying as you roam through the rows and rows of display cases. you and percy eye a variety of accessories, from diamond encrusted rings to dangly ruby earrings. but as your boyfriend follows only a few steps behind you, he thinks that in comparison, you’re the real jewel here. and yes, he does acknowledge how cheesy that realization is, but with the way your eyes are twinkling at the sight of everything and the way you have that gorgeous smile on display, it doesn’t seem very cheesy anymore. 

moments later, you find yourself holding an absolutely gorgeous necklace that’s caught your eye. the way it gleamed and glistened underneath the bright white lighting of the store had you hooked the moment you saw it through the display case. looking up, curious green eyes meet your gaze, brows raised in question, “do you like that one?” percy asks, studying your features. 

“yeah, it’s super pretty,” you nod your head with enthusiasm, “i think the color of the jewel goes well with my skin tone,” holding the necklace against your neck, you wiggle your brows. 

your boyfriend hums. but not as a sign of agreement, more so just acknowledging your comment, because in all honesty, percy’s never really understood the whole “it goes well with my skin tone” thing. the truth is, your boyfriend wholeheartedly believes that you could pull off any color, and he means any color. throw on the ugliest shade of orange known to mankind and he’d still end up complimenting you. 

“how much is it?” percy inquires, mentally going through his wallet. unsurprisingly, if he doesn’t have enough cash for the necklace, your boyfriend would find some way to pay for it. even if it means singing or dancing (very poorly) on the side of the street for some stranger’s pity change. 

you didn’t even think of the price. oops. grabbing the tiny tag, you turn it around to read the price, and in big bold numbers, it reads $130. so much for adding it to your jewelry collection. you groan and flip the tag towards percy, “love, look at the price! if only it wasn’t so expensive, then i could-” 

“i’ll pay,” percy declares, his voice confident and sure, as if dropping $130 for you was no big deal. for you, having your boyfriend spend that much money on you is absolutely ludicrous. but for percy, he’d spend any amount of cash if it means seeing you happy, and if this necklace that matches your skin tone so well makes you happy, then so be it, “no if’s or but’s. let me pay for it, y/n.” 

did you hear him correctly? percy wants to pay for your $130 necklace? of course it’s not unusual for him to offer to pay for your things, because he always does. but the thing is, he always ends up paying for it in the end. and you fear that today is going to be the same. 

you wave your hand in dismissal, “no, i can’t let you do that. besides, i bet they have some cheaper knockoffs online,” your mind already fills with all of the sites you could check, and you hope this argument makes your boyfriend back down.

percy quirks a brow, “and does a cheaper knockoff guarantee good quality?” he knows you, so he knows your vehement hate for crappy jewelry that’ll end up rusting or oxidizing after a couple of showers. 

“okay, well i guess not, but-” 

“come on babe, you already know how this is gonna end,” percy gives you a knowing grin, as if he’s replaying all your past dates in his head, “so let’s skip the bickering and get to the part where you let me pay for this necklace.” 

boy, is he determined. you sigh, knowing that no matter what you do or say, percy will somehow figure out a way of getting you and the necklace to the register, “fine. but i’m covering lunch today, okay?” 

your boyfriend nods his head, “sure,” but his less than eager tone coupled with his overly exaggerated smile makes you not very sure if you’ll be able to actually spend any money today, “now let’s go pay.” 

with that, you and percy head in the direction of the register, his hand on the small of your back as you lead the way. yet again, another win for your boyfriend. 

“y/n, wait,” percy reaches for your shoulder and turns your body around to face him. he can’t let you walk away with a free necklace, can he? you hum in reply, awaiting his response. good, his brain is finally working and he’s going to say nevermind, you think. a win for you! or so you think, “give me a kiss first,” percy adds, his straight face morphing into a cocky smirk. not a win for you.

but hey, who are you to deny a free necklace and a kiss from your boyfriend? you shake your head and roll your eyes at him, but percy can’t help but look at your smile. now that’s what he wants to see, your beautiful, beautiful smile. your boyfriend leans down as he gently cups the sides of your face and places a kiss on your lips. it’s short and it’s soft, but it’s perfect. and it may be even more perfect than the very necklace in your hand. 

[bulbagarden]

guess what??? bulbapedia had its 50,000th wiki article created a bit ago, and to celebrate we made a news article celebrating bulbapedia! i'm actually in it, soo... take a look if you'd like!! (this was written by our twitter admin and my overlord wyndoncalling)

Celebrating 50k Bulbapedia articles with our favourite wiki pages!

As one of the world's largest media franchises, Pokémon is monolithic to say the least. Documenting every facet of this gargantuan IP is a task perhaps only the most dedicated and/or foolhardy would embark on, yet that's exactly what our Bulbapedia team and thousands of selfless contributors have done over eighteen long years! With Pokémon now encompassing nine generations of main series games along with dozens of spin-offs, mobile games, movies, anime and manga series, merchandise and much more, the wiki itself has grown in tandem - we recently hit a whopping 50,000 articles!

To celebrate, we've compiled a list from across the Bulbagarden team of our favourite wiki articles. For our non-wiki team members, these might simply be pages that they enjoy reading and help inform their work in other aspects of the site. For wiki Staff, these could instead be pages that they've sunk many productive hours into. Read on for an eclectic collection of articles detailing some of the most obscure corners of the Pokémon franchise!

Credits to Staff artist Sirius for the awesome header image!

WyndonCalling (Social Media) - Tall grass

On the one hand, I think it's faintly hilarious that anyone would go into such detail for a mundane and omnipresent mechanic of the main series games; the tall grass that awaits the player on every starting route just feels so self-explanatory in function. On the other hand, I think it speaks volumes about the commitment and mentality of the Bulbapedia team and contributors that no scrap of information is left undocumented - on the tall grass page you'll find the basic details about how it works, but also variations such as tall grass and seaweed, animations of the Cut mechanic, in-battle effects, and more. Who knew that simple grass could be so fascinating in a world with flame-throwing dragons and electric mice?

Runner-up - List of Pokémon by base stats

As the Admin of the Bulbagarden Twitter account, I'm always on the hunt for interesting trivia to share; having the base stats of all Pokémon in one, sortable place makes it so much easier to make fun comparisons between species (did you know that Krabby has more Attack than Eternatus?).

Maverick Nate - Bulbapedia - Coin (TCG) (and its three subpages: Gens 1-4, Gens 5-6, and Gens 7-8)

This page is what I consider my best accomplishment during my 10 years as Bulbapedia's TCG Leader. There is an incredible amount of research, time, (and personal financial investment) baked into the article, and it always gives me a swell of pride when I update it with fresh images of newly acquired coins. There are over 700 different coins documented here, and I still fondly remember the long-night research sessions I would have with my best friend when we would do things like watch countless YouTube openings to figure out release information, check out endless eBay and Yahoo Auctions listings for never-before-seen coins, hold up physical coins to a spotlight trying to determine the Holofoil pattern. Our other friends would poke fun at us for researching in the field, (which was just our excuse to go shopping for newly released TCG products with new coins or hitting up garage sales and card shops on the off chance they had old ones). All of those years of effort produced what is now considered the definitive list of all coins in existence for coin enthusiasts. Whenever I see people online referencing it and using it for their own collections, I just have to smile, knowing that my favorite article is helping people all around the globe.

