The Times Tech Guild is on strike, and asks players not to play the Times’ games
Even ignoring the workers’ solidarity aspect of it:
It is actually a really good practice to break those login/usage streaks with ALL services. I read a lot of ebooks and I generally will have a “streak” of even two or three years with amazon kindle since I try to read for at least 20 minutes every night. Over the past year or so I’ve started to migrate out of the amazon ecosystem to better support authors and… I definitely find myself hesitating when picking my next book because I COULD read this non-kindle book or… I could read this other book I have via kindle (the prices ARE good) and make number go up. And Amazon realized that we don’t always have an internet connection so they’ll log that to prevent the old streak breaking that came from not bothering to connect to the hotel wifi.
And the same happens with games. I dip my toe into ESO once or twice a year and it always amuses me how much of that is geared up to make you log-in every single day for a month.
Yup, streaks exist to encourage the feeling similar to a sunk cost, just like rewards programs.
Gotta get that daily login bonus in [insert live service game here].
for me it’s duolingo.
A 2 year streak on Duolingo did nothing for my ability to communicate with a new language in a new country.
Very fast uninstall after that trip.
It’s garbage for learning a language but it’s phenomenal for memorizing and gameifying learning nouns and verbs. I’ve been going through the Japanese lessons one jump at a time and it’s been great to brush up on all the words I’ve forgotten.
Yeah, half-heartedly doing French in Duolingo for a few years meant that I knew a bunch of words and could read stuff okay, but communicating and thinking in French was incredibly difficult. I took a couple of classes IRL to fill in those other skills, so now I can actually get by as long as people are a bit patient with me. It was easier for me to learn that stuff than other people in my classes because I had Duolingo experience, but Duolingo definitely isn’t enough on its own.
Vampire Survivors is better.
I’m gonna go play Vampire Survivors, and make hot chocolate.
k
Goddamn I love Vampire Survivors.
You know what, so will I!
Sounds like a lovely Monday.
Should have released this article yesterday, I did them at midnight.
Oh… sure, okay, done! My streak will remain at 0.
This was the easiest picket line not to cross.
Yeah I lost all respect for them after it came out that their article on the October 7th attack was all bullshit
I haven’t played wordle since they put the “streak tracker” behind a “paywall”, fuck you all that data is shit you’re keeping from me without my consent anyways, now you want me to pay you for the privilege?
I’m not a huge privacy guy, but when you ask me to pay for the data I provide you, you can get bent.
Weird, in UK and I see my streak before the ad plays. No subscription
How would breaking a streak help?
The business logs how often you use the game. They use it as a metric of engagement. If everyone breaks their streak, their marketing department has a melt down.
If you want a similar fun word game, I really enjoy Quordle. Its 4 wordle at the same time.
2 links
Oh. Well uh, Mondays puzzle is so easy I already took care of it on the can earlier but I can consider Tuesday I guess.
I’ll break the other ones though, Wordle and Connections are unfun anyway.
I have no problem not playing Wordle or Connections, but I have a 2256 day gold streak going on the Crossword and I just CAN’T let that go.
No