It’s been a long journey, but here we arrive. Welcome home.

  • 🐝🇭🇪🅻🅻🇪🇧🅴🆁🇹🐝@beehaw.orgEnglish
    62·
    2 years ago

    Tried the official Reddit app today and boy people weren’t joking when they say it sucks. I thought it’d just be the usual experience plus some ads but I was totally wrong.

    The official app doesn’t respect your subreddit subscriptions at all, instead force feeding you feeds of whatever their algorithm thinks will drive maximum engagement just like a shit version of Facebook does. The “hot” etc functional is completely stipped from it entirely.

    Guess I’m here to stay on the fediverse now.

    • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.orgEnglish
      25·
      2 years ago

      What absolutely sucks about this is that I had carefully curated my subscriptions on RIF in order not to exacerbate my dumb mental health issues.

      Hell, I’ve read angry posts about people in recovery from addiction and alcohol saying how they keep seeing ads for beer or gambling and things like that.

      It’s horrifying!!

      • remi_pan@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        The algorithm really doesn’t work when you are critical or sceptical over a subject. For instance crypto sceptics from r/buttcoin being shown binance ads. Yes, they do show an interest in crypto, but may be the least suceptible persons to that ad.

        • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          It’s different with subs focused on addiction & recovery though.

          Maybe it’s a very bad idea to targeted knife ads in a suicide watch sub, you know? Susceptible people and all.

          • remi_pan@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I completely agree with you, and your example is very good indeed. (Maybe my previous comment was not clear ? English is not my mothertongue)

      • Spzi@lemmy.clickEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        people in recovery from addiction and alcohol saying how they keep seeing ads for beer or gambling

        Not that this is how it works, but I imagine a diligent algorithm looking at those individuals and that content, and then thinking “mhhmm this will generate maximum revenue!!”.

        • SharkEatingBreakfast@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          I think that’s absolutely how it works (in part). Ads curated toward your demographic! Maybe it’s not inherently purposeful, but it’s harmful, nonetheless.

          In a subr×ddit about alcohol recovery? “Our algorithm detected that your post history contains the word “alcohol” or “beer” a lot! We will tailor your ads to cater to your interests for maximum profits!” Boom. There you go.

          It takes the human aspect out of the community and drives it to become harmful at worst and soulless at best.

      • amki@feddit.deEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        From an advertiser perspective it makes sense to sell to addicted people. Mission accomplished?

    • Dan_Rachevaski@beehaw.orgEnglish
      22·
      2 years ago

      you don’t mention the copious, copious amounts of ads and sponsored contents

      wow thanks reddit, you are more and more Facebook-like now, congratulations.

      • 🐝🇭🇪🅻🅻🇪🇧🅴🆁🇹🐝@beehaw.orgEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        Yeah, that’s pretty bad too but I was at least willing to accept there is a valid reason for that to keep the lights on.

        However, when they go as far to break the core functionality of the website and turn it into another Facebook with psychological manipulation at its core then that’s a whole other thing entirely.

        • Dan_Rachevaski@beehaw.orgEnglish
          7·
          2 years ago

          Agreed. Honestly, if I want a FB-like Reddit, fuck that, I’ll going to Facebook.

          Enshittification sucks I would say.

    • elonspez@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      I hate the reddit app but I don’t have that problem. My home page is all what I’ve joined.

  • koze@feddit.deEnglish
    54·
    2 years ago

    It’s funny to read this article about the death of Digg again:

    In reality, Digg changed their business model and pretended that they didn’t. That is something that is unacceptable with communities and won’t be forgotten. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian hit the nail on the head in an open letter to (now former) Digg CEO – Kevin Rose:

    “You chose to grow with venture capital and you’ve no doubt (I hope) taken some money off the table in your Series C round. I say this because this new version of digg reeks of VC meddling. It’s cobbling together features from more popular sites and departing from the core of digg, which was to “give the power back to the people.”

    https://searchengineland.com/digg-v4-how-to-successfully-kill-a-community-50450>

  • KNova@links.dartboard.socialEnglish
    53·
    2 years ago

    I think even calling it Lemmy is not the right move. Yeah, Lemmy is the server software running on a bunch of instances. But we also have kbin, and new softwares will pop up and fork and come and go over time. Once we can do some kind of account or community level migration, it won’t matter whether you are on Lemmy or kbin or the next great thing. Everything will be federated so it will inter-op beautifully. If an unfriendly instance admin comes along, we can collectively cut and run with minimal interruption.