Wowy (Bulbapedia) - Red (Masters)

This page is just an example for all the character pages for Pokémon Masters. As one of the main editors covering Pokémon Masters when the game was first released, I feel very content to see many other editors who have taken the mantle to make Bulbapedia's coverage of the game quite comprehensive! I also enjoy the gallery section at the bottom because there are some sweet artwork pieces that come out of the game / the PMEX Twitter.

Runner Up - Face board

An article that was initially written for fun ended up being moved from the userpage to the main Bulbapedia page. Like the tall grass page, it's a niche page that showcases how much we like to document every minor and obscure detail in the franchise (albeit there is still so much to cover)!

Lisia (Social Media) (omg HIIII that's me!!!!) (姉ちゃん見て見て、あたしテレビだ。。) - Pokémon world in relation to the real world

This is a very extensive page, and it's very useful for a lot of different things! I use it for worldbuilding for fanfiction and roleplay stuff usually, but it's fun to look at just in general as well! I remember looking at the page first like... years ago, and it blew my mind to see that the Pokémon world was actually based off of real locations! It's something that I'd call a huge resource for anyone who creates Pokémon fanworks, especially written ones!

Runner Up - Lisia (i had to LOL)

Maybe it's a little... self-serving? But I really like this article of my personal namesake; she's my favorite character after all! She's a relatively minor character within the whole of Pokémon so there's not a whole lot of information about her, so I like reading all the stuff there is about her! It makes me happy that people have put work into articles about everyone, because well... in a way I wouldn't be me without it. I should probably contribute to it sometime!

Orchid (Forums) - Pokémon food

I picked this article because it is astoundingly comprehensive on its topic, and offers a lot of really interesting insight into the Pokémon universe as a whole. From Poffins, to prey, to parasites, to Slowpoke Tails... it's all here! It's amazing how having all this information in one place puts into perspective just how much there is to cover on what, at a glance, might seem like such a simple subject. I find myself coming back here every now and then just out of curiosity (or perhaps to settle a debate about what an Aerodactyl really eats).

Runner-up - Twerp

This page is silly and I love it. I've even shown this one to friends and family who are fellow Pokémon fans, and they've gotten just as much of a kick out of it as I have! But as amusing of a read as it may be, what I love most about this page is the fact that even a short and lighthearted bit of terminology like this is documented thoroughly here, just like anything else would be. All across Bulbapedia, you can find so much care and detail put into the littlest of things, and that does bring a smile to my face

DapperCody (Multimedia) - Ash Ketchum

Like many people, I grew up watching the Pokémon anime as a youngster. I enjoy Ash's article because it is comprehensive account of the quarter century that he has graced our screens - looking it over is very nostalgic. The history section with photos is fantastic, and I love being able to see all the Pokémon he has ever owned or used and their current status. It also has an extensive trivia section like all my favorite articles do. I've fallen down the anime rabbit hole on Bulbapedia numerous times, and Ash's page is a great place to start.

Runner Up - Ash's Noctowl

See all of the above, but from a different perspective. Pages for individual Pokémon from the anime are fantastic to get a glimpse into all the highlights from their time in the spotlight, and what better example of this than my personal favorite, Noctowl? The move history is really neat, especially the fact that it designates the moves recently used (and the illegal ones when applicable). Did you know Noctowl was the first Shiny Pokémon in the anime?

bthrussellUK (Bulbapedia) - Pokémon Battle Chess

I really love this article because I think it’s an example of what Bulbapedia is great at; taking obscure Pokémon topics (especially outside of Japan) and saving them from being lost to the sands of time. The original Pokémon Battle Chess website has been taken offline, so without articles like this one, the game would be forgotten. Instead, because it’s here, I decided to find and buy a copy of both Pokémon Battle Chess BW Version and Pokémon Battle Chess and use them to help expand the gameplay section of the article. They're actually pretty fun games! Now I just need a copy of Pokémon Battle Chess W…

Runner Up - Pokémon games

It looks like it's just a really long list... and it is! But for me it's a really great reminder of how massive Pokémon is, how many games have been released in the last 26 years, and how many different platforms Pokémon games have released on. Ever heard of the Advanced Pico Beena or the iQue Player?

Whether they're popular or niche, wide-ranging or obscure, we hope you've enjoyed our short tour of our favourite Bulbapedia articles! Do you have your own? Are you tickled by the trivia on a given page? You can let us know on our forums or Discord server - or even start editing yourself!

The wiki can never have too many contributors, and if your love of Pokémon is as deep as ours we'd be delighted to have you with us for the next 50,000 articles!

(lisia note: thank you for reading!!!!!!!!!! hopefully you enjoyed it!)

[salt-volk]

I want to preface this by saying that I've been on DV since August of 2020, so I've been here throughout so many of the changes that this site has gone through.

Though I very much appreciate the fact that the dailies aren't nearly as mind-numbingly awful as they used to be and are way quicker, I still can't overlook my lack of excitement towards the game.

I used to be active on an actual pet site (I really wouldn't call DV a pet sim site because the pet aspect is far less involved than the avatar dressup) which barely ever updated and yet DV in comparison feels... hollow? Perhaps it's because I'm an adult now with less free time to be involved with the community or consistently do dailies, but the fact that so much of the assets being downright unattainable is what bothers me the most.

I'm not saying that as a player, I'm entitled to everything that I want in the game— I'm not saying that at all. I don't have a problem with earning whatever I have my eyes on, whether that be through daily quests, art commissions, or even purchasing premium currency with my own money.

What I *am* saying is that players are given way too much control over site assets and what I'm referring to is the shoddy customs system.

I know there are plenty of kind and generous custom owners that have come up with creative events and are kind when it comes to the price point of the customs that they distribute and I appreciate them immensely for sharing the fun and helping to make the game a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Without them, I would've decisively quit a long, long time ago. I've actually even purchased copies of several customs over the years as well.

However, I ultimately don't understand why the customs weren't limited to being an item/pet that anyone can purchase from an NPC shop rather than from the custom 'owner'— in my eyes, these would better incentivize players to continue playing the game because these things would not seem as impossible to earn.

Keep in mind that the people who use these custom creator items do not personally own these site assets as they still belong to DV.

The first word that came to my mind when I heard that a custom owner who quit is still willing to trade copies of the custom for the site currency of a completely different game is... 'stupid'. If you're not playing this game, it feels scummy to try to still benefit from access to this unlimited site asset. 

There's nothing wrong with trading assets that you have between games, but the fact that this player is trading their unlimited access to an 'infinite money printing machine' (which seemingly doesn't cost them anything assuming that the player that's willing to initiate a trade is required to provide the custom mirrors while the other party only offers a grant) for something that actually is limited in quantity leaves such a sour taste in my mouth.

I've scrolled this blog and found it interesting how people have joined FR to grind for things to trade on DV— because most off-site trades are for FR assets after all— and have unintentionally found it to be a better and more rewarding game than DV. In all honesty, this game is a wonderful advertisement for FR.

In my opinion, customs should have either been relegated to NPC shop items/pets or they should have existed as just one copy for the custom maker-rolled player to use. 

And when I continue thinking about the customs system in general, my mind can't help but wander over to the site's other flaws.

