#video streaming

[nixcraft]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI and the fatfinger economy

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in WELLINGTON TODAY (May 3). More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

Have you noticed that all the buttons you click most frequently to invoke routine, useful functions in your device have been moved, and their former place is now taken up by a curiously butthole-esque icon that summons an unwanted AI?

https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-buttholes

These traps for the unwary aren't accidental, but neither are they placed there solely because tech companies think that if they can trick you into using their AI, you'll be so impressed that you'll become a regular user. To understand why you find yourself repeatedly fatfingering your way into an unwanted AI interaction – and why those interactions are so hard to exit – you have to understand something about both the macro- and microeconomics of high-growth tech companies.

Growth is a heady advantage for tech companies, and not because of an ideological commitment to "growth at all costs," but because companies with growth stocks enjoy substantial, material benefits. A growth stock trades at a higher "price to earnings ratio" ("P:E") than a "mature" stock. Because of this, there are a lot of actors in the economy who will accept shares in a growing company as though they were cash (indeed, some might prefer shares to cash). This means that a growing company can outbid their rivals when acquiring other companies and/or hiring key personnel, because they can bid with shares (which they get by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet), while their rivals need cash (which they can only get by selling things or borrowing money).

The problem is that all growth ends. Google has a 90% share of the search market. Google isn't going to appreciably increase the number of searchers, short of desperate gambits like raising a billion new humans to maturity and convincing them to become Google users (this is the strategy behind Google Classroom, of course). To continue posting growth, Google needs gimmicks. For example, in 2019, Google intentionally made Search less accurate so that users would have to run multiple queries (and see multiple rounds of ads) to find the answers to their questions:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Thanks to Google's monopoly, worsening search perversely resulted in increased earnings, and Wall Street rewarded Google by continuing to trade its stock with that prized high P:E. But for Google – and other tech giants – the most enduring and convincing growth stories comes from moving into adjacent lines of business, which is why we've lived through so many hype bubbles: metaverse, web3, cryptocurrency, and now, of course, AI.

For a company like Google, the promise of these bubbles is that it will be able to double or triple in size, by dominating an entirely new sector. With that promise comes peril: growth must eventually stop ("anything that can't go on forever eventually stops"). When that happens, the company's stock instantaneously goes from being a "growth stock" to being a "mature stock" which means that its P:E is way too high. Anyone holding growth stock knows that there will come a day when those stocks will transition, in an eyeblink, from being undervalued to being grossly overvalued, and that when that day comes, there will be a mass sell-off. If you're still holding the stock when that happens, you stand to lose bigtime:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

So everyone holding a growth stock sleeps with one eye open and their fists poised over the "sell" button. Managers of growth companies know how jittery their investors are, and they do everything they can to keep the growth story alive, as a matter of life and death.

But mass sell-offs aren't just bad for the company – it's also very bad for the company's key employees, that is, anyone who's been given stock in addition to their salary. Those people's portfolios are extremely heavy on their employer's shares, and they stand to disproportionately lose in the event of a selloff. So they are personally motivated to keep the growth story alive.

That's where these growth-at-all-stakes maneuvers bent on capturing an adjacent sector come from. If you remember the Google Plus days, you'll remember that every Google service you interacted with had some important functionality ripped out of it and replaced with a G+-based service. To make sure that happened, Google's bosses decreed that the company's bonuses would be tied to the amount of G+ activity each division generated. In companies where bonuses can amount to 90% of your annual salary or more, this was a powerful motivator. It meant that every product team at Google was fully aligned on a project to cram G+ buttons into their product design. Whether or not these made sense for users, they always made sense for the product team, whose ability to take a fancy Christmas holiday, buy a new car, or pay their kids' private school tuition depended on getting you to use G+.

Once you understand how corporate growth stories are converted to "key performance indicators" that drive product design, many of the annoyances of digital services suddenly make a great deal of sense. You know how it's almost impossible to watch a show on a streaming video service without accidentally tapping a part of the screen that whisks you to a completely different video?

The reason you have to handle your phone like a photonegative while watching a movie – the reason every millimeter of screen real-estate has been boobytrapped with an icon that takes you somewhere else – is that streaming services believe that their customers are apt to leave when they feel like there's nothing new to watch. These bosses have made their product teams' bonuses dependent on successfully "recommending" a show you've never seen or expressed any interest in to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/15/the-fatfinger-economy/

Of course, bosses understand that their workers will be tempted to game this metric. They want to distinguish between "real" clicks that lead to interest in a new video, and fake fatfinger clicks that you instantaneously regret. The easiest way to distinguish between these two types of click is to measure how long you watch the new show before clicking away.

Of course, this is also entirely gameable: all the product manager has to do is take away the "back" button, so that an accidental click to a new video is extremely hard to cancel. The five seconds you spend figuring out how to get back to your show are enough to count as a successful recommendation, and the product team is that much closer to a luxury ski vacation next Christmas.

