But… but… it has gold-plated connectors 😟

old world, which I got for €10 in the GOG sale. I wanted something like the OG civ experience, where you slowly build up your civilisation, creating a network of cities with good transport links, strong agriculture supporting healthy growth, then, when the bloodlust gets too strong to ignore, building small military forces to go out and crush your neighbours.

I’m enjoying myself so far. The game does seem like a more straightforward and casual Civ - the learning curve is so gentle and you don’t feel like you’re overloaded with admin details that you can’t keep track of. Last time I played Civ, it was Civ 6 and it was fun until a rival civilisation plonked a city down right in the middle of one of my own conglomerations. Perfect excuse for kicking some ass, so I assembled a little force and invaded the city to kick it out. Unfortunately you can’t just declare war and get away with it, and there were a lot of side-effects to contend with, such as becoming a pariah on the world stage affecting trade. War was just not economically viable, and while that might be realistic for some time periods, it just wasn’t the game I wanted to play.

So I am happy with old world. It’s pretty much what I wanted so far - but will the simpler mechanics make the game less replayable? It may well do, but I’m enjoying it for now. Above all, what I like about these sorts of games - zero time pressure. I can take as long as I like on each turn, there’s absolutely no rush to decide what to do, I’m free to bimble about and make sure I’ve not forgotten anything.

Gardiner Bryant is great. So great, you don’t have to suffer YouTube to keep up with his videos, he also publishes to PeerTube:

https://peertube.wtf/w/omBg7MPgFSZAB7YkWEYGdu

A collective can be a great way to run a company, for some cases. I lived with a girl who worked at a cafe that was run as a collective - it meant that people had a fair say in decisions that affected them. They could vote on their own wages, working conditions, and no one was barking out orders bossing them around. The owner was an old-school left-winger who was doing this out of pure idealism. He was still the one with the financial risk, he dealt with banks, ensured taxes were dealt with, and all the other tasks involved in running a business such as that.

Nothing stopping you trying!

Great. Yes. Under some kind of egalitarian free-energy tech utopia such as you’re describing, websites like Nexus mods would be even better. Sadly there are no such systems already operating for us to move to, and we do not yet have the technology to try creating a new one.

So any other political systems that are more real-world?

How would this specific problem be better under another system?

I guess you still have the issue of someone needing to pay for the huge number of downloads, most of which are going to come from users who make no other contributions to the site. Maybe you could combine a fedi site with torrents or something?

Samsung is also a pretty shit company to be fair - look at the shenanigans they pull with adverts in their smart TVs for one. Sad fact is that most companies are at least 80% shit! Even the ones that are alright are prone to quickly enshitify overnight.

Bethesda (and other companies) don’t owe anything to the very small community of modders

Disagree. I bought Skyrim VR (even though I already had the non-VR version) only because mods exist which make the game worth playing in VR. Same for Fallout 4 VR - would not have bought that without mods.

Grammar’s fine. Sentence structure in the third paragraph (the largest one) is a bit clumsy I guess. Maybe there’s a quibble about semantics in “you may also consider fully reformatting your operating system” - you reformat a drive and reinstall an OS. But grammar all seems fine IMO. I am a native speaker, I’ve certainly seen worse from my fellow countrymen.