When the custom maker drop rates were announced, the makers stopped dropping only a few minutes after each rollover: this was deliberate and not a coincidence. They changed the rates after they were announced.

Agnes is said to occasionally give out items from previous limited monthly sets, but it's been a few years... is that still being implemented? Otherwise, new players will find it hair-pullingly frustrating to try to acquire any past monthlies and to earn entire  sets is something completely unfeasible.

Why is adventuring still so bad?

What about housing?

As I mentioned before, the site has its good qualities such as the frequent updates, charming characters, and the stunning artwork. I didn't even mind the missed deadlines when it came to updates and events— like how DV skipped over the second summer event entirely.

Truth be told though, the artwork was the only thing that was tethering me to this game. Not the gameplay, not the story, and certainly not the exclusivity that the customs system brought— without mincing words, that ruined the game for me.

Despite having bought some of my own custom copies, it felt like a chore to keep chasing after these custom copies, knowing that I had such a minuscule chance of ever attaining rights to a custom of my own and believe me, I've played for a few years and tried. 

Every time I see a customs topic on the forums where the owner is only willing to trade other custom owners for a copy, it feels like I'm completely being shut out from a part of the game with no ability to access it. I understand why they do it since they want to enhance their own gameplay experience by receiving these special site assets, but it's just another thing that someone without their own custom rights can't set a goal towards and achieve.

At the end of the day, I'm more far more upset at the poor admin decisions than the players themselves.

And hey, I'm actually glad that the site implemented a 'potato sink', because I was able to quickly and efficiently throw away all my potatoes, knowing that I can't afford anything worthwhile with what I have now.

I knew that I was done with the game when I stopped opening the monthly chests that I've collected since October 2023 (and I've collected each chest since January 2021), but I felt like I had to continue doing it since FOMO wouldn't leave me alone.

I really didn't have much more of a reason to keep logging on so I leave you all with this vent and airing out my grievances towards DV.

Now that I've got basically no potatoes, here's to hoping that I hop off this site for good!

[day6source]

hello my loves <33333333 happy spring! i hope you've all been enjoying it so far, and especially enjoying it with the new album hehe!!🫶 so! first things first:

the welcome to the show concert is next week! as always i'll be recording, and i've since figured out recording with firefox, so there should be 0 to little stuttering this time in the VOD! i apologize heavily for that, and i actually have a gift to make up for it, but stay with me until the end! second: since kcon was...virtually unwatchable to most of us, i went on a little hunt for it! you may or may not be able to find the meet & greet here and the performance cut of the boys here. not sure. you might just have to check out the links to double check ;)

third: masterpost for 'fourever' is basically all updated! you can find it here! i was...unaware of the link limit, so if you want the shopping and streaming and performance links, those'll be in the first read more, watching things and articles are in the second one (which is the one linked for ease)! promo is basically over (i say cautiously) minus the concert, so feel free dive in if you missed anything! speaking of masterposts!

fourth: i got to thinking about it, and i found it a little unfair to only include jae in the pinned, so you can now find links/some updated info about what junhyeok is doing! i figured if i'm gonna have one former member, i should also have the other, even if he was there for only a short amount of time. so if you've been wondering what he's been up to, check him out on youtube and streaming! i'll be keeping it...semi-updated in the way i do jae's part, checking in every like, three months to see if anything's changed. on the flip side, if none of you care to know what those two are up to, i might just take their sections out entirely, but for now i thought it'd be courteous to have them there at the very least!

and last but not least: so, you guys know that watching old concert content is...entirely impossible really, and i thought...that was pretty wack, actually. so! the other day i went on a little deep dive on some sites, and i found some old concerts including the youth tour, the streams from pilmography, an old fanmeet, and the final every day6 concert. this site is uhhh basically impossible to see without a vpn and...well i also thought that was super wack, especially granted this content is...impossible to find elsewhere, and you can't even buy it. so i...took the liberty of gathering it and maybe...just maybe...you can find it here along with all of the other shows of recent, including a better stream of the christmas show for you guys. this is just me personally, but i think especially in comparison to other fandoms, ours is...a bit smaller and older, so gatekeeping content is just...not cool, and i wanna make sure that if you guys wanna see things, i can bring them to you to watch! it's not everything probably by a long shot, but if it's somewhere, i want you guys to be able to see it, even if those people don't think so, and especially if we can't just go out and buy it somewhere! so please enjoy! it should all be uploading as of me typing this post up, but should be up within a couple of hours, but there's some things in there like the kcon stuff and some other shows already, so that should keep you busy in the meantime.

okay, that's it! i love you guys, and i hope you're all staying so so so healthy and so so so so happy and enjoying fourever! we're actually almost at 300 followers which is INSANE, especially because the blog is almost a year old!!!!! what!!!!!!!! time truly flies, and i have loved every second with you all, i've got some potential things planned, so...stay tuned ;) stay happy and healthy, study well, take long breaks when you need, enjoy the weather! i love you guys so much <33333 tay💕💕💕🫶🫶🫶

[lawleon]

Complete FuniFuni Collection!

After many years of hunting I was finally able to complete my FuniFuni collection! I almost never see these plushies discussed in comparison to Fumos so I thought I'd talk about what I understand about them since the Circle that made them, Phantasm Screen, seems to be completely defunct. The initial run of Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae first showed up in July 2009 and the most "recent" additions, Satori, Orin, Remilia, and Flandre first showed up in August 2010. The only record of legitimate online sales of these plushies I can find is an old entry on Melonbooks for the hanging strap version of Orin from 2010. Some evidence suggests they were sold on Toranoana and at IRL events as well. They were most likely distributed at a few more events and probably at IRL bookstore/doujin shops after the final set was made before the Circle closed up shop. I would reasonably expect that all of these plushies are roughly a decade old, and no more new ones have been made since then. As time has passed it has obviously become more difficult to find online auctions for some of these, you can still find auctions for Reimu, Marisa, and Sanae somewhat often, but the plushies released later don't show up as often since there were fewer distributions of them. The full sized version of Satori was particularly difficult for me to locate, I think I won the only auction for the full sized Satori plush I had seen in 5 years? (For the absurd price of $12 plus shipping.)

These plushies are smaller in comparison to Fumos.

In my opinion the Funis are generally a bit more detailed than Fumos. More fabric types are used, with a lot of the frills Touhou outfits are known for are made of lace on the Funis versus the satin ribbons that Fumos use.

Additionally, if you'll forgive me for talking about plushie tooshie, Fumos generally stick with the exact same basic design for the area where the plushie sits, but Funis are willing to go into detail even down to the footwear. The bloomers are modeled like actual clothing, and look at Satori's socks and house slippers!

Let's talk about tags. In a world with bootleg Fumos, the presence or absence of a visible tag was probably the first thing people attempting to obtain one were taught to look for. Scalpers are not trying to duplicate Funis for fat stacks of cash so whether or not a Funi has a tag is more of a personal preference, or for a feeling of reassurance. I was able to obtain 12/13 of my Funis with tags, pictured below. (Did you think I was going to let the absence of a tag prevent me from buying the only Satori I had seen in like 7 years?)

