If I go spend 20 dollars at a restaurant we wouldn’t call it a micro-transaction, but if I spent the same amount of money in a video game then it is a micro-transaction?

Then they made their way to video games. And it used to be that they presented a reasonably comprehensible bargain:

You get to play a full-featured videogame for free, in return for which the game will occasionally advertise a premium cosmetic or unlock of some kind, for prices like $.99 or a couple of dollars. This was considered slightly annoying, especially in the mobile gaming space, but the trade-off was clear. Free game, paid optional content for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

The absolute maximal price you'd pay for a League of Legends skin was about $30, and those skins were considered an absolutely outrageous expense for totally dedicated League of Legends lifers, and were expected to be the absolute peak of technical possible quality. And those were still mocked as ridiculous expenses for weirdos, the sort of thing that no normal or average player should ever be expected to blow money on.

Bethesda was mocked for MONTHS for trying to sell $2.50 horse armor cosmetics in Oblivion. Microtransactions? In a premium product? In a sixty dollar game? Absolutely unacceptable! That was a breaking of the bargain!

But Bethesda's transgression was the thin end of a wedge. More and more of those post-launch monetizations started creeping into premium products, and by sheer erosion, by sheer slow grinding normalization, they started to multiply and the prices started to creep up and up and up, and day 1 DLC became normal, and ultimate and premium editions and super ultimate exclusive digital deluxe collector's editions and battle passes and lootboxes and... yeah.

It used to be a... not amazing, but at least a reasonably fair bargain. A transparent bargain. You get to play a game for free, and the price you pay instead is the soft pressure of microtransactions—actually micro transactions—being advertised to you.

Two people do not decide that they are "courting". One person decides to "court" someone else. It's an action, not a stage in the relationship. A man decides to court a woman because he wants to encourage her to have romantic interest in him. He's trying to win her favor. It's not an exclusive relationship--a woman could be courted by multiple men at once. She'll spend time getting to know the guy who's interested in her, but they won't officially define their relationship as one where they only show romantic interest in each other. If they reach a point where they want it to be exclusive, that's when you propose.

bizarrely, America has in many ways gotten more conservative about dating since World War II.

I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today, we have 83 days left until Google rolls out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!

I'll share some of the info below:

Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.

What to do?

-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides

- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out the full resources list on their website as well!

To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements but we got this working together!

Share the link with your friends, family and anyone who will listen!

My summer project for myself is to make a collection of 16 of these embroidered thimble rings (called kaga yubinuki), these are my first 2 ^^

using this as an opportunity to add this link to this post too:

1. Promise everything.

2. Piss off everyone.

3. Deliver nothing.