EldritchFeminity

I mean that crypto currencies are essentially the same as stocks. They have no worth on their own, and their value is tied to converting them to other currencies.

And this conversion rate fluctuates constantly. What one bitcoin is worth today is not what it will be worth tomorrow. In order to buy something with a crypto currency, companies have to first check how much it's worth in fiat currency.

It's because companies consider something that would be expensive to fix as "not broke."

I wouldn't say that it's harder to counterfeit so much as that the methodology is radically different due to the untrusted, peer to peer nature of crypto. Because of the way that that works, in order to fake a transaction you need to convince the majority of ledgers that the transaction occurred (even if the wallet that is buying something doesn't have anything in it). Because the ledger is ultimately decided by majority vote. You can trace the transaction, but wallets are often anonymous, so the trail ends at the wallet. Especially since somebody would use a burner wallet to do such a thing. It's basically buying something with a hotel keycard with a stolen RFID on it.

I think governments don't want anything to do with it because its nature causes it to be too unstable in its value. It would be like tying the value of your country's currency to the value of day trade stocks. One day, your money is worthless; a week later, it's skyrocketing in value.

At the end of the day, currencies are a system of abstraction to simplify the process of trade - whether between people or countries. We agree that the magic paper is worth the same amount because it's easier than arguing that the magic rock that gave your wife cancer is worth at least 2 goats, not one. It's always going to be a flawed system in some way. Crypto's flaws just make it an ideal system for black market dealings compared to traditional fiat currency in its current setup, on top of the energy and computing costs.

There's nothing wrong with it, per se. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just trying to put in perspective the technological difference between the 90s and today that makes the 90s "ancient" and how systems are still running on that old tech today.

The 90s was only about 30 years ago, but when you think of what computers running Windows 95 could do then compared to systems today, it's like a different era. It's no small wonder that banking systems can't keep your accounts up to date in real time when major pieces of them were designed before the internet was more than a DARPA project.

When my dad was in college for engineering, the college had their own computer, and he remembers going into the clean room to put his punch cards into it for classes. When I was a kid in the 90s, I remember being blown away by a flight sim on my dad's Mac. Today, I can grab my HTC Vive and be right in the cockpit of a fighter jet in something like DCS. Compared to when I was a kid, I might as well be on the holodeck from Star Trek. Dick Tracy's wrist computer went from science fiction to something people use just so they don't have to pull their computer out of their pocket.

The only thing that can outpace technology is internet meme culture.

In terms of technology, the 90s is archaic at this point. Imagine if your bank transactions had to go through a Dell running Windows 98 with a single piece of RAM measured in kb.

I'm pretty sure some parts of the US power grid are running on DOS and some of the medical system hasn't seen a security update since Windows 2000's end of life updates.

Better than blaming addicts for being addicted.

As usual, vote local, vote often applies here, but personally, I'm in 100% agreement that the odds of it happening in our lifetime are slim to none.

Rent lowering gunshots

But when people think "whale," they think of the rich idiots with more money than sense. They don't think of the addict being fleeced like kids by cigarette companies. And we need to change that mentality. Because we're just victim blaming here. You can't shame a heroin addict into a sober person.

And there are plenty of irresponsible parents. There was a story about 5 years ago I remember of a young kid (like 6 years old) who literally emptied his parents' bank account on mtx in an iPhone game because they didn't know it had mtx in it.

And saying that people with mental health issues need to git gud is like saying that people in wheelchairs need to git gud and use stairs. What we need to do is replace the idiots with people who understand how bad this shit is so we can get something done about it.

Unfortunately, the biggest group of people buying mtx are those with mental health issues/addiction issues and kids who have no concept of fiscal responsibility. And as the saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute.

These companies have literally hired psychologists to tell them how to best exploit the human brain for maximum wallet extraction. They're doing the equivalent of casinos pumping extra oxygen into the room to keep you more awake and not having any windows so you don't realize how long you've been in there (plus the easy booze to loosen the purse strings).

Nothing's gonna change until we can hold these companies responsible for their actions. Ironically, I think review bombing on Steam actually helps since it can make people aware of the exploitative practices these companies are doing and make them avoid these games.

Except the big money isn't coming from the whales. It's coming from the gamer equivalent of the little old lady at the casino with her bucket of quarters.

So the answer is neither.

Whales are largely a myth created by game companies to create a false class war amongst us rather than holding the truly responsible parties at fault. No different than pitting the middle class against the poor.

Do whales exist? Absolutely. However, the vast majority of mtx money comes from people with addiction problems, mental health issues that make fiscal responsibility difficult, and kids who don't know any better. Many of whom who are spending money that they can't afford to spend but can't help themselves from spending.

These companies quite literally hire psychologists to tell them exactly how to exploit people's own brain chemistry against them to most effectively extract money from their wallets. Epic Games got in trouble because it was believed that they were trying to create a culture in Fornite that shamed kids for having default skins. Everything from daily login bonuses to seasons and battle passes to rotating stores are designed to keep you logging in and playing and therefore paying. They turn logging in into a habit and then hit you with the FOMO and completing your collection needs.

You're not going to fix this by shaming people any more than you can cure drug, alcohol, and gambling addiction by shaming people.