Anyways, I've been hunting these for a long time and I'm very happy to have completed my collection. If you also enjoy Touhou plushies and are annoyed/infuriated with the resale market Fumo prices, and a character you enjoy is available in the limited selection, consider a FuniFuni instead. They are a highly detailed alternative plushie that generally sell for a fraction of the price of a Fumo. If you're interested in picking up any of these cuties you'll have to hunt on auction sites, but with the existence of Buyee now making proxy services easily accessible to most people, it's easier to get Funis for decent prices from JP Yahoo Auction. If anyone else out there is hunting for these I do wish you luck. Anyways, I need to get back to being mad about the fact that there aren't any Shinmyoumaru plushies, or goods in general. See'ya around!

[saltminerising]

the thing about FR’s anniversaries are that in comparison to any other online pet site, they push a normal update and be like “woohoo happy anniv”, some small items and that’s it.

They could do an easy way of adding some vibes like making 100 gathering turns, or 5x Fairgrounds limit, or global big flight discounts for lairs. Limited time Fairgrounds game. Or Going to random pages on the website and a pop up random event “you received 100 anniversary currency! Go wild spending!” and with their shops update then they can trade.

But I’ve been on this website for a decade and soon 11, and their Big Updates never felt like something actually festive. Dustcarve Dig was the first time it felt fun to be there for an anniversary. Imagine what it feels like when 3 years into the site you’re hoping for something big at the Festival Store and there’s nothing. Someone for sure is gonna go “but the economy!!1!1!1” again anyways in response to all the above.

🌱

[lean-mean-demon-genevieve]

Hi! I’m not sure if this has been asked before but is there a reason she moved her bookclub to Charlie’s platform? Also, does she get paid for these talks with the authors? I’ve always wondered that. Thanks!

The answer is ALWAYS money.

My guess is that it’s some sort of a circle-jerk type of deal where she moves her thing to his platform and in turn he does some sort of work for her/Jared like managing their social media.

Remember that Momentus was charging for attending her bookclubs live with the ability to chat and ask questions. Momentus then reportedly gave an undisclosed percent of that fee to charity of choice. Gen probably pockets a portion of the remaining profit, but I don’t know that for sure.

Not that long ago, you could also buy her bookclub picks through the Momentus website, but I don’t see that anymore. Instead, if you click her “link in bio” link on IG, Gen now has her own affiliate link with a site called Bookshop.org. This site has marketed itself as an alternative to Amazon and as an advocate for independent bookstores. Which all sounds great until you do a little bit of research.

Bookshop.org basically acts as a middle man between a wholesale warehouse (named Ingram) and indie bookstores. Bookshop doesn’t even take from the indie bookstore’s inventory. Shops can set up an account, customers order books, they are shipped from an Ingram warehouse, and the site gives the indie seller a 30% cut of the profit…but indie bookstores are concerned because they would make more by cutting out the middle man. Duh!

(Read more here and here)

And when individuals like Gen can become an affiliate and earn 10% on sales, indie bookstores lose out even more.

“Publications that review books can earn much-needed financial support”…nope, that’s not Gen. “Book clubs can earn sustaining funds on each pick”…that doesn’t feel like it fits either. “Instagram influencers can earn revenue”…theeeeere it is!

You see that running total at the top of that website? Gen didn’t contribute to that. Her 10% goes right in her pocket. Remember a couple weeks ago when Gen posted a reel about her favorite local Austin indie bookstores? And how important it is to support them?

She cares about her own bottom line even more.

But I bet she would love for you to believe that this was yet another altruistic, pious choice in the name of small businesses and sustainability. Most fans won’t look this deeply into her connection to this site and company itself. They just see that giant number at the top and their heart eyes for Gen dilate that much farther.

Amazon is an evil organization. I use it too, but it is evil. It just is. Amazon has put a lot of small businesses in the ground with their ability to charge less. I appreciate alternatives, and Bookshop is that, but Bookshop isn’t innocent. Even though they’re up-charging for books, remember how many extra people have to get their cut. This company boomed as it launched in 2020 and much profit has been made. And any time major profits are made…someone is getting exploited.

(It should also be noted that Gen’s link in bio also has her Amazon affiliate link. She doesn’t care which shifty brand is paying her, as long as she’s getting your money.)

I wonder what the people at the distribution warehouse get paid? How do authors make money? How much is the creator of Bookshop worth at this point in comparison?

Hey Gen, can you answer any of that?

Gen, wait!!

…I don’t think she wants to talk.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in Skinner boxes

Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform’s shareholders:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Enshittification isn’t just another way of saying “fraud” or “price gouging” or “wage theft.” Enshittification is intrinsically digital, because moving all those goodies around requires the flexibility that only comes with a digital businesses. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can’t rapidly change the price of eggs at Whole Foods without an army of kids with pricing guns on roller-skates. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can change the price of eggs on Amazon Fresh just by twiddling a knob on the service’s back-end.

Twiddling is the key to enshittification: rapidly adjusting prices, conditions and offers. As with any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Tech monopolists aren’t smarter than the Gilded Age sociopaths who monopolized rail or coal — they use the same tricks as those monsters of history, but they do them faster and with computers:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

If Rockefeller wanted to crush a freight company, he couldn’t just click a mouse and lay down a pipeline that ran on the same route, and then click another mouse to make it go away when he was done. When Bezos wants to bankrupt Diapers.com — a company that refused to sell itself to Amazon — he just moved a slider so that diapers on Amazon were being sold below cost. Amazon lost $100m over three months, diapers.com went bankrupt, and every investor learned that competing with Amazon was a losing bet:

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html

That’s the power of twiddling — but twiddling cuts both ways. The same flexibility that digital businesses enjoy is hypothetically available to workers and users. The airlines pioneered twiddling ticket prices, and that naturally gave rise to countertwiddling, in the form of comparison shopping sites that scraped the airlines’ sites to predict when tickets would be cheapest:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

The airlines — like all abusive businesses — refused to tolerate this. They were allowed to touch their knobs as much as they wanted — indeed, they couldn’t stop touching those knobs — but when we tried to twiddle back, that was “felony contempt of business model,” and the airlines sued:

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/30/airline-sues-man-for-founding-a-cheap-flights-website.html

And sued:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/business/southwest-airlines-lawsuit-prices.html

Platforms don’t just hate it when end-users twiddle back — if anything they are even more aggressive when their business-users dare to twiddle. Take Para, an app that Doordash drivers used to get a peek at the wages offered for jobs before they accepted them — something that Doordash hid from its workers. Doordash ruthlessly attacked Para, saying that by letting drivers know how much they’d earn before they did the work, Para was violating the law:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

Which law? Well, take your pick. The modern meaning of “IP” is “any law that lets me use the law to control my competitors, competition or customers.” Platforms use a mix of anticircumvention law, patent, copyright, contract, cybersecurity and other legal systems to weave together a thicket of rules that allow them to shut down rivals for their Felony Contempt of Business Model:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Enshittification relies on unlimited twiddling (by platforms), and a general prohibition on countertwiddling (by platform users). Enshittification is a form of fishing, in which bait is dangled before different groups of users and then nimbly withdrawn when they lunge for it. Twiddling puts the suppleness into the enshittifier’s fishing-rod, and a ban on countertwiddling weighs down platform users so they’re always a bit too slow to catch the bait.