    Thats still a way off from where we are now but the hard step was getting to the Fediverse in the first place. So, welcome to the newcomers among us.

        • Borgzilla@lemmy.caEnglish
          5·
          2 years ago

          I still use both. 99% of Usenet is spam, but there still a few active groups (especially under comp.*). The BBS scene on the other hand, is booming. I see new users every week on my favourite board.

          • cvr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            5·
            2 years ago

            How does a current day BBS work? Landline phone connections are a thing of the past here.

            • duncesplayed@lemmy.oneEnglish
              6·
              2 years ago

              telnet or ssh (usually telnet)

              If you’re connecting from a modern computer, you just get a telnet client that does the appropriate code pages/ANSI/zmodem/etc. If you’re connecting from a retro computer, you get a little dongle that appears to be a modem (and often accepts AT commands, including fake phone numbers), but secretly connects to WiFi and relays through a telnet connection.

              Some BBSes do still have landlines, and there’s the occasional ham radio BBS, but 99.999% of it is through IP-based telnet or ssh these days.

            • duncesplayed@lemmy.oneEnglish
              4·
              2 years ago

              Sadly most people CAN’T connect through dial-up, even if both parties have all the equipment. A lot of telcos have redone their entire network in VoIP stuff (with heavy compression) which makes it hard to keep a connection even at 300.

    • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      24·
      2 years ago

      I think the concept of the Fediverse is still really alien to people, even the people who are using it. Everyone is still so used to their centralized platforms, so they still think of the Fediverse in terms of platforms rather than as a whole.

      You still hear people say “Mastodon” to mean the microblogging corner of the Fediverse even if they’re not actually on Mastodon, and now people say “Lemmy” to mean the link aggregation corner of the Fediverse even if not everyone is actually on Lemmy.

      • morrowind@lemmy.mlEnglish
        18·
        2 years ago

        I recently found and like the term “threadiverse” for reddit-like federated software

      • MetalAirship@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but the word “Fediverse” leaves a sour taste in my mount just because it sounds so much like the stupidity that was “Metaverse” (yes I know they are completely unrelated)

      • sillypuddy@mander.xyzEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Are you saying there’s other reddit-like/inspired webservices that are part of the fediverse that aren’t Lemmy? What are those?

    • Be Here Now@beehaw.orgEnglish
      11·
      2 years ago

      undefined> calling it Lemmy is not the right move.

      Spankin’ new here, so what do I know, but while the semantics might not be completely accurate, that is not an uncommon occurrence. And Lemmy sounds personal, with a bit of a Motorhead edge to it.

      Maybe we’ll all be called Lemmies web slinging in the Fediverse one day.

      • speedrun@lemmy.oneEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        Yup, having a name is a pretty important aspect of growth. And while the fediverse could certainly work, it’s not very intuitive for new users and also covers such a broad range of functionalities that it won’t help people who are specifically looking for a Reddit alternative. Sure ‘lemmy’ is a misnomer, but it’s better to have a name being used incorrectly than no name at all.

  • tezoatlipoca@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    2 years ago

    You’re missing the precursors:

    Email -> Newsgroups -> CGI forums / IRC -> Slashdot… :)

    The new Fediverse really is kicking up IRC and newsgroup vibes for this old timer. Its very exciting.

    • a1studmuffin@aussie.zoneEnglish
      16·
      2 years ago

      I imagine as Mastodon and Lemmy pick up more users, we’ll see a lot of activity and improvements in the underlying tech of the fediverse. Should be a fun ride, especially since it’s in the hands of the community.

