TY!

what the actual hell is that? a port connector for the borg?

just gives an exhausted sigh in response to every query.

it means stable & affordable. like your landlord can’t kick you out, and your rent won’t be jacked up unreasonably

yeah that would be the best interpretation, hopefully the right one. thanks!

yep.

parks on the lawn, 'merika!

Friend 3 runs the pub at the end of the block. Doesn’t even need a car.

secured housing

I’m not familiar with this term. help?

to publish ios apps you need to run xcode, last time I checked (admittedly it’s been 7ish years) - and you need to build on mac hardware. none of which is cheap, especially for devs who don’t see any additional revenue from their ios apps.

malice is a kind of incompetence. and yeah, I think their lack of forethought regarding the future of their business is fundamentally stupid. you would too if you had half a brain.

you’re too quick to assume it’s some kind of intentional effort to assassinate their userbase - when as usual it’s cut corners and profit seeking, because the engineers haven’t been in charge for a long time, and the bean counters are stupid enough to think they can run a manufacturer better than the slide-rulers when the stakes are literally sky high.

should they be held accountable for their stupidity? of course.

I didn’t bring crayons so I can’t simplify it further. vaya con disco.

haha how about a quick round of hide and go fuck yourself while we’re at it.

positing that their incompetency hasn’t hurt the company at all is simply silly.

edit: aw guess not huh sport?

Let’s look at the stock history: oh yeah boeing hasn’t suffered financially at all. let’s see, 2019: peaks at $422… today $221

now, I’m not gonna tell you that’s fallen far enough to make up for the shittery, but it’s hardly doing their business good.

but thanks for playing!

in a way… private equity blocks of institutional investment represent a huge chunk of outstanding shares.

and one of the cruel aspects of all this: so many of those devs were drawn to work for MS subsidiaries - or their companies were drawn to sell to MS - because of stock options. Stock options which - for the vast majority of those devs - will never vest, and they’ll be shitcanned, and their shares will go back to the mothership.

Stock options are a huge component when people are negotiating and studios are selling out, but only the top tier executives will ever get good shares vested in a sane timeline. The rest get it dangled to keep them onboard, then yanked because of a mythical need to cut costs when profits are through the roof.

because what Microsoft wants is your user data

yup. adverts all over windows 11, edge and now AI garbage pushed onto hapless users… it’s a complete shitshow.

do enough bad business and it’ll whip right around and effect those profits. watch.

Up til about ten years ago, doing mass layoffs was seen as a sign of company in trouble; it scared shareholders and it made talent less likely to apply to your company.

really good point.

from a gamedev perspective - they overinvested in studios, which are only pumping major returns into their coffers, but not anticipated AI returns so, cut the teams. and cut the teams some more.

then cut the teams a bit more. 9000 layoffs ya know.

well, maybe, then hire a bunch because maybe you cut too far?

nah, cut some more. oblivion remastered only made an absolute shitton.

it’s a move that’s making any dev looking to work with MS/Xbox really wary because it seems that they want their IP a lot more than their studios.

another layoff

then another press release on how high the profits are!

nightmare territory that.

god imagine how depressing dev would be if all programmers did was clean up AI slop.

I really don’t think people realize how opaque and circuitous some of this shit is.