I don’t understand how this is getting approved.

Because you get promoted for changing things, not for keeping things the same. Almost every change like this is motivated by someone trying to get promoted.

When you’re listening on a shitty bluetooth speaker or earbuds it really doesn’t matter.

I object to your implied assertion that the intersection of the sets “computer nerds” and “hot women” is the empty set.

As someone who has designed and used telemetry systems, I’ll never quite understand the strong aversion some people have to them. Telemetry is what lets me tell my boss “yes people really do use our software this way and we can’t break it” or “90% of crashes happen right after the player uses a grenade”. And despite what some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, telemetry data for software from reputable companies does not get sold or used for marketing purposes. Our lawyers make sure of it, and also make us go through privacy reviews to make sure that data isn’t leaking PII.

a game I made in 1995

a game someone else made in 1995 which was later hostilely acquired by EA only to see it immediately fire all staff and shutter the studio

FTFY

Panel 4: Hellen Keller / Empty Square

Have you ever looked at linux kernel CLs? Many of the more substantial ones come from someone @intel.com, @microsoft.com, @google.com, etc.

I think the majority of people who demand software cost $0 are hobbyists who write code themselves, but it bothers them that not all developers share their passion. I’ve written a little code and some 3D models that I’ve released under Apache2 / CC-BY, but the vast majority of the code I’ve written in my life was done in exchange for a paycheck.

Even code is not free. Any decent developer writing code does so with an opportunity cost. If those developers want to provide that software to others for free, that’s great. But it still costs their own time and skills that they could be monetizing. For many people it’s a hobby.

But you can do jiu jitsu!

Science fiction spacecraft - Enterprise, Nostromo, Tardis, Falcon, etc.