Don't bother seeding it, it's a censored version. I don't know if the person who made the torrent added the blur or not, but it seems pointless to preserve it like this.

I suspect you're just repeating arguments you've heard, so don't take this internet rage personally, but that is complete bullshit.

• Hosting costs nothing. Devs will gladly foot the bill for that if given the option. Even if you distribute your apps on AWS (which is notorious for severely overcharging on egress), your expenses will be no where near 15%-30% of your revenue.

• Payment processing is a competitive field outside the appstores. Even 15%-30% is ludicrous when "overpriced" processors like stripe charge 2%-3%

• APIs are not something sold to developers. They build them as part of the operating system because they have to. That's how it works. They could try selling licenses, but it would result in devs not building on their fancy new features.

(you didn't mention the ones below, but people with your argument usually do, so I'm adding them for completeness)

• Security is also bullshit. The Appstore and Play store are FILLED with malware. It is not physically possible to manually review the sheer volume of apps published to those stores. They also are not incentivized to improve the process much, because each time your kid or grandma accidentally activates a $40/week subscription, Apple/Google take a 15%-30% cut.

• Curation/promotion is bullshit. Discoverability on these stores has always been bad, but has been particularly awful since both Apple/Google have started selling search ads in the store. The other day I almost accidentally downloaded a fake ChatGPT app because it was the first result when I searched, it had a very similar icon, "ChatGPT" in the name, 5 stars, and millions of downloads.

These stores also heavily incentivize devs to push subscriptions. I suspect (but haven't confirmed) that the Appstore and Google Play both rank subscription based apps higher than others, and subs tend to pay a lower revshare fee than other monetization types.

I could go on all day about the rotten dumpster fires that are these disgusting stores. The only people who defend them are fanboys and people who have never actually had to deal with them professionally.

$2m is enough to pay for chemotherapy

Sure, but GTA 6 is 100% already working on PC. Not just because they develop the game on PC, or because they're building on top of the RDR2 engine (which is already ported to PC), but because they planned to support PC from the beginning, and that type of engine work usually gets ironed out early during development or in pre-production.

I was just pointing out the flaw in your tire analogy though. TBH I'm not saying they should give free copies to people who bought it on other platforms. That's unprecedented for giant publishers like this. But I am pissed that they're delaying the PC version since you can be sure it's a calculated plan to ensure PC gamers buy the game twice. They collected enough analytics and surveys to know that a significant amount of GTA5 PC gamers also own a next-gen console. It's all very nefarious.

Unless it's either PS5 or Xbox exclusive (not both), I don't think that's true. Sony and Microsoft wouldn't collude to prevent launch on PC. That's extremely illegal, even for companies that are masters of dodging antitrust laws.

The most realistic explanation (IMO) is that Rockstar did their research and found that most PC players also own a console, and will very likely buy the game twice in the long run.

Or if we're being charitable, maybe the game needs more optimization work before it can run well on the Steam deck, and they want that working before launching on PC.

Tires cost materials and labor to manufacture, but digital games cost nothing to copy.

What about when they want to read an old letter from a relative, study notes from a senior, archive document, manuscript of work of literature they love or a fancy font ?

Ask ChatGPT to translate and summarize it.

When I learned how to write in "cursive" in a south Florida elementary school (early 00s), I learned that "Zaner Bloser" style he posted above. However, I've never heard the term "joined up writing" before today. I think you're both just mistaking regional terms for standardized ones.

#SayingTheQuietPartOutLoud

Computer programmers are the devil.

I'm not a lawyer either, but the GPL doesn't say anything about commercial use. Zipo can sell the code in the apps without having to ask permission from contributors. The only restriction is that they have to keep their modifications open source (which that Github response says).

But the main point is that the Zipo people bought out the Google Play listing, giving them access to the millions of users who have those apps installed on their phones. They likely don't give a shit about features/keeping the apps closed source. It's just a purchase of the userbase, likely for shady reasons.

This also means that forking the Simple Mobile repos isn't even likely to accomplish much. Sure, it'll put control of the repo in the hands of a more trusted party (which is significant), but since it's open source anyways, it'd be easy to catch any attempts to sneak malware into the apps. And if all development effort moves to the fork, Zipo can still take that fork and redistribute it under the "Simple Mobile Tools" name.

Ultimately, the fucked up thing here is that the original developer, Tibor Kaputa, sold out millions of users. Forking isn't going fix that. Fuck him. The only thing that will fix this situation is if Google takes down their store listing, but that's not going to happen. Hopefully F-droid does.

Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services,

First of all, this is wrong. Free to play is an insanely profitable business model.

But also it's wrong because non-F2P multiplayer games aren't a free service. You paid $60/$70 for the game, and whatever the cost of the servers is would have been factored into the sale price. The per-unit cost of hosting an online game is nowhere near the cost of the game, especially back in the day when most "servers" were just a matchmaking service for P2P game clients.

Nowadays, the cost of running a multiplayer game is lower than ever. Cloud hosting gives a ton of flexibility to design an online service that is affordable to run, not to mention the money printing machine that are microtransactions (often sold in non-F2P games that also require a subscription to play).

Online subscriptions are not meant to cover server/hosting costs. They're a monopoly tax from the platform holder, who can charge you money to connect to the internet simply because they can, and they know you have no other option.

Well I know there’s some southern states it’s OK with your cousins

Aka "Giuliani states"