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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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For me, it was the underhanded way they did it. If they introduced a setting and it's off by default, fine whatever. If they turned it on by default but gave copious notice, that's not great but I might have been ok with it. It was the fact that the setting was both on by default and they snuck it in (I found out from a hacker news comment thread) which I found so unacceptable.

I agree with you here, but I can only imagine if they introduced a default-off setting, maybe a dozen total users would go out of their way to enable it. And 8 of those would be cats or toddlers pressing random buttons.

And in this case, I think their expectation of access for that purpose was unreasonable.

Sure, I know that's why they did it. But that is their own problem, not mine. And when they chose to solve the problem by betraying my trust, I chose to end the business relationship and encourage everyone else I know to do the same. It isn't much, but one should vote with one's wallet IMO.

It seems to be standard corporate operating procedure. Do the thing, if there's enough blowback then walk it back/undo it, but depend on the apathy/laziness of the consumer to let you get away with 4/5 of what you want to do.

Sure. But that doesn't make it ok, of course, and I refused to allow them to continue to get my business after that kind of betrayal.