Post #1588799
2026-04-20 03:19 UTC
@AlSweigart That's the SomethingAwful approach and I think that's strong evidence it doesn't work, it's always been awash with sockpuppets and bots. Also creates massive economic power imbalance issues.
Replies (2)
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@raiderrobert@mastodon.social 2026-04-20 03:51
@coderanger @AlSweigart also you have just set a price for bots, because yes, that's how scummy companies will see it. $10 per bot account. Rather cheap if you ask me.
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@glyph@mastodon.social 2026-04-20 05:31
@coderanger @AlSweigart some counterpoints: 1. SomethingAwful used this to relatively good success *with lowtax in charge* for quite a while. 2. nothing says it has to be a flat $10, it can be geographically price indexed 3. you can have a rate-limited number of monthly free slots to go along with it, to provide an affordance for those who are really unable to e.g. access a credit card all of this is obviously still a big operational annoyance but it might be our last hope 😞.