Comment on Actual theft
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 1 day ago
Weird to think that there is some percentage of this world that still goes to BestBuy, GameStop, and watches ads on TV and that its big enough to be worth marketing to.
I haven’t been to Best Buy since I caught them jacking the prices on laptops for boxing day ‘sales’… that was 10-15 years ago
haven’t been to GameStop in about the same timeframe when I stopped sinking money into consoles because they were/are more expensive then pc gaming in the long run.
also haven’t turned my 65inch tv on in about 2 years. it’s all streaming on my desktop with pihole so clean watching.
If you have pihole, the ads would be blocked on your tv too lol
There’s weirdness sometimes if devices don’t respect your network’s dns settings and just use their own. You can override that by forcing a dns redirect if your router supports that but not all consumer ones do unless you put openwrt or something on them.
True, I had to set Adguard Home as my dhcp as my modem didn’t have a DNS adjustment option
it’s not about the ads… it’s the quality of shows/movies. I honestly don’t care for any of it. it’s not interesting
But you can watch anything on your tv that you watch on your computer lol
Not necessarily, a lot of apps use internal values for DNS resolution and other tricks to counter DNS level adblocking.
I haven’t seen the ads to have any idea about this person, but I will but from the stores.
GameStop very rarely, because a game console store price is dumb and getting a used copy of a popular game is cheap, but overwhelmingly will get/wait for PC editions of games, so it comes up very rarely.
Best buy I’ll buy something because they frequently are competitive with buying online, and I like the ability to just pick something up now without waiting. Also when a controller has an issue or was similarly instant to exchange. Didn’t wait a few days just to get a botched one and then wait a few days for a replacement, got it, find out of was not working, and exchanged it all in the same day.
The Venn diagram is a circle.
Yes. They are similar stores and are therefore competing for each others’ customers. Hence this headline.
They both have some items that are semi exclusive or are better to buy from. Like if you want to buy big exercise equipment, it’s easier to return it if you have a physical store. Also, online places have higher rates of counterfeit items. So there are plenty of specific reasons to buy things in person.
Counterfeit concerns, porch pirates, and also basic manufacturers warranty coverage is simpler in my opinion. I don’t want to deal with cross shipping and email chains and off shore call centers when my gadget dies. I’ll pay a 5% premium for that convenience.
Also shuckable hdds
I don’t have a connection to broadcast television, channels, cable, and advertisements, and I just watch my shows by pirating. I think most of us are like that: TVs are for game consoles, or at best, a TV hooked up to a computer with YouTube on.
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a TV showing broadcast content at my friends’ houses either.
Who the heck is keeping the TV industry profitable?
I think most of us are like that
Tech-savvy Lemmy users (and their friends) are a small portion of the population though. Plenty of people pay for cable TV, IPTV, or a similar service, as well as VOD platforms like Netflix.
Boomers. There are still a lot of them around.
They’ll be around for awhile too
Best Buy has been one of the best places to buy PC components like GPUs from (as long as they’re in stock), since they don’t mark up prices above the manufacturer’s pricing, and they price match with Microcenter in case Microcenter’s price is lower.
Besy buy is my go to for PC parts since Newegg sold out.
Maybe it’s a combination effort? I run pihole but I tell my friends (who aren’t ‘techy’) when best buy has a good deal. Having the 2 forms of suggestion (ads and word of mouth) may give them a boost.
One of those good deals is a 2-year controller coverage (+$10). If a controller gets stick drift (or any other damage including user-inflicted), you can exchange it at no cost if you paid the extra $10. I know stick drift and defects are typically covered under the manufacturer’s warranty but that can be a pain. I sent an elite series 2 controller in 5 times and it was never truly fixed.
With best buys paid extended coverage, I’ve turned in dualsense controller twice now (I’m on my third currently) for a total of $75 USD.
Unironically, Best Buy pivoted really well into the modern market and they sell a lot of broad tech stuff at good prices. I’ve bought a lot of stuff including SSD’s, ram, and a big 43" monitor from them with good discounts. Don’t diss them till you’ve used them.
GameStop though, I’m still not sure how theyre in business. Mostly Nintendo physical items I think.
Best buy has been on my “one-bad-black-friday bankrupsy” bet for years, yet they seemed to have survived the death of Sears, Radioshack, Circuit City, and Frys Electronics…
For me, as a customer, they are the shop of last resort. I will go literally anywhere else because they will likely have the thing, but no specific models. If you need an SSD, RAM (lol no in todays market) or a cable they will likely have it, but its going to be a smaller range than Microcenter, if time is no object, just order exactly what you need.
The thing I will give them credit for is keeping the home theatre market, I feel that only a fool will buy a TV without physically looking at it first (they turn the blue up, just an FYI).
Look at you having a Microcenter nearby! Must be nice!