So this is why you keep invoking AI by accident, and why the AI that is so easy to invoke is so hard to dispel. Like a demon, a chatbot is much easier to summon than it is to rid yourself of.

Google is an especially grievous offender here. Familiar buttons in Gmail, Gdocs, and the Android message apps have been replaced with AI-summoning fatfinger traps. Android is filled with these pitfalls – for example, the bottom-of-screen swipe gesture used to switch between open apps now summons an AI, while ridding yourself of that AI takes multiple clicks.

This is an entirely material phenomenon. Google doesn't necessarily believe that you will ever want to use AI, but they must convince investors that their AI offerings are "getting traction." Google – like other tech companies – gets to invent metrics to prove this proposition, like "how many times did a user click on the AI button" and "how long did the user spend with the AI after clicking?" The fact that your entire "AI use" consisted of hunting for a way to get rid of the AI doesn't matter – at least, not for the purposes of maintaining Google's growth story.

Goodhart's Law holds that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." For Google and other AI narrative-pushers, every measure is designed to be a target, a line that can be made to go up, as managers and product teams align to sell the company's growth story, lest we all sell off the company's shares.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem

Image: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Index_finger_%3D_to_attention.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[itswhatyougive]

What I don't get about the password-sharing fiasco is....if it was the olden days and you rented a couple DVD/VHS movies, until you brought them back to the shop you could do whatever with them.

You could give them to other people to watch. You could show a movie to a group of ten friends. You had already paid for the tapes, so who was going to care what you did with them in that time?

Similarly, if you have already paid for a Netflix/Max/Disney+/Paramount+/whatever subscription, you're getting charged monthly for that. The companies have already decided how much it is worth to rent their entire catalogue to you for a month.

So during your "rental period" for these movies and shows, who are they to say what you do with them? If you have someone over for Netflix and chill, they aren't part of your household, so should they not be able to watch a movie you are renting? If you want your friends to see something cool, who cares if they live a town away? That movie is still being paid for, and your "rental" will renew the following month when you pay your bill.

It feels like going to a video store, paying for a bunch of movies, then having to march back to the store with the friend who's going to watch them with you so they can also pay for the movies......while you're still renting them.

[beingjellybeans]

Harry Potter cast reunites for 20th anniversary: Return to Hogwarts premiering Jan 1 - first on HBO GO

Harry Potter cast reunites for 20th anniversary: Return to Hogwarts premiering Jan 1 – first on HBO GO

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson join filmmaker Chris Columbus and other esteemed cast members across all eight Harry Potter films as they travel back to Hogwarts for the first time to celebrate the anniversary of the franchise’s first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which premiered exactly 20 years ago. The retrospective special Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return…

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[tptin]

Tptin_it: I will build system streaming videos for $450 on fiverr.com

For only $450, Tptin_it will build system streaming videos. | Tools I will use:NodejsMongo or any Database system of your choiceRedis - CachingExpressAPI integration.Database ModelingFFMPEGNginxCloud | Fiverr

Who need online video streaming system? 

[love-order-chaos-repeat]

Hey guys if you have twitch and are looking for new streamers, go ahead and check out my stream >>>>>> @witchylesbro

I’m going to have a video camera up and running in the next few days

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Quarantine Tech Tip: How to Stream Movies/Shows/Videos with Friends and Family Online (no matter how far apart you are!)

Hi, all! Coronavirus continues to sweep the world. One way to keep socializing with your friends and family is to stream content together online.

There’s a lot of different programs that allow you to watch things together in perfect synchronization, and to use text/voice chat while viewing. Some of the basic options include:

https://www.watch2gether.com/ - where you can enjoy Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, and Dailymotion content together, or shop together on Amazon using an integrated chat room. It creates an instant chat/viewing room without registration.

https://www.mycircle.tv/ - where you can watch things like YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, and possibly even twitch.tv together. It creates an instant chat/viewing room without registration. You can create a whole playlist of videos to watch.

https://www.netflixparty.com/ - an extension ONLY for Chrome, which allows you to sync up your Netflix viewing with others and message together while watching. The only downside is that you must have Netflix yourself for it to work, even if you’re just the one viewing. Another issue is that you have to create a new session for each episode you watch. 

https://picarto.tv/ - where you can watch artists streaming as they screenshare and work on their projects. This is not optimized for viewing shows/movies together, but I wanted to add it because it’s fun to watch people draw and interact with artists!

But what about being able to sync up over content available on Netflix, Hulu, or even videos on your own computer desktop?

Over the last couple of days, some friends and I have been testing some of the more agile programs that allow you to have greater control over the websites you can share and the ways you can interact. Those programs include:

Kast: https://kast.gg/

TwoSeven: https://twoseven.xyz/

To stream content, both of these programs require that you 1) sign up with a free account, and 2) that you use certain technology to ensure it functions:  

KAST

Kast is the new version of the old Rabbit app, available at: https://kast.gg/. You can watch movies with 100+ friends online while chatting through voice/video or text. There doesn’t appear to be a limit in terms of what you can watch through this. You can share:

Your entire screen

Any application window (website tabs, desktop programs, you name it--including Netflix and other streaming services that your viewers may not have while you do)

Your webcam

Other advantages:

Kast has several personalization features and supports a lot of languages.

