Thanks for sharing and engaging with the comments.

> Also, I am an IC, not a manager.

I think this understates the power dynamics involved. At your level, being an IC doesn’t mean you aren’t in a leadership position, and feedback from you can still carry substantial weight.

Psychological safety is a worthy aim, but it cannot be assumed, nor will everyone experience it equally. I’d be wary of relying on it too heavily here.

Author here. I used Claude and ChatGPT Images to help me write and illustrate a book for my daughter's fourth birthday. The images were the part I had to lean on AI hardest for, and they were way more challenging than I expected: five attempts at a bed that works in three dimensions before I gave up and went with an outdoor scene.

It taught me a lot about where AI helps and where it doesn't. Plenty of pitfalls, but I ended up with 25 printed copies at £3.32 each, and a personalised book that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It does raise the question of what it means to have "authored" it. For a one-off like this, and for the experience, I think it was worth it. Publishing at scale would be another matter entirely.

Also:

"...and your conversations are not shared with Meta's ad systems".

I think they missed off "for now".

The pricing page is dishonest. It says prominently £4.50/month but that's for an annual subscription (£54 for 12 months is in smaller text below).

If you want a monthly price you have to tab across to get the true figure of £5.40.

The higher price wouldn't put me off - it's still very low - but the deception erodes trust from the very start.

Not exactly news, unless this is aimed at naïve teenagers who don't know any better.

Personally I stopped eating at McDonald's 21 years ago and it's the easiest thing in the world to quit (although I don't live in the USA, may not be a perfectly fair comparison).

Tangentially, here in the UK many supermarkets have upped the ante for people who don't want loyalty cards by introducing differential pricing: non members can easily pay an extra 10% on each shop. So far I've managed to sign up with fake details and save the barcode to Google Wallet, but it's all rather dystopian.

Or just write a good covering letter and email it to yourself.

Don't even send it. A draft is enough.

Completely agree, we can be edgy without being insensitive.

Or, even better: let's not be edgy, because we are not tweens circa 2002.

How is it factually false?

Can you cite that?

Or is it just all about how you feel?

I have nystagmus (rapid, uncontrollable, rhythmic eye movements), so I couldn't see anything at first, just lots of small dots.

I had to zoom in (Mac accessibility tool) but then I could see the effect briefly. My eyes go everywhere, but I could see patches of moving shapes with stationary shapes further away, only that the patch moved around a lot!

This is why the only Apple device I'll buy is a MacBook Pro, and even then if they wall it off as badly as their other products I'll reconsider.

It's a great move by the Verge but I agree with the article that it doesn't go far enough.

Why not offer a premium ad-free tier?

For me, viewing web ads is non negotiable (print ads were much more manageable and didn't prevent me from enjoying the content).

However I only view about 4-6 Verge articles per month so I'll see how it plays out. If the best stuff goes behind a paywall then I can't justify subscribing, and nor do I want to hand over personal data to every site I read occasionally (for several reasons).

I've always wondered why publishers can't follow the Spotify or Netflix model for at least some of their content?

This does also raise the uncomfortable question of how much the content is worth. Yes they have some exclusives and unique content but in other areas if I stopped reading it I'd have another hundred reviews of the latest Apple products to choose from, and Reddit is much more realistic (albeit noisy) about the Sonos debacle than The Verge. The article about undersea cables was good though.