I do shop at Best Buy, usually for computer parts and accessories. Because my local alternatives for computer hardware and peripherals, AV gear etc. are Wal-Mart and maybe our increasingly pathetic Staples. Or Amazon. Best Buy is literally the only place within 20 miles to buy a GPU in a brick and mortar store.
I don’t watch TV ads though. Is this chick a spokesman?
Best buy gets it, it’s just a meme for the Internet to pick up on, also they sell Land Line Telephones
binarytobis@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m often surprised when I hear how other people live. Conversation at work will go like:
Employee A: “Youtube ads are getting ridiculous.”
Me: “You still see Youtube ads?”
Employee B: “Yeah, just get Youtube Premium. Such a smart investment.”
Me: “Wait, what?!”
Several of my millennial friends have cable TV and Tivo or something just because they are creatures of habit and are too tired from raising kids to consider changing their process. Weirdly, my boomer parents are the most tech savvy media consumers I know. They just have terrible taste.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This is one of those things that I go against the Lemmy hivemind on. I cut out pretty much every streaming service and sail the high seas for most of my media.But I consider YouTube Premium worth the cost.
I got grandfathered into it when Google Music shut down and I really haven’t felt the need to change anything. YouTube music is better than Spotify. I don’t have to constantly play the whack-a-mole game of ad blockers that will inevitably break during a YouTube update. I don’t have to rely on finicky software to get videos to play in the background with my phone screen off.
Look, I get it. All these features used to be offered for free without ads. I think that more than anything is why people are so rabidly against premium, because they feel like they had that stuff stolen from them. But YouTube is a service, not a right. The cost of Premium is miniscule compared to the benefits I get from it. I use YouTube a LOT. Weather for how to videos, or ASMR, or background music, or documentaries, or podcasts. I like knowing that no matter where I use it, from my computer to my phone to the random smart TV in a hotel that I cast to, I’m not going to see any ads.
All this is based on the current services offered at the current price. If and when they start making those services shittier or increase the cost, then I will seek alternatives; but not before.
djdarren@piefed.social 5 hours ago
I’m not fundamentally opposed to YT Premium, I just think it’s hilariously overpriced.
I’d need a family plan. That would cost me £20 a month, just so I can watch YT videos. I baulked at paying Netflix whatever the fuck they started charging a few years ago, but at least they’re producing multi-million pound shows.
I used to have Premium from Ukraine via VPN. It was great. I spent a year or so paying them five quid a month. Then they closed that loophole and now I pay them nothing, and download all the videos I want with yt-dlp into my Jellyfin server.
BremboTheFourth@piefed.ca 23 hours ago
Man I just use ublock on Firefox, it works on all my devices including my phone, and I’ve never once had to play with it
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Not iPhone unfortunately. Firefox plugins are blocked.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
And can you play videos on you phone with the screen off?
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
Uh, OpenTune.
Its basically all of youtube music, accessed via proxies, but works roughly like spotify, i think it actually pulls playlist alb and artist data from there.
Oh and you can just hit a button and download any song.
… downside is it is slightly slower than Spotify.
… why does anyone give any money or ad time to any corporation?
You don’t have to.
binarytobis@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
To be honest I just don’t want to google to get more money. They suck.
Also your use case is very specific. The people I was referencing have more basic needs that would be easily bypassed with ublock. It’s fine if the way you like to listen to music is best served by youtube with a subscription.
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Yeah that is definitely against the grain for me.
I pay for Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon prime, but never in life will I pay for YouTube premium. I have Google one and I pay enough for it. There are plenty of apps that still deliver an ad free, promotion free, bullshit free experience and the fact that Google works so hard to fuck with it makes me even less likely to ever pay.
Paying for YouTube would be like paying for tiktok or whatever dumb shit video service people watch now. It just isn’t going to happen. I will use the service for free, find the content for free, or else it will get cut from the lineup.
Pay for YouTube… Lol no way.
some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I’m with you there, but Google is quote rapidly falling off for me. thinking about moving away from all of Google, rolling my own solution and self-hosting (really the only free open path available currently where you’re in control) seems like it would be worse than quitting hard opiates or something. I know all the benefits of switching and even the tech part of what I would do at a high level, I’m just lazy.
callmemagnus@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Aren’t you confusing YouTube music premium and youtube premium ?
Only the first is required for music streaming. The second is just a huge waste of money if you only watch YouTube videos on a computer (the first is too in the sens that you don’t need it)
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Music is free with premium, and I watch videos everywhere
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
I definitely buy YouTube premium, have had it for a few years. But I also use it a ton instead of Netflix or Amazon or anything else. I figure at a minimum of 50 hours a week on YouTube I should probably pay for it, even at the like $20 AUD a month or whatever it’s climbed to at this point, and creators get a % of my premium money so that supports people.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
Just use ublock and revanced?