I really love those weird collections that are open to the public. I wonder how many people out there are obsessively collecting and cataloging that one theme in their basement.
Oh well, I guess we have another once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis ahead of us. Ready your tax dollars, prepare the bailouts! We've got some billionaires to save.
The economic bet there are enough mentally ill people who reject reality... looking at the state of affairs in tech and politics this might actually pay off.
So, some tech business took something that is practical, robust, and low maintenance, and then added a deteriorating battery, delicate electronics, and the need to constantly charge a f-ing kitchen knife. Bullshit innovation is reinventing things, but worse. I wouldn't be surprised if they at some point added AI powered cutting modes and a subscription service, because the target audience clearly is gullible morons that are easily fooled by fancy ideas of vaguely sci-fi concepts.
"Let's not buy from Russia, it's an overt dictatorship lazily cosplaying as a democracy that's waging wars on other nations and killing innocent civilians."
I know capitalism and I don't always get along, but it's so good to see its desire for profitability and the need to protect investors actually kill a business that needs killing. Nice.
What contemporary economic ideology has taught me: If it sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't. And the Venn diagram of scams and business is almost a circle in a sense that companies and criminals don't have your interests in mind. There's really no reason to trust either.
Is it because the creepy breeding kink, drug addict CEO playing a neo nazi edgelord who supports far-right extremist parties all over the world? Or is it the noncompetitive products that were oversold for decades? FSD scam? Humanoid robot scam? Cyberanything fail?
Ads are not the problem. It's the ad-tech surveillance and the malvertising. There are ways to show ads that are not a threat. When online services choose to become hostile, adblockers are the defense. I don't mind ads, I don't mind paying for services without ads, in fact I do for multiple services and news. I don't want surveillance ad-tech anywhere near my devices. It's the business decision of the company, that aides the worst enduring tech businesses with data collection and targeted scams and malware. So fuck'em. I'll steal gladly from overt assholes.
People discussing AI certainly is the perfect place to advertise something about the "incredible lottery spell psychic". Honestly, I can't even tell if it's satire or spam, and I love it.
I've been playing ttrpgs for over 25 years now and have a substantial library around 500 books, mostly rulebooks, but also plenty of dnd supplements.
Overall I can say, the quality of WotC material has never been particularly good, but in recent years has fallen even below its old mediocrity, especially compared to their much smaller competition (not that it matters for the market share). Sure, 5e is pretty much late-stage dnd and splatbooks have always been rather questionable at the end of an edition. But the quasi monopoly of dnd and its success is also its greatest problem. They remember the reactions of the community towards 4th edition, as well as the ogl disaster earlier this year and they probably know that they cannot simply push "new product" to replace the current material people have purchased. They can only extend it or make slight improvements that don't disturb the average player who already spend money on something they like and plays "fine" (i.e. an inoffensive, acceptable and conventional fantasy experience). "one d&d" playtest material, anyone? d&d players are a rather conservative bunch of weirdos, why else would they cling to such a dusty system? So, what's there to promise the shareholders? A successful new edition? Unlikely. Maybe digital products? But you hardly need the old staff for that. We'll see, I guess.
On a personal note, I've all the dnd I ever need and I've been rather bored with it. For my ttrpg future it's currently at the bottom of my list of things I want to play. The market of ttrpgs is generally pretty over-saturated and while the last years have been great as far as products by small publishers go, there's been less and less interesting material, e.g. even reputable publishers are desperately picking up tv and movie franchises to turn into rpg books. The hobby has had ups and downs, the early 80s, the late 90s, and the last few years were high points, now expect a downturn. Don't get me wrong, it will remain popular, but there will be less money in it for conventional material. And I guess WotC knows it, too.