Cloudflare continues to push the worst shit combination of centralization of the internet and genAI bullshit but congratulations, they've hit a new combo so bad I didn't even consider it possible https://blog.cloudflare.com/agents-stripe-projects/

[ben@mastodon.lubar.me]

@cwebber $100k of free what

[weirdwriter@caneandable.social]

@alienghic @cwebber I said this for years, that they actually really want us poor people to quit using the Internet so they can constantly masturbate about how great their numbers are rising, just a bunch of CEOs never interacting with another human on the Internet.

[alienghic@timeloop.cafe]

@WeirdWriter @cwebber

I think they want the poor dead.

A redacted person in the Epstein files said this to Epstein.

"Also - I've been thinking a lot about that question that you asked bill gates "how do we get rid of poor people
as a whole" and I have an answer/ comment regarding that for you ... When can I call you today to discuss
this??"

(one of the 3 copies of the email found with the query "how do we get rid of poor people as a whole")

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01157206.pdf

One billionaire lifestyle can be responsible for millions of tons of carbon dioxide pollution, compared to less than one for the average rural indian.

For billionaires to maintain their lifestyle they need to get rid of millions of poor people.

[ben@mastodon.lubar.me]

@cwebber oh the page that the text about $100k links to doesn't have any mention of cloudflare or that number

so it's probably some kind of "alternate fact" generated by the infallible AI

[cwebber@social.coop]

@ben oooh someone take a snapshot on the wayback machine right now

[ben@mastodon.lubar.me]

@cwebber also click the hackernews comments link at the bottom of the article for a surprise

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@cwebber sorry, what???? $100k of free credits? that's ....... well, any startup that falls for that deserves to fail but that's already true of most startups so it's not a very interesting thing to say

[eramdam@social.erambert.me]

@cwebber this reminds me of the shit I saw on a fintech company’s careers page the other day lol

[cwebber@social.coop]

@ben lmao

[samir@mastodon.functional.computer]

@ireneista @cwebber IMO it sounds quite good for something that needs finite compute, like a research project, though.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@samir @cwebber yeah we have definitely seen academics successfully take advantage of free samples in other areas, hah. there's an art to it.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@samir @cwebber there's an important mismatch between the needs of academics and startups which we think causes sales teams to fall for that stuff

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@samir @cwebber like for a business, the assumption is that if you find something worth doing at all, it will drive revenue for you on an ongoing basis, so you'll be motivated to pay to keep doing it

and that isn't how grants work at all

[artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay]

@ireneista @cwebber i wonder how efficiently one can turn many of those giant startup credits directly into money. they probably try to detect mining

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@samir @cwebber we don't condone taking advantage like that, but we don't know that we really blame academics for it, either, heh

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@artemist @cwebber alas the most efficient use is probably spam

[artemist@social.mildlyfunctional.gay]

@ireneista @cwebber true, it's just that mining is legal and doesn't require finding customers.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@artemist @cwebber yeah

[thejacenallen@mastodon.social]

@cwebber uh oh

[monkeyben@mastodon.sdf.org]

@cwebber

As if the Internet wasn't overflowing with AI Slop without this insane bullshit already.