Nowhere do we see twiddling’s impact more than in the “gig economy,” where workers are misclassified as independent contractors and put to work for an app that scripts their every move to the finest degree. When an app is your boss, you work for an employer who docks your pay for violating rules that you aren’t allowed to know — and where your attempts to learn those rules are constantly frustrated by the endless back-end twiddling that changes the rules faster than you can learn them.

As with every question of technology, the issue isn’t twiddling per se — it’s who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don’t pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Take “reverse centaurs.” In AI research, a “centaur” is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A reverse centaur is a machine assisted by a human, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.

Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic location-aware wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the “wrong” direction:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

The difference between a centaur and a reverse centaur is the difference between a machine that makes your life better and a machine that makes your life worse so that your boss gets richer. Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century’s answer to Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated “experts” subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers’ homes and cars. The 21st century has seen a return to the cottage industry — a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control — but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

The rise and rise of bossware — which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars — has turned “work from home” into “live at work.” Reverse centaurs can now be chickenized — a term from labor economics that describes how poultry farmers, who sell their birds to one of three vast poultry processors who have divided up the country like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” are uniquely exploited:

https://onezero.medium.com/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs-b2e8d5cda826

A chickenized reverse centaur has it rough: they must pay for the machines they use to make money for their bosses, they must obey the orders of the app that controls their work, and they are denied any of the protections that a traditional worker might enjoy, even as they are prohibited from deploying digital self-help measures that let them twiddle back to bargain for a better wage.

All of this sets the stage for a phenomenon called algorithmic wage discrimination, in which two workers doing the same job under the same conditions will see radically different payouts for that work. These payouts are continuously tweaked in the background by an algorithm that tries to predict the minimum sum a worker will accept to remain available without payment, to ensure sufficient workers to pick up jobs as they arise.

This phenomenon — and proposed policy and labor solutions to it — is expertly analyzed in “On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination,” a superb paper by UC Law San Franciscos Veena Dubal:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080

Dubal uses empirical data and enthnographic accounts from Uber drivers and other gig workers to explain how endless, self-directed twiddling allows gig companies pay workers less and pay themselves more. As @brianmerchant@mastodon.social explains in his LA Times article on Dubal’s research, the goal of the payment algorithm is to guess how often a given driver needs to receive fair compensation in order to keep them driving when the payments are unfair:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-11/algorithmic-wage-discrimination

The algorithm combines nonconsensual dossiers compiled on individual drivers with population-scale data to seek an equilibrium between keeping drivers waiting, unpaid, for a job; and how much a driver needs to be paid for an individual job, in order to keep that driver from clocking out and doing something else. @ Here’s how that works. Sergio Avedian, a writer for The Rideshare Guy, ran an experiment with two brothers who both drove for Uber; one drove a Tesla and drove intermittently, the other brother rented a hybrid sedan and drove frequently. Sitting side-by-side with the brothers, Avedian showed how the brother with the Tesla was offered more for every trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADTiL3S67I

Uber wants to lure intermittent drivers into becoming frequent drivers. Uber doesn’t pay for an oversupply of drivers, because it only pays drivers when they have a passenger in the car. Having drivers on call — but idle — is a way for Uber to shift the cost of maintaining a capacity cushion to its workers.

What’s more, what Uber charges customers is not based on how much it pays its workers. As Uber’s head of product explained: Uber uses “machine-learning techniques to estimate how much groups of customers are willing to shell out for a ride. Uber calculates riders’ propensity for paying a higher price for a particular route at a certain time of day. For instance, someone traveling from a wealthy neighborhood to another tony spot might be asked to pay more than another person heading to a poorer part of town, even if demand, traffic and distance are the same.”

https://qz.com/990131/uber-is-practicing-price-discrimination-economists-say-that-might-not-be-a-bad-thing/

Uber has historically described its business a pure supply-and-demand matching system, where a rush of demand for rides triggers surge pricing, which lures out drivers, which takes care of the demand. That’s not how it works today, and it’s unclear if it ever worked that way. Today, a driver who consults the rider version of the Uber app before accepting a job — to compare how much the rider is paying to how much they stand to earn — is booted off the app and denied further journeys.

Surging, instead, has become just another way to twiddle drivers. One of Dubal’s subjects, Derrick, describes how Uber uses fake surges to lure drivers to airports: “You go to the airport, once the lot get kind of full, then the surge go away.” Other drivers describe how they use groupchats to call out fake surges: “I’m in the Marina. It’s dead. Fake surge.”

That’s pure twiddling. Twiddling turns gamification into gamblification, where your labor buys you a spin on a roulette wheel in a rigged casino. As a driver called Melissa, who had doubled down on her availability to earn a $100 bonus awarded for clocking a certain number of rides, told Dubal, “When you get close to the bonus, the rides start trickling in more slowly…. And it makes sense. It’s really the type of shit that they can do when it’s okay to have a surplus labor force that is just sitting there that they don’t have to pay for.”

Wherever you find reverse-centaurs, you get this kind of gamblification, where the rules are twiddled continuously to make sure that the house always wins. As a contract driver Amazon reverse centaur told Lauren Gurley for Motherboard, “Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they’re actually using them not to pay delivery companies”:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npjv/amazons-ai-cameras-are-punishing-drivers-for-mistakes-they-didnt-make

Algorithmic wage discrimination is the robot overlord of our nightmares: its job is to relentlessly quest for vulnerabilities and exploit them. Drivers divide themselves into “ants” (drivers who take every job) and “pickers” (drivers who cherry-pick high-paying jobs). The algorithm’s job is ensuring that pickers get the plum assignments, not the ants, in the hopes of converting those pickers to app-dependent ants.

In my work on enshittification, I call this the “giant teddy bear” gambit. At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they “won” on the midway. But they didn’t win it — not by getting three balls in the peach-basket. Rather, the carny running the rigged game either chose not to operate the “scissor” that kicks balls out of the basket. Or, if the game is “honest” (that is, merely impossible to win, rather than gimmicked), the operator will make a too-good-to-refuse offer: “Get one ball in and I’ll give you this keychain. Win two keychains and I’ll let you trade them for this giant teddy bear.”

Carnies aren’t in the business of giving away giant teddy bears — rather, the gambit is an investment. Giving a mark a giant teddy bear to carry around the midway all day acts as a convincer, luring other marks to try to land three balls in the basket and win their own teddy bear.

In the same way, platforms like Uber distribute giant teddy bears to pickers, as a way of keeping the ants scurrying from job to job, and as a way of convincing the pickers to give up whatever work allows them to discriminate among Uber’s offers and hold out for the plum deals, whereupon then can be transmogrified into ants themselves.

Dubal describes the experience of Adil, a Syrian refugee who drives for Uber in the Bay Area. His colleagues are pickers, and showed him screenshots of how much they earned. Determined to get a share of that money, Adil became a model ant, driving two hours to San Francisco, driving three days straight, napping in his car, spending only one day per week with his family. The algorithm noticed that Adil needed the work, so it paid him less.

Adil responded the way the system predicted he would, by driving even more: “My friends they make it, so I keep going, maybe I can figure it out. It’s unsecure, and I don’t know how people they do it. I don’t know how I am doing it, but I have to. I mean, I don’t find another option. In a minute, if I find something else, oh man, I will be out immediately. I am a very patient person, that’s why I can continue.”

