Same, I am yet to find a website notification that is actually useful to me.

My university forced us to switch from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 and from BigBlueButton to Teams for online classes probably because Microsoft offered them an irresistible deal. It was a really annoying and user-hostile process for everyone.

Google Meet's background blur and visual filters do not work on Firefox. MS Teams straight up says that Firefox is not a supported browser. These decisions might be intentional on the part of Google and Microsoft, but to the average user of these popular products, it looks like a Firefox problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers are made up. Just dark patterns to make it seem like the product is hot.

Though I've found it kinda interesting when websites show little messages like "Someone from country just bought item!".

Wow that meta profile is cringe. When did platforms start having personalities?

This is a great YSK and a great website. Ever since learning about the granny knot, I've noticed that many people around me do it unknowingly.

First it's the number of sign ups, then it's the posts and likes, then it's the number of eyeballs grabbed and the ad revenue. This kind of metric chasing that these platforms encourage is one of the reasons why they become so toxic.

I don't fully understand—would Meta be able to serve you targeted ads based on your non-Threads fediverse activities? Where would these ads appear? How do they know it's you just from your fediverse accounts?

I turned off my activity history, and I've noticed a needlessly degraded experience on some Google apps, like in Maps where it no longer labels your home location as "Home", but it's a saved location anyway.

Indeed. I opened the Signal app after a really long time last week and found that they had added a useless Stories feature like WhatsApp. I uninstalled the app since I never used it anyways.

Edit: Looks like Signal stories can be turned off unlike WhatsApp stories. That's a win I guess.

Moin moin! Hamburg is a lovely city, I enjoyed it a lot when I visited a couple of years ago :)

I love this picture lmao