Agreed...mostly. I've been using DDG for many years on and off (shoot, since they first became a thing), and for about 3 years full time. About 15% of my searches end with me adding !g to the end to perform a Google search. Google gets things right another 5-10% of the time. For the oddest of searches, I have to tweak my search terms several times to even attempt to figure out the answer.

Search is hard.

Breaking up with Google is even harder, but definitely worth it. I still have a Gmail account that is used for spam/low effort email nonsense (I currently use hey.com for most email...a decision I am considering revisiting in the future since I've found a good way to host my own email with a provider that won't get auto rejected/blacklisted). That and the searches I mentioned above are my only use of Google Products at this point in time. Maps is gone. Photos is just a memory. I kicked Android out the door years ago. All my home integrations are via open source and/or Apple, and I'm finding ways to NOT have to rely on even Apple for that.

I never really used docs or other services. For storage I am currently using OneDrive and iCloud, however I am about to push all of the cloud storage stuff to Backblaze and Cloudflare.

While I almost never see ads, when I do see them, I notice that they are never targeted ads. Even some of the odd "coincidences" have gone away...say, verbally chatting with my spouse about how I am thinking about buying such and such a product...only to see an ad for it later on (and assuming it was a coincidence)...things like that have stopped.

I've also been avoiding Amazon as well, for the same reason.

Just my 2 cents.

OP did say PER MONTH. They implied $18,000 total.

I'd start with doing a full chargeback for all months, and provide as much documentation.

Additionally, I'd reach out to folks like Ars Technica, after ensuring such an issue was not a result of my own error.

One big red flag with this story is that OP seemingly did not notice $1,500/mo coming out of his account. That is most certainly something that anyone would have noticed, even someone making a few million a year, and if you make that much money, you definitely are paying an accountant to manage your accounts.

The story smells off.

EDIT: Oh and I'm not denying that customer support at AWS and other places has gone way downhill which IS a problem, however, there is no way this story is realistically true. At the very least, the numbers were inflated in order to draw in attention. No normal person overlooks an additional $1,500+ per month bill on their bank statement. Even small businesses would've been all over that. I know, I've worked for and managed them, along with being a senior software engineer and manager.

It seems likely they provisioned resources, didn't use them, and expected to not be charged for them without understanding that most AWS resources don't "scale to zero" when left at rest.

Be careful with a backcharge. As I understand it, if you lose, the decisions are often binding and leave you no other avenue to become whole.

Duke Nukem/BUILD was the first level editor that sucked me into level editing/mods, it is also the place where I spent the most hours. I later pivoted to more professional pursuits, however i killed a ton of time building new levels, and exploiting the engine to an obscene level.

I doubt I could get back into it these days, however, I hope the open source effort can inspire some awesome stuff!

There is definitely more to this. I’ve been on Facebook since it opened up to the public, and they know for a fact that I am a guy.

I literally only use it to communicate with family. I logged in today on both desktop and iOS, and the only thing I saw were updates from friends/family that I personally know.The only AI things were from a nerdy friend that created/shared/disclosed of it being AI, the rest was real stuff that I already knew about.

If users are seeing this, it is more likely something to do with settings, Facebook not knowing anything about you, or some other mechanism.

I am absolutely not holding them blameless, I am saying: compare notes and identify the actual problem, because I know a lot of folks using Facebook, and from conversations I had in the past hour or two, none of them see any of that, so there is likely something else going on.

I think they definitely track how long you stay on something as you're scrolling. They show an attractive woman doing your hobby, then it just keeps going.

Yeah it's an optimized skinner box. Any reaction above baseline is sure to be registered and reinforced.

They aren't blameless, friends and family only should be the default even if you don't engage much. Why would they default it to a bunch of junk.

Are we using 2 different versions of Facebook? I get nothing except content from my friends. None of it is AI generated. I just logged in because the article was a bit disturbing. The only AI content I found was the small amount a couple of my friends generated, and it was clearly marked as such.

Based on the upvotes my comment got and the replies, it looks like most people get the experience in the article, and a lucky few don't. Looks like you're one of the lucky few!

the hard part is the noise:

Very few sites offer quality, original, important content.

Nobody wants to pay for a site the repeats the same old stuff that every other site does, especially when those other sites don't have a paywall. This drives the cost of content to zero, which leads companies to rely on ads, and ad blockers to block those ads.

I know this won't help much, however, FreeTube can help with this. Yes, it is a standalone app, however...

Also, if you a Google/Youtube employee, rubbing your hands together, making fun of folks, and generally thinking negative thoughts, take it from a former veteran software engineer/manager (never had the desire to move up the ladder, and I am disabled now thanks to a tragic accident): There are a ton of negative comments about your UX, even from paid users. Nobody likes your shit. They only tolerate it because you currently have a monopoly. That will not always be the case. You are failing yourself, your job, and your users. Learn to put those users first. If Google had stuck to that early on, uBlock Origin wouldn't exist.

I know everyone at Google is tone deaf, so let me put this another way: Someone is ALWAYS left holding the bag. It could be you, the lowly programmer, or it could be you, the lowly manager. It could also be anyone in C-Suite. Once the numbers don't align with what investors want to see, someone will be blamed. As we reach the top of an AI bubble, those at the top are going to want to find a way to blame others down below, that means you will likely take the hit.

The keyboard actually does this all the time, and many assume they are the problem (making typos, etc.). A few have recorded videos to show what is actually happening and it's wild. If I had a link handy I'd share it. The user directly taps on a letter, and the system picks what it thinks the user actually meant, even when the key hit was dead on.

Turning off slide to type in settings improves the situation, however it still happens.

IIRC from when Waymo discussed this previously, the remote people don't drive the car, they issue instructions to the autonomous driver. If that's the case they shouldn't need a driving licence.

Wouldn't it be risky to do that? This is a multi-billion dollar gamble being executed in front of the public, egregiously breaking the law or making back-room deals both risk extreme negative public reaction if exposed.

We know that eventually a self-driving car will hit somebody and kill them. Waymo and other companies are prepared for that.

what state law would they be violating?

Someone above posted a link to wardgate, which hides api keys and can limit certain actions. Perhaps an extension of that would be some type of way to scope access with even more granularity.

Realistically though, these agents are going to need access to at least SOME of your data in order to work.

Author of Wardgate here:

Definitely something that can be looked into.

Wardgate is (deliberately) not part of the agent. This means separation, which is good and bad. In this case it would perhaps be hard to track, in a secure way, agent sessions. You would need to trust the agent to not cache sessions for cross use. Far sought right now, but agents get quiet creative already to solve their problem within the capabilities of their sandbox. ("I cannot delete this file, but I can use patch to make it empty", "I cannot send it via WhatsApp, so I've started a webserver on your server, which failed, do then I uploaded it to a public file upload site")