All I see when looking at the gunman is Danny DeVito.

Seems like it would backfire due to heavy amounts of returns - especially in an economy like this where fewer people can afford to blow money on something that winds up just sitting there because it’s not meeting their needs.

Personally, I’d rather be dumb, unaware, happy, & have somebody who loved me ensuring that all my needs were met.

We don’t need Copilot for that - our politicians are doing the job on their own just fine.

Frankly, that’s how I feel when trying to be a decent human in this world run by an overwhelmingly large number of incredibly shitty people. Maybe he wasn’t the crazy one. Or maybe I am… *sigh*

I’m hoping it’s a deliberate ruse to keep people talking about the files when the media has all but stopped. If so, I hope whoever came up with it can withstand the shitstorm that may come back at them because it’s brilliant!

“My Boomer rang. Told him to get tossed.”

“painful but you get to continue living”

Why bother?

Don’t kiss it.

Alien.

Oh, wait…

I want a job in porn. I’m already (un)dressed for it.

Just building up the kid’s imagination by helping him “fly.”

A religion is trying to control you.

~(Original comment deleted.)~

On second thought, you just go ahead telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. It’s pointless to argue with self-rghteousness because it doesn’t know how to be honest with itself - let alone anybody else.

I think maybe you’re… ahem …selling yourself short. It might be more difficult in the current economic environment, but I suspect there are enough people who’d be willing to pay for high-quality acting even when the plain text version is free. It’s the immersion in the fantasy that makes it worth it to them. How do you think OF does so well when there’s so much readily accessible free porn out there? Do it right, market it properly (and cost-effectively), and even in this economy (or maybe even because of it) people will still pay to experience their fantasies (or at least escape reality). You just need to commit to doing it well to make it worth them paying for.

ETA: you could also encourage the purchasing of your recordings by including extra content, and/or publishing new stories as an “intro chapter” to get them hooked, and then continuing the adventures in the recordings. The conversion rate would be pretty low, but you’d probably still make more than with your advertising path - which you could still go to by releasing the extra material after some semi-lengthy “exclusivity period.”

…I’m very religious but not at all superstitious…

Cognitive dissonance on full display.

a.k.a. “business as usual” when the government that’s supposed to be policing such behavior had become primarily focused upon doing it themselves.

Those who make for the best leaders very rarely want to be leaders.

If I knew about that beforehand, I’d probably be much less likely turn it on to begin with. If I learned the hard way, I’d likely be dissuaded from ever trying it again & just get one of those other apps. Conversely, the fact that my current phone boots much faster than older ones did makes it not really as off-putting an issue at it once was. It sounds like a major PITA until you realize that.

You have control over it so it’ll soon be just like all the other pre-installed crap that you never use, but still eats up limited storage space.

With the addition, Google isn’t only thinking of users’ well-being, of course.

It’s reacting to increasing regulatory pressure around social media harms and algorithmic dangers. Today, many countries and U.S. states have created laws to restrict or ban minors from using social media, as the impacts of these apps on young people’s mental well-being have become better understood.

Google can now point to a feature like Pause Point to claim it’s part of the solution, not the problem.

Ahhh - there it is.

The thing that is much more concerning to me, tho: if this is pre-installed as a standard part of Android, then it could potentially be abused by work, carriers, governments, malware, etc. to control what you can and can’t easily do.