      • amki@feddit.deEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Let’s see if the technology can improve fast enough to retain users.

        • blindsight@beehaw.orgEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          idk, I think it’s there already. I’m already having enough content to engage with and post comments.

          Sure, I can’t scroll through new content endlessly, but there’s enough to replace Reddit.

          I might actually make posts here, too, since it’s likely to gain traction. On Reddit, there were only a select few smaller subs I’d generally post to, and even then, only rarely.

          • amki@feddit.deEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            I mean even Reddit wasn’t really “endless” for me. On particularly boring days I could definitely reach the end of content that interests me.

    • mobyduck648@beehaw.orgEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      The bar for being Reddit circa 2010 isn’t that high to be fair, I know expectations have changed but Reddit was down intermittently for years to the point I’m amazed it got the traction it did in hindsight. People talk about Lemmy having tankies on it as though early Reddit didn’t have some even worse unsavoury subs and users too.

  • david@quo.inkEnglish
    24·
    2 years ago

    So many long forgotten relics and old friends lost to time.

    bbs, usenet, irc, aol chat rooms, aim/icq/msn messenger (by the way, anyone remember Trillian?), geocities web-rings, various phpBB forums (shoutout neopages), oekaki drawing boards, livejournal, stumbleupon,

    • chaoticPuppies@beehaw.orgEnglish
      12·
      2 years ago

      Trillian! I paid for the multi-messenger functionality too!

      IRC is not dead. Since rexxit began I have started really searching for programming/data science/tech communities. I have found more than I know what to do with and many have an IRC. I just installed Pidgin on one of my Linix machines. Ha! What a time to be alive.

    • aaron@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      Trillian!! That’s a chain of neurons that’s been dormant for about 15 years…

    • peanutyam@beehaw.orgEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Yeah some of those I had forgotten! For me it was usenet, IRC, ICQ, Yahoo Chat Rooms (I was one of the kids that dropped booters and other pesky little bots and hacks into them all the time 😂 - I’m still friends to this day with someone I met via Yahoo Chatrooms though!) Definitely used Trillian, and the old phpBB forums before I found Reddit over 10 years ago…and now Lemmy

    • SirShanova@lemmy.oneEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      IRC thrives! The dusty corners of the internet where people continue to develop the most obscure software functioning as an unknown pillar of the internet still have IRC channels available to discuss and interact.

    • argv_minus_one@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      by the way, anyone remember Trillian?

      I never used it, but I did use similar things like Kopete and Pidgin. Both of those still exist and are still maintained, by the way, albeit far less useful now that the big four instant messaging systems are gone. Of those four, only ICQ still exists, and I doubt it still uses the same protocol, seeing as the old one wasn’t encrypted.

    • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.devEnglish
      20·
      2 years ago

      People are so confused and overwhelmed about the fediverse mechanics though.

      Maybe there is room for a product that is an aggregator for aggregators. Like, a centralised service that scrapes and collects all Lemmy instances into one super instance.

      • hal@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        12·
        2 years ago

        Its actually simple. Tell them, its like Email. You have an email account at gmail, but can perfectly fine have email conversation with someone on outllook. Lemmy instance = the same as a web email interface of any email provider. Most people will get their head around that.

      • l4sgc@beehaw.orgEnglish
        10·
        2 years ago

        Pardon my confusion since I’m new to the fediverse as well, but isn’t every Lemmy instance like the super instance you are describing? You can access any community on any instance from any other; there are commentors in this thread from beehaw.org, lemmy.world, lemmy.sdf.org, programming.dev, and many others.

        • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.devEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Nah those are like sibling instances. I’m talking about a parent instance that combines all the children instances with a new community that aggregates multiple remote communities.

          Just thinking out loud, haven’t really fleshed out the idea yet.

