this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Want to wade into the spooky surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Happy Halloween, everyone!)

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[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think Zitron has posted that none of these companies is profitable. Midjourney claims to be making a profit since 2024 although that depends on not paying for the IP they use etc. etc. etc. (and private companies can claim all kinds of things about their balance sheets without the CEO going to jail if they are creative).

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

his conclusions are a lot more complex than "none of these companies is profitable"

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

none

When faced with a long complicated argument outside your competence, its a really useful heuristic to spot-check a few sections and assume that if they are wrong the whole structure is flawed. And at least as many readers will take away the soundbites like "none of these companies is profitable" and "pathetic revenues" as any nuanced version that is hidden in there. At critics of spicy autocomplete go he is really far on the "pundit" end of the "academic to pundit" scale (well past our David Gerard).

[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

i see. i misunderstood your previous post, thought you meant that "none of these companies is profitable" is essentially his only conclusion and that you considered it justifiable enough

[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago

I think Zitron has some important analysis mixed up with the clickbait and the populist rhetoric. I thought he was trying to be a full-time blogger but now I see he runs a one-person PR business (!)