Very validating to hear others who saw the same. So frustrating that when I was there I really did pride myself on my work and making people’s lives easier. (I always am annoyed at people who are like “har har geek squad dumb” when they really don’t know what we do, doing the simplest tasks for people who are too afraid to do it themselves). Sadly, it appears that all of that has just gone down the drain as the search for more profit has eaten up all of that goodwill.

I also completely agree, with Fry’s closing and microcenter only in a few places, and then radio shack long dead consumer electronics is very sparse. Like them or not we need best buy as an electronics retailer elsewise most of the country is empty.

Yup, I started at the tail end of where you ended where they realized they done fucked up again, and then rinse and repeat. Good leaders learned it’s a long term gain, that services are there to support the sales. Then they get “line go up” short term morons who kill all of that good will for a good quarter, and the stock plummets. To me you can see it clearly in their stock price:

You can see your drop down, then they realized they fucked up, then my time was around 2011-2015, you can see the collapse and rebuild. Then wit does go up during the tenure of Jolie, until he was forced out. They enjoyed short term profits and got lucky through covid, and now they’re floundering because they don’t really know how to retain customers, so it’s wildly fluctuating.

It is, but more because they (employees as a whole) used to know, but now they just kind of “read the cards” that are in front of them. Not their fault, corporate killed all of the training

I worked at best buy geek squad for 5 years over a decade ago. I saw best buy turn their reputation around with a new CEO who focused on customer care, training employees so they knew what they were doing. I rose through the ranks to a full repair agent where I did repairs proudly.

About 6 years ago the board ousted the last CEO for not making enough profits. The new one essentially reversed everything overnight. Less training, lower wages, less employees. It shows every time I’m in a best buy and it kills me. We had something special then, but new CEO doesn’t care. Line must go up, and torpedoed all of that consumer trust. Now I don’t recommend anyone buy anything from best buy.

I had to buy a laptop 2 years ago and was eyeing a laptop, and a sales person attempted to help me. I tried to be nice, thanks but I got this, but obviously had a madatory spiel. Told them I was just going to install linux and they said “oh this won’t support that”. Okay sure, thanks for showing you don’t know anything, okay goodbye. I went from promoting geek squad warranties to now I wouldnt trust them at all.

ITT, people who don’t realized nationalization != bailout.

No, a bailout would be that they get a big payday to continue as normal. Nationalization would mean the government takes control and it becomes part of the government.

Airlines were a bailout. Amtrak was nationalized.

That site hijacks the back button

So far so good with banks, haven’t had any bank apps not work (and do use some large and small ones). Honestly haven’t tried Auto yet though

I’ve been using the Murena fairphone for about 8 months now. Has its ups and downs, it uses microG to simulate play services. Most things work except for my Samsung watch and the wallet. Feel free to send questions my way

It’s 150 because they’re subsidizing the phone so you’ll pay for service, addons, and so they can sell your data and bloatware. Fairphone isn’t expensive, the other phone is artificially cheap.

Graphene is only on pixels, why not their /e/os?

The claim that they can undercut human driven taxis I guess, but then as all enshittified services it won’t stay true. They would only do that until people have become used to them then jack up the rates far beyond what cabbies ever were

This is one of those “Legally nothing is wrong, but morally and ethically it definitely is”. Still a case where I throw even more massive shade on these companies for doing it. They could have just been donated to a library, there was no need to destroy them.

Red Dead Redemption

Right? That’s my thing, look at airlines and their Razer thin margins. They just built this megastructure and can’t operate any of it without completely depending on gas prices.

Even without the green aspects no one stopped to think about the return on investment of layering the entire place in solar? 5 years from now? 20?

I tried marketplace but its a cesspool. Ended up selling mine to Carmax, may be surprised, I got a grand more than I expected. If it wasn’t for bottom feeders who lowball everything I would have tried longer online.

Real men build their own girlfriends, they don’t wait for some beta company to do it for them.

There how I’ve reframed it every time I hear it. So how are you reducing your need for gas? I’m biking and taking transit so it has stopped hurting so much. Try to alter their thinking from “this is unavoidable” to “I guess we could do fewer trips”

AI isn’t evil. Generative AI isn’t evil. AI has existed for 20+ years now, I studied it back in my uni days.

Corporations, how they trained it, how they use it now, how they are willing to pave the planet to force it down our throats is evil.

This is one of those things as tech people we have to come to terms with and understand. No technology is inherently good or evil, it’s what people do with it.

Didn’t read the article did you.