          • Balthazar@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            6·
            2 years ago

            That already exists. ATM, the thing you’re confusing it with is that there are 4-5 “gaming” subs, but eventually if one gets big enough or the others get taken in by one this will happen, and it’ll look like this instance “[email protected]” (p.s. I’m accessing this from Sopuli, so not on Beehaw).

            • nii236@lemmy.jtmn.devEnglish
              1·
              2 years ago

              I guess its just a natural progression of being absorbed by other communities that are larger. What I was getting at was a new feature that combines multiple communities into a single one on the backend and presents them as a single one (with interleaved posts/comments from all 5 communities or whatever)

              • Balthazar@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                1·
                2 years ago

                I don’t know enough to truly be able to comment, but some others I’ve seen said that this creates a dozen problems to solve a signular one

          • Headless3638@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            5·
            2 years ago

            Yeah, I think I get it - there’s a bunch of smaller gaming@<lemmy-instance> kind of things, you’re talking about a master c/gaming that combines all of the smaller lemmy instances of gaming channels, right?

        • Setarkus.MX@mander.xyzEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          From what I know, the instances share the posts between each other, but they need to have had contact with another instance somehow before they can get posts from there. Something like a user searching for an instance that isn’t yet known to their “home” instance yet or following a link to it.
          As I understood it, this lets the instances know of each other. Posts of unknown instances won’t show up on your instance until the connection has been made.
          So maybe a super instance could somehow include a newly created instance as soon as it has connected with any other instance already in the super instance.

          (might not be too coherent since I know little about this all as of now ^^)

          • l4sgc@beehaw.orgEnglish
            1·
            2 years ago

            Wouldn’t the home instance already have to know about the remote instance in some way for it to show up in that initial user’s search?

      • patatahooligan@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        I don’t think such an aggregator is required. Interoperability is smooth enough that you don’t have to think about different instances most of the time. I’ve only really noticed two points that would be confusing:

        • the sign up process
        • the “local”/“all” distinction

        So I think what we really need to do to make this platform intuitive to people that aren’t already familiar with it is:

        • Somehow streamline signing up. The process from googling Lemmy to having an account on an instance should not be confusing or intimidating.
        • Filter by “all” by default. The default should cater to the users which are less likely to figure it out themselves. If you don’t understand what instances are and what “local” vs “all” means, then you are probably here for the “all” experience. If you understand and really want “local” you are probably fine having to set it yourself.
  • Breakpr0d@aussie.zoneEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    I realise that this is unpopular. But personally while I disagree with the decision to charge (exorbitantly) for the api and appalled at the slander hurled at the dev, I think that is an business choice and one more item that I have to disagree and live with.

    But I am very excited about the rise of the fediverse. I know that a company will eventually make a decision that I feel very passionately about, but I will be stuck making a difficult choice. With the fediverse, it provides the users with the opportunity to have control. This power of course often comes with various other costs (lack of a dedicated sre or moderation teams, etc). But I expect that over time this will evolve into options where paid offerings will come up that allows for higher QoS where required.

    • totallynotsocsa@beehaw.orgEnglish
      201·
      2 years ago

      Honestly, if spez hadn’t already sold the site to white supremacists, I’d be a lot quicker to defend this.

      • itty53@vlemmy.netEnglish
        15·
        2 years ago

        The api changes really were about protecting their gold mine of data from ai data models scraping for data. Reddit wants to use that data to create its own models and then replace moderators with those models. The ultimate goal here is to turn the existing dataset into an automoderator on steroids that they could sell anywhere. Trouble is someone else is going to beat them to it.

        There was a reason these changes lined up so nicely with Google doing the same thing. Everyone’s realizing they’ve been spouting their gold from firehoses for any machine to pick up, and they’re being reactionary and turning them off asap instead of just like, accepting it as a facet of having a public social network.