Another driver, Diego, told Dubal about how the winners of the giant teddy bears fell into the trap of thinking that they were “good at the app”: “Any time there’s some big shot getting high pay outs, they always shame everyone else and say you don’t know how to use the app. I think there’s secret PR campaigns going on that gives targeted payouts to select workers, and they just think it’s all them.”

That’s the power of twiddling: by hoarding all the flexibility offered by digital tools, the management at platforms can become centaurs, able to string along thousands of workers, while the workers are reverse-centaurs, puppeteered by the apps.

As the example of Adil shows, the algorithm doesn’t need to be very sophisticated in order to figure out which workers it can underpay. The system automates the kind of racial and gender discrimination that is formally illegal, but which is masked by the smokescreen of digitization. An employer who systematically paid women less than men, or Black people less than white people, would be liable to criminal and civil sanctions. But if an algorithm simply notices that people who have fewer job prospects drive more and will thus accept lower wages, that’s just “optimization,” not racism or sexism.

This is the key to understanding the AI hype bubble: when ghouls from multinational banks predict 13 trillion dollar markets for “AI,” what they mean is that digital tools will speed up the twiddling and other wage-suppression techniques to transfer $13T in value from workers and consumers to shareholders.

The American business lobby is relentlessly focused on the goal of reducing wages. That’s the force behind “free trade,” “right to work,” and other codewords for “paying workers less,” including “gig work.” Tech workers long saw themselves as above this fray, immune to labor exploitation because they worked for a noble profession that took care of its own.

But the epidemic of mass tech-worker layoffs, following on the heels of massive stock buybacks, has demonstrated that tech bosses are just like any other boss: willing to pay as little as they can get away with, and no more. Tech bosses are so comfortable with their market dominance and the lock-in of their customers that they are happy to turn out hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, convinced that the twiddling systems they’ve built are the kinds of self-licking ice-cream cones that are so simple even a manager can use them — no morlocks required.

The tech worker layoffs are best understood as an all-out war on tech worker morale, because that morale is the source of tech workers’ confidence and thus their demands for a larger share of the value generated by their labor. The current tech layoff template is very different from previous tech layoffs: today’s layoffs are taking place over a period of months, long after they are announced, and laid off tech worker is likely to be offered a months of paid post-layoff work, rather than severance. This means that tech workplaces are now haunted by the walking dead, workers who have been laid off but need to come into the office for months, even as the threat of layoffs looms over the heads of the workers who remain. As an old friend, recently laid off from Microsoft after decades of service, wrote to me, this is “a new arrow in the quiver of bringing tech workers to heel and ensuring that we’re properly thankful for the jobs we have (had?).”

Dubal is interested in more than analysis, she’s interested in action. She looks at the tactics already deployed by gig workers, who have not taken all this abuse lying down. Workers in the UK and EU organized through Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union have used the GDPR (the EU’s privacy law) to demand “algorithmic transparency,” as well as access to their data. In California, drivers hope to use similar provisions in the CCPA (a state privacy law) to do the same.

These efforts have borne fruit. When Cornell economists, led by Louis Hyman, published research (paid for by Uber) claiming that Uber drivers earned an average of $23/hour, it was data from these efforts that revealed the true average Uber driver’s wage was $9.74. Subsequent research in California found that Uber drivers’ wage fell to $6.22/hour after the passage of Prop 22, a worker misclassification law that gig companies spent $225m to pass, only to have the law struck down because of a careless drafting error:

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-23/proposition-22-lyft-uber-decision-essential-california

But Dubal is skeptical that data-coops and transparency will achieve transformative change and build real worker power. Knowing how the algorithm works is useful, but it doesn’t mean you can do anything about it, not least because the platform owners can keep touching their knobs, twiddling the payout schedule on their rigged slot-machines.

Data co-ops start from the proposition that “data extraction is an inevitable form of labor for which workers should be remunerated.” It makes on-the-job surveillance acceptable, provided that workers are compensated for the spying. But co-ops aren’t unions, and they don’t have the power to bargain for a fair price for that data, and coops themselves lack the vast resources — “to store, clean, and understand” — data.

Co-ops are also badly situated to understand the true value of the data that is extracted from their members: “Workers cannot know whether the data collected will, at the population level, violate the civil rights of others or amplifies their own social oppression.”

Instead, Dubal wants an outright, nonwaivable prohibition on algorithmic wage discrimination. Just make it illegal. If firms cannot use gambling mechanisms to control worker behavior through variable pay systems, they will have to find ways to maintain flexible workforces while paying their workforce predictable wages under an employment model. If a firm cannot manage wages through digitally-determined variable pay systems, then the firm is less likely to employ algorithmic management.”

In other words, rather than using market mechanisms too constrain platform twiddling, Dubal just wants to make certain kinds of twiddling illegal. This is a growing trend in legal scholarship. For example, the economist Ramsi Woodcock has proposed a ban on surge pricing as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-105-issue-4/the-efficient-queue-and-the-case-against-dynamic-pricing

Similarly, Dubal proposes that algorithmic wage discrimination violates another antitrust law: the Robinson-Patman Act, which “bans sellers from charging competing buyers different prices for the same commodity. Robinson-Patman enforcement was effectively halted under Reagan, kicking off a host of pathologies, like the rise of Walmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

I really liked Dubal’s legal reasoning and argument, and to it I would add a call to reinvigorate countertwiddling: reforming laws that get in the way of workers who want to reverse-engineer, spoof, and control the apps that currently control them. Adversarial interoperability (AKA competitive compatibility or comcom) is key tool for building worker power in an era of digital Taylorism:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

To see how that works, look to other jursidictions where workers have leapfrogged their European and American cousins, such as Indonesia, where gig workers and toolsmiths collaborate to make a whole suite of “tuyul apps,” which let them override the apps that gig companies expect them to use.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For example, ride-hailing companies won’t assign a train-station pickup to a driver unless they’re circling the station — which is incredibly dangerous during the congested moments after a train arrives. A tuyul app lets a driver park nearby and then spoof their phone’s GPS fix to the ridehailing company so that they appear to be right out front of the station.

In an ideal world, those workers would have a union, and be able to dictate the app’s functionality to their bosses. But workers shouldn’t have to wait for an ideal world: they don’t just need jam tomorrow — they need jam today. Tuyul apps, and apps like Para, which allow workers to extract more money under better working conditions, are a prelude to unionization and employer regulation, not a substitute for it.

Employers will not give workers one iota more power than they have to. Just look at the asymmetry between the regulation of union employees versus union busters. Under US law, employees of a union need to account for every single hour they work, every mile they drive, every location they visit, in public filings. Meanwhile, the union-busting industry — far larger and richer than unions — operate under a cloak of total secrecy, Workers aren’t even told which union busters their employers have hired — let alone get an accounting of how those union busters spend money, or how many of them are working undercover, pretending to be workers in order to sabotage the union.

Twiddling will only get an employer so far. Twiddling — like all “AI” — is based on analyzing the past to predict the future. The heuristics an algorithm creates to lure workers into their cars can’t account for rapid changes in the wider world, which is why companies who relied on “AI” scheduling apps (for example, to prevent their employees from logging enough hours to be entitled to benefits) were caught flatfooted by the Great Resignation.

