You only want in the correct amount. Not enough diggity is almost as bad as too much diggity. So by diggity extension, an overwhelming amount of diggity is indeed too much diggity and thus not diggity at all.
The other thing that might be a dealbreaker for you is no contactless payments with things like google wallet will work. But you could always just attach your credit card to the back of your phone and :tada: it works again lol
Your own website as the manufacturer doesn't have the reach of these other platforms. (in an age of SEO and AI searches it really doesn't have to be that way).
The strongest argument here is in favor of Aliexpress. Which isn't without issues and heavily lobbied by amazon to have even more issues in the US.
Absolutely, stop using Amazon. Except what's the alternative? They've wedged themselves in that space, and bought out any other competitor. So either they get forced to compete with themselves (by breaking the company apart) or they adhere to anti-monopoly laws where they're not allowed to influence other prices as part of their agreement.
So much so, that it's pretty much 100% necessary in software engineering now. And I hate it that I'm forced to use something that I know is so detrimental in other aspects.
I respectfully disagree with the dead end part of your argument. A dead end would be if they provided no value.
While the environmental and social downsides are massive negatives on the tech, it is actually doing something.
Past iterations are completely useless, but more recent iterations show us a more polished side to LLMs that actually do enhance how we do some things.
Is it worth it? My gut says no, but its both too late and too early to call it. (late in the environmental and societal impact, too early in the tech iteration)
As far as the "dead end" argument goes, I have to say that's a hard disagree. Humanity is filled with technological advances that "stand on the shoulders of giants" and improve on previous techs. Even if LLMs themselves don't prove to be the thing that we've been promised by the people driving it, it is taking us one step closer to AGI (whether that's a good goal or not, that's still up for debate)
From here on, I think there's still quite a bit these models can improve, and I hope a lot of that improvement goes into making it more energy efficient, more water efficient in turn.
If by a dead end you mean that we can't reach an AGI from an LLM, I think that's correct, however an LLM might help us figure out what is needed for an AGI.
The article is from lgbtqnation, half the country already tuned it out just by seeing the source.
I don't think they are catering to that other half with this title. But if they were, they really shouldn't.