      • links_ownEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I must’ve missed that part of the story…

    • vinniep@beehaw.orgEnglish
      7·
      2 years ago

      I’m also very optimistic right now. The challenges I see are more around funding, as continued work on the code bases and hosting seem to be the largest hurdles and ultimately easier with money than without. The Fediverse feels like an incredibly natural next step for a lot of users that are coming from a Reddit or Reddit-like background. Everything else (robust collection of communities, moderation, 3rd party tooling, etc) comes with the crowd and from the community, not from the “owner”, and will only take time if we can solve for the funding/scaling challenges.

    • DidacticDumbass@lemmy.oneEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      It is just the catalyst we need to transcend the status quo and normalize technology that respects its users.

  • cap_net_admin@beehaw.orgEnglish
    18·
    2 years ago

    If you still have a Reddit account, unsub all the subreddits that are refusing to participate in a strike.

    • croobat@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      I’m kinda proud all the communities I follow followed suit! Even some pretty small/niche ones.

    • Spzi@lemmy.clickEnglish
      3·
      2 years ago

      Good idea! Apparently most of my subs participated, so I only had to unsub a few times. Eerie view to see an empty front page after I was done, never had that.

      Apart from this short visit, I stay away from reddit.

  • Cobe98@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    2 years ago

    Same fucking journey as you. Reddit was a good run for 10 years, let’s see if Lemmy can work.

    • pretzel@beehaw.orgEnglish
      11·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, I almost did it, skipped digg. Seemed like a poor reddit clone at the time. Was nice to be on the right side, but sad to see it fall away. All for RSS, open source and federation though, so its nice. Reddit could have done the same - when they open sourced and allowed voat to be, they could have had a federated framework then - and allowed individual servers to handle their own APIs. They could have charged a license fee or something to commerical users who put ads on and made profits, but open source wins again I guess!

      • Cobe98@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        2 years ago

        I don’t think so. Although many will remain with Reddit, there is no incentive or loyalty for a significant % to do so. If reddit is shit, why not just use FB, Twitter or regular message boards? Already I saw many subreddits have discords already.

        The question for most of those useea is there a lesser evil in choosing one bad company over another? Unfortunately I just see this community content becoming fragmented as a result and no winners emerging.

        I like Lemmy / kbin but I am concerned that a dev could just shutdown their server and a community, accounts are gone. Who pays the server bills, and maintenance backups etc. This seems incredibly problematic.

        Beyond that they need a strong mobile app and 3P decs, a tool to read a users reddit profile and subscribe to similar channels, one click registration without selecting a server. It would be good to also have a mechanism for showing cross-platform posted content in a single view.

        If honestly feels like the 90s wild west Internet days again. No alternative I have seen so far can address these concerns.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.socialEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        I mean, since there’s no central site to shut down, Lemmy failing would pretty much just mean that it stagnates and some of the bigger instances shut down, at which point there still would be some remnant of it left to stay on, if a smaller one. Failing that, it isn’t the only reddit alternative that people have been working on, so maybe one of the others will be more successful.

      • knotthatone@lemmy.oneEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Nah. If Lemmy/Fediverse doesn’t work out, there will be others. This has all happened before…

        • amki@feddit.deEnglish
          3·
          2 years ago

          If the fediverse idea doesn’t work out and it’s yet another company the cycle is bound to continue.

          A big chance is in front of us to break the cycle!

          • knotthatone@lemmy.oneEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. Decentralization is the way to go and I hope Lemmy succeeds. This particular implementation may or may not work out long term, but the underlying idea is sound.

            We’ll get it. Might take a couple tries, but we’ll get it.

  • l0st-scr1b3@beehaw.orgEnglish
    14·
    2 years ago

    Gonna be honest it’s kinda weird to me as someone who did just move over that there’s a bunch of posts from people who just found the Fediverse claiming it as home while there’s people who have been here since it’s creation. It’s got the implication that this was created as some sort of next jump from Reddit which doesn’t really seem to be the case from my perspective.