Workers suddenly found themselves with bargaining power thanks to the departure of millions of workers — a mix of early retirees and workers who were killed or permanently disabled by covid — and they used that shortage to demand a larger share of the fruits of their labor. The outraged howls of the capital class at this development were telling: these companies are operated by the kinds of “capitalists” that MLK once identified, who want “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.”

https://twitter.com/KaseyKlimes/status/821836823022354432/

There's only 5 days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon's Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Stephen Drake (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analog_Test_Array_modular_synth_by_sduck409.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

 — 

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

 — 

Louis (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chestnut_horse_head,_all_excited.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A complex mandala of knobs from a modular synth. In the foreground, limned in a blue electric halo, is a man in a hi-viz vest with the head of a horse. The horse's eyes have been replaced with the sinister red eyes of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"]

[rorywritesjunk]

Buggy merch from artists!

This is my post to show the things I've purchased from artists off Etsy and IG. I love the pieces I've ordered and will include shop names on both sites as well as individual websites. Please ask questions if you have any!

@cyradraws here it is!

IG: hibahudateam

Website www.hibahuda.com

What it is: acrylic Buggy bobble head and Marco pin. These just arrived yesterday and I absolutely love them! The makers also have other OP merch with Buggy but I was resisting for now.

Shipped from Abu Dabi.

IG: nominno_rice

Website: https://www.nominno.com/

What it is: Buggy and Marco with cats stickers! I ordered 3 of each because I have a sticker problem. (Not shown are my JJK boba keychains because this post is about Buggy 😤)

Shipped from Australia.

Etsy: GinkgoMART (as of 3/8/24 the shop is on a break!)

IG: rogueginko

What I ordered: Impel Down Buggy looking absolutely babygirl. I owned this keychains for a few weeks before realizing it was double sided.

Shipped from Maryland, USA.

IG: pixelizedpanda

Website: https://pixelpalette.ca/

What I ordered: Buggy charm and enamel pin! Both are so cute and the charm is double sided.

Shipped from Ontario, Canada.

IG: catnerdcreations

Website: https://catnerdcreations.com

What I ordered: Two super cute Buggy charms! One is Buggy and the other is 'little' Buggy. These charms are huge, much larger than I was anticipating.

Shipped from Arizona, USA.

Some size comparisons with charms and using a US quarter.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Ecommerce News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has banned gift certificates/cards sold by individual shops, as of Sept 15. Only Etsy Gift Cards are now allowed. The second quarter report press release says they plan on selling Etsy Gift Cards through third parties, but no official word on how and when yet.

Many Amazon Handmade sellers were unable to list new items after a site update on July 31 [post by me on LinkedIn]. While Amazon told sellers to apply for an exemption from the Product ID requirement, some report that is not working, or that they do not have the option to apply for one. 

Reminder that Canadian Etsy shops will be charged a 1.15% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price and shipping cost as of August 15. [I’ve set a bunch of things to expire. If Etsy isn’t profitable enough to pay its taxes, maybe they should consider cutting executive pay instead of squeezing microbusinesses even more.]

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy has updated its Privacy Policy, to take effect August 31. Changes include mention of biometric data. Note that some parts of the policy are screenshots, and therefore not easily searchable nor accessible to screen readers - I am not sure how they can get away with that. I used the Wayback Machine to do a comparison of the parts that software can actually read.   There’s also a new US regional privacy policy, which currently covers laws in several states.  

Etsy is promoting a Labour Day sale August 21-September 2, and has already set up the "Cyber Savings Sale" (November 18-December 3) for Cyber Week. You can schedule the official sales through links in the announcement.

Forbes covered Etsy’s sex toy ban [soft paywall; not safe for work photos]. To no one's surprise, plenty of the banned items are still found on site, including toys and vintage Playboy magazines. 

Etsy is accused of allowing shops based in “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory” and profiting off of them. Etsy’s response: "[W]e have shared this information internally with the appropriate teams for review."

Etsy's promised program for buyers - Etsy Insider - will be rolling out as invite-only beta in September. It's a paid membership for US buyers and includes:

Free US domestic shipping on millions of items

A birthday bonus

Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller

First access to special discounts and select merchandise

While some of the "special discounts" are paid by sellers, that is a voluntary program shops can sign up for here. That form also allows you to sign up to offer new items to Etsy Insiders first - “drops” - which does not involve offering discounts. Etsy has done these sorts of "offers" in the past, and I believe they have already reached out to sellers for the first round of offers in September (based on some emails I have received from shop owners).

You can now sign up for “Etsy Up”, the virtual sellers conference scheduled for September 10. However, despite saying they have announced “our agenda”, all that is provided is a vague set of topics (other than the fact they will be announcing the Etsy Design Awards Finalists). It makes me wonder if there are official Etsy announcements coming soon that they don’t want to reveal too early by posting the real agenda. If yes, around August 15 is a good bet, given that  Etsy’s Search Analytics will end that day, and many new policies kick in on September 15, just one month later.

The Etsy app is showing rectangular listing images in search for some visitors, but it appears to be a test [Reddit thread with screenshot]. I wouldn’t change anything at this time. 

No, Etsy has not replaced your listing tags. I covered that topic here on LinkedIn. 

I wrote about the new Listing Image Requirement policy and the email Etsy sent to some sellers on Monday July 29. [post by me on Patreon] And not everyone is being fooled by Etsy’s new Creativity Standards, but some acknowledge it will be difficult for Etsy to turn away factory-made goods at this point. [Disclosure: I am quoted in that article]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s second quarter revenue was below expectations, and the company predicts nothing better in the third quarter. 

In a surprising change, Amazon has decided to cancel overage fees for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory storage, retroactive to July 1. 

Canadian Amazon sellers will be subject to a new digital services fee as of October 1. This is due to Canada’s new digital services tax. 

In a case that may have an impact on other larger ecommerce sites, a court ruled that Amazon is responsible for recalls of products sold through Amazon, including through “Fulfilled By Amazon”. 

US Amazon shoppers can now link their Pinterest and TikTok accounts to Amazon to be able to buy directly from Amazon ads on social media. This is already available on Facebook, Instagram and Snap. 

Amazon is changing its refund policy for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) users: if sellers do not receive an automatic reimbursement for loss, damage and returns, they will now only have 60 days to apply for one.  A lot of ecommerce experts think Amazon is making a mistake in setting up a China to US section on the site.

eBay

eBay second quarter revenue and profit was higher than expected, but the third quarter projections are low.  

The eBay app has taken a lot of flack for inserting ads between each item in a purchase history. 

Poshmark

As marketplaces popular for pre-owned items compete for the best new stock, Poshmark is offering “rewards” for listing at least 1 item a week. 

Shopify

Shopify had a better-than-expected second quarter, and expects a decent third quarter as well. Getting larger businesses to use Shopify has helped the tech company, but I still wonder how that affects the small and micro businesses who used to be the target market.

Walmart

The Walmart Marketplace has added Chile as its fourth country, after the US, Canada and Mexico. 

All Other Marketplaces

Hundreds of business owners who sell on Temu held a protest at the marketplace headquarters on July 29. Fines for returns are one cited issue. 

