Prime Video + Prime Shipping + Prime Music is ~16 USD per year if you get the subscription from India.
I used to live in India but not anymore. So I was keen to only use Prime Video + Prime Music (since Prime Shipping doesn't work outside of India for that sub).
Both Prime Video and Music were rather unsatisfactory, and no Chromcast support was just the last straw for me to unsub.
This is probably why use one-time-password via SMS is so rampant in many many services. This kind of auth has mostly eliminated large scale hacks, however OTP over SMS still won't help targeted hacking. But in general the public at large are rather safe primarily because of this.
Having said that, subscription based startups struggle due to the the compulsory use of OTP and therefore resort to yearly subscriptions rather than monthly (ex: Amazon Prime).
Clearly this is well orchestrated and professional. I'm wondering what could be the motivation for such an attack. There is no monetary benefit whatsoever. Perhaps some AI company wanting to acquire solid data to train their models?
AB testing is not an evil act by itself. It's an effective technique to understand the user needs. But what you do with the gathered data could make you evil.
No business will want to be out of sync with its users. And no business will want to be in charity mode any more than it should. But doing this without hampering the credibility is the key.
Agreed. Influential people buying influential media outlets can be a concern if used in a biased way. But unfortunately it's not illegal.
If one were to go ahead and make it illegal how exactly would one frame the law? There's no easy answer.
My experience has been that standing in a circle puffing on e-cigarettes is every bit as social if not more. Most cigarette smokers want to quit and they often get inspired by vapers standing around them.
As a vaper (ex-smoker), let me assert that vaping is like driving Tesla Model S P100D and smoking is akin to driving 2003 Ford Focus. I'd never gateway to Ford Focus 2003 from Tesla Model S P100D. Cheeky but true.
As with everything else there is always a spectrum and this represents the dark end of the spectrum. I follow a bunch of tech youtubers (like MKBHD) who represent the happy side of the spectrum.