    • hadrian@beehaw.orgEnglish
      12·
      2 years ago

      I see what you mean to an extent, and I also just moved over, but it’s worth remembering that Digg -> Reddit was the same afaik. Like Reddit had been around and established for a decent amount of time before the fall of Digg. (This is second-hand info because I wasn’t around at the time)

      • DarkwingDuck@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        6·
        2 years ago

        I’ve been on reddit for a couple years before the flood from Digg. The quality of content and especially comments went down right then, and never recovered.

        • HQC@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          Depends entirely on the subreddit, in my experience. Places like AskHistorians didn’t even exist when the great Digg exodus occurred. My favorite sub was /r/cfb which also benefited greatly from the mainstream popularity.

          Not coincidental that both of these are relatively strongly moderated compared to many of the biggest/default subs.

    • vinniep@beehaw.orgEnglish
      9·
      2 years ago

      That feeling makes sense, but I think everyone knows that the Fediverse wasn’t created specifically to give them a landing in this event, just like Reddit wasn’t created to catch the Digg refugees, etc. More of a “next phase in the evolution of this concept”, and while it took a catastrophe, they’re ready to consider that it’s time to move on now.

      The trick is going to be walking that line between preserving what made the Fediverse great and not alienating the newcomers. I think there’s room for everyone, though, and really the big advantage of the Fediverse - we don’t have to agree to co-exist, and can even co-existing completely separately if needed.

      • l0st-scr1b3@beehaw.orgEnglish
        7·
        2 years ago

        I think you bring up a pretty important point about federation in that it allows for and even encourage expansion in some ways, so that’s a good way to keep optimistic about it. I guess I just feel a little embarrassed. Especially when you look at posts like the recent one asking Lemmy users how they feel about the reddit refugees, and it’s flooded with responses from Reddit refugees instead offering unsolicited feedback about design choices. Then you have threads like this with people laying claim to the fediverse more or less. It just feels like some kind of a Christopher Columbus situation. While I realize that might be a little tone-deaf it’s the best analogy I have for it.

        • Kalkaline @lemmy.oneEnglish
          4·
          2 years ago

          Any community is a sum of it’s members, good bad, or otherwise. I think there will be a wave of us Reddit refugees, but also word is going to spread to other places like Meta and hopefully bring in even more people. Getting people sorted into servers that are going to be able to handle the load, or even better getting them to host their own servers is going to be the way to go. Sorry if we’re stumbling all over your garden in the meantime.

          • vinniep@beehaw.orgEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            Getting people sorted into servers that are going to be able to handle the load, or even better getting them to host their own servers is going to be the way to go.

            That part still worries me a smidge, and it’s somewhat related to my other concern about funding/scaling. As more of the general public discover and move over, the % of the general population willing and able to host their own instance is going to steadily decrease. Not saying that we’re all gonna die or anything, but it’s going to be a shift and we’ll have to continue to adapt.

              • vinniep@beehaw.orgEnglish
                3·
                2 years ago

                I expect that in time, that’s exactly what will happen. Some instance somewhere will offer guaranteed availability and performance for a monthly fee to it’s members. That feels icky at first blush, but why should it? It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but no one is forced to use that instance to be part of the larger community, and one instance can’t hold the community hostage like a single company social media company could. They’ll have success right up until they don’t and the Fediverse will sort it out through migrations of users and communities.

              • oyenyaaow@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                2 years ago

                or make a non-profit. archiveofourown have ~20% of reddit’s traffic and run purely on donation.

                • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
                  1·
                  2 years ago

                  That might work too, but I feel like it could be tricky to fundraise if there’s 1000 equivalent large-ish instances.

        • vinniep@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          kind of a Christopher Columbus situation. While I realize that might be a little tone-deaf it’s the best analogy I have for it.

          I definitely get the sentiment. Everyone is looking for how to make this what they “need” (want) without enough consideration for what it already is and who got it there. It’s going to be a journey, that’s for sure.

  • ZeroCarbon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    2 years ago

    My only problem is that we are in 2023 and we still need to read a bunch of text. Why can’t we have holograms and a sexy AI whispering us the comments?