Payment Processing

Credit cards issued by Chase in the US will no longer allow third-party buy-now-pay-later purchases, as of October 10. Conveniently, they offer their own option, Chase Pay Over Time. PayPal has expanded the quicker checkout solution Fastlane to all US businesses, which fills in customer information without a log in.

[lurafita]

Make Them Sparkle

(fanfic, oneshot)

Summary:

If Raphael had any say in this, Magnus would not be allowed to give mundanes writing advice. Ever.

Magnus prided himself on being a person who went with, and adapted to the ever changing times.

He had witnessed many immortals who got stuck in particular time periods. Be it refusing to adopt new fashion trends, or remaining stagnant in certain behaviors or mindsets that had been common at one point in history. Bemoaning how things ‘used to be so much better back in the day’. People who needed to anchor themselves in the past, in order to face the present and future. 

Not Magnus, though. While he treasured many of the memories made during his long existence, he had always been the type to look forward, instead of back. 

He had seen and embraced the progress humanity made, philosophically, technologically, and socially. 

And, while the road of progression hadn’t always been a smooth one and weathered its fair share of hiccups along the way, Magnus certainly appreciated the fruits of this particular labor. 

(And not only mundanes, but the shadow world, too, had come a long way from what it had once been. Magnus would never not be proud of the part his dearest Alexander and his friends and family had played in that development.)

Anyway, being a "modern" warlock, and having personally supported some of the various technological marvels of the world they now lived in, Magnus had a deep appreciation for the internet. 

A way for so many people from so many different places and stages of life to come together, to connect and share with each other, was truly remarkable.

There was almost nothing that the internet didn’t have, unless it connected to matters of the shadow world, but even that was slowly changing.

From funny videos and beautiful music, to shops and art and so much more. 

Websites tailored to specific hobbies or tastes. Sites to find employment, or living accomodations. Those that gave the user an opportunity to make friends, or find love. 

And, of course, so called help-forums. Professionally or community run sites, spanning various topics all around offering advice when someone needed it. 

Like one particular writing forum for aspiring authors, which Magnus had found himself in one sunny afternoon, as he had been browsing aimlessly to waste some time.

One of the requests had caught his eye especially. 

‘Please help me bring fresh wind into old supernatural lore!’

Clicking on the request and reading further, Magnus had learned that the hopeful author was trying to write a teen love story with vampires and werewolves, revolving around a highschool mundane girl and her vampiric love interest, as well as a werewolf contender.

Magnus had snorted, thinking the idea hardly original, and had almost clicked away again, but one sentence had stood out.

‘Vampire love stories are a dime a dozen, I’m well aware of that. But while plot and circumstances often change around the different narratives, the lore and rules behind the vampires rarely do. It’s always a thirst and need for blood, a weakness to religious artifacts, and an inability to bear sunlight. That last one especially, I wish to change for my story, as I feel that describing a whole world that most humans are unaware of, and plays mostly in the dark, is terribly restrictive. But I also think that just waving any effect the sun might have on a vampire away, is a missed opportunity for exploring alternative plot points. Which is why I’m asking for any kind of inspiration or thoughts any of you might be willing to share.’

So Magnus had read on as the author had described their world and characters in a little more detail.

And upon learning of the broody, dark haired, stubborn, kind and compassionate main vampire character, Magnus couldn’t help it when his brain had made the comparison between a fictional character, and his very own favorite broody, dark haired, stubborn, kind and compassionate vampire. 

And as he was thinking of his dear little Raphael, the vampire he had taken under his wing decades ago and practically raised (even though Raphael had been 24 and fully adult by mundane standards when he had been turned), Magnus hadn’t been able to curb his more mischievous impulses. 

Clicking on the answering function to the thread, he had snickered heavily as he typed out just three words.

‘Make them sparkle!’

Who would have thought that, just a few years later, this little bit of innocent fun he had had, would come back to interrupt his sexy make out session with his precious shadowhunter boyfriend?

“Magnus!” The door slammed open and shut in barely more than a second, as an incensed Raphael stormed into the loft.

A lifetime of training and battle ready instincts had Alec lift Magnus off his lap and behind him in just one move (which was so fucking hot, if not for their unplanned intruder, Magnus would have climbed his boyfriend like a tree), as his other hand seemlessly went down to quickly retrieve the throwing knife strapped to his lower leg.

The defensive maneuver was aborted as soon as Alec registered who had just barged into the apartment, and instead the tall man slumped back into the couch (careful not to crush his boyfriend) with a deep, slightly annoyed, sigh. 

Raphael though reacted to neither the knife that had almost been thrown at him, nor the glare the shadowhunter was giving him right then.

Instead, he held up the book he had in hand and snarled in Magnus' direction. “What the fuck is this?!”

Magnus blinked, still trying to sort through the haze of his newly ignited arousal after Alexander’s display of strength and speed, and the clearly agitated mood Raphael seemed to be in.

“It’s called a book, my dear. It holds in its pages the wonder of the written word and thus the power to create wonderful and fascinating tales for all to share.”

If anything, that answer made Raphael look even more mutinous. Which was just rude, if anyone were to ask Magnus. 

“I know what a book is!”

Magnus huffed, finally straightening himself out of the mess of limbs he had been from Alexander’s manhandling him to safety (And they would have a talk about that later. As hot as that had been, Magnus couldn’t have his Alexander trying to shield him while facing a threat on his own.)

“Then why did you ask?”

Raphael could apparently not be bothered to explain, and instead just chucked the book at him. Once again shadowhunter reflexes trumped Magnus' own, and Alec snatched the book out of the air before it could hit the warlock. 

He scrunched up his nose a little (which was adorably cute in Magnus’ humble opinion and he quickly leant forward a bit to peck Alec on the cheek) as he read the title. “Twilight?”

It made Magnus smirk. “Oh, I think I have heard of this. A supernatural teen romance novel, if I remember Biscuit’s words correctly. I must be honest, my dear boy, I didn’t think this would be your type of thing.”

But the vampire just crossed his arms over his chest. “Open it up to the introduction.”

A little puzzled, but also curious, Alec and Magnus did just that. It appeared to be just your ordinary preface to any book. 

‘I thank everyone who has supported me through this, bla bla bla, I’m incredibly honored and grateful for this opportunity to share bla bla bla, I hope this tale will find a way into your heart bla bla bla.’

Really; pretty standard as far as the warlock was concerned. Until they reached the last section on the introductory page, and it slowly dawned on Magnus just why Raphael looked as if he had been forced to listen to Simon ramble about a deep introspection on why Spider-Man was the best Marvel superhero ever.

Oh.

‘I would like to give special thanks to someone I unfortunately have never met personally, but whose input has definitely helped to inspire me to spice things up a bit. So this is to you, The_Magnificent_Bane. I “made them sparkle”!’

“Oh.” 

“Oh?” Raphael thundered. “That’s all you have to say to this? You told this woman to make her vampires sparkle in the sunlight like some demented disco ball! We don’t sparkle! The only sparkly crazy person around here is you! Do you have any idea what the stupid flea balls are going to say when they learn of this? Are you laughing? Stop laughing! There is going to be so many glitter jokes in my future now thanks to you! I’m never gonna hear the end of this! Magnus! Stop laughing!”

Magnus stopped laughing. Eventually.