You can invite people by sharing a link to your party room.

Your party room is automatically private, unless you change settings to make it fully public.

You can create multiple parties to enjoy things with different people.

You can add moderators, or kick/ban/block people.

You can access a list of other people’s public parties and search by tags to find content you want.

You can use emoji reactions in chat.

You have a lot of control over how to send or receive sound.

Their privacy policy is pretty expansive with lots of ways for you to contact them.

Kast has a help desk/troubleshooting site if you need it: https://kast.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 

Kast is very quick to show content (very little loading/buffering time)

Its app is optimized for either Windows or Mac.

You can download the app here (recommended): https://kast.gg/download.html

Or if you just want to view someone else’s stream, you can use the web version through a Chrome browser. If you are joining a stream, you may have to sit through a brief advertisement to gain access to the streaming room.

Kast caveats:

You have to be 13 years of age to sign up and use the app, according to Terms of Service: https://kast.gg/legal/Kast_Terms_of_Service.htm

Kast retains the right to use any of your posted content for its own self-promotion opportunities, according to its Terms of Service. 

Kast screens/monitors content according to its Terms of Service, to ensure legal compliance. 

Kast technical disadvantages:

You have to download the app to actively stream content. The web version does not support voice/video streaming—it just allows you to join other streams.

It might not be the most optimized for mobile use. (In testing, my friends and I struggled to get audio to work.)

You may experience some lag at random times. But in general, we had a very smooth, in-sync stream while watching most of a movie. It glitched only once and that was because the movie file itself had a glitch.  

To get movie audio to play for others, your own audio settings as a streamer MUST be set to Computer Audio. So this means if you get pings on Discord, others can hear it. Ideally, you’d also want to use the text-chat function instead of voice while viewing, to avoid feedback issues.

Depending on your tech, you might experience a black-screen when trying to share something. This didn’t happen during our test while using the app and VLC Player/Youtube/Netflix, but Kast does have a troubleshooting section on their site: https://kast.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360006131691-Video-issues

TwoSeven

Another free streaming service is TwoSeven (or, 27), available at: https://twoseven.xyz. 

TwoSeven is another very impressive service that is entirely based online (no app needed to stream). Once you sign up for a free account, you can easily create a room and stream content from a variety of places, including:

Youtube

Netflix

Amazon

HBO

VIMEO

Personal (files on your desktop)

Web

TwoSeven advantages:

Intuitive, simple interface that exists fully online (no downloadable app required)

Audio/text function works while viewing video content.

You can share your webcam.

Videos stream with high-quality picture.

You can toggle who is able to adjust video controls.

People who receive the link to your stream room do not need to sign up to use the interface.

TwoSeven caveats:

Minors (people under the age of 18) are prohibited in the Terms of Service from using this website.

The service reserves the right to use any of Your Content, according to the Terms and Conditions: https://twoseven.xyz/help/terms-and-conditions.html. I would assume most likely for promotion, but it’s silent on its purposes.

The website reserves the right to kick you for not complying with its rules, but it oddly doesn’t say how it would know. Odds are, it engages in some kind of monitoring/recording of content as well.

TwoSeven disadvantages:

You need to download an extension to get the website to work well with sharing online content outside of YouTube. Otherwise, you may be left in a permanent buffering purgatory.

It’s not optimized for sharing your computer screen; the Personal option requires that you upload a video to share, and the buffering for that can take several minutes.

It requires all users to have accounts on the streaming service that they're using. So if you want to watch Netflix together, each viewer will need an account (or a Netflix profile if your account supports multiple profiles).

It cannot bypass regional restrictions for video content.

We experienced an issue where audio was out of sync with visuals on longer files.

Some people experienced audio issues depending on their headset.

There is no option to make your streaming public. So you’d have to post the link in a public place to drive traffic to it.

It is not connected to any other streams, so you’re unable to join other streaming communities through TwoSeven.

Conclusion

There are always advantages or disadvantages to any service you use. I wanted to share all this to bring awareness to the possibilities, as well as their capabilities and limitations. Nothing’s ever perfect, lol. But I hope this information can help you all find the best streaming service for your interests/needs, and that streaming can help you stay connected with friends and family!

(Note: This post was made based off of personal experiences using the Kast and TwoSeven systems and others. I’m not under any incentive to market these programs, and I welcome anyone to correct or add to my suggestions. Some regions of the world may be unable to access these programs.)

Special thanks to @lunar-magnolia and @weebleswrites for helping me test and @crystal-rebellion for alerting me to the existence of TwoSeven.