The Sizzle is about the cross the threshold where I need to collect GST. This means the price of The Sizzle is going up to $6 a month or $60 a year as of the 1st of Feb so I can give 10% of all my revenue to the ATO. Yeah, I know, it sucks.
I'll send out a reminder email to the entire list before the change takes place, but you don't need to do anything. The next time your subscription renews on or after 01/02/2023 it'll be at the $6/$60 price and the invoice will outline that GST is included.
Twitter pulled the plug on third party clients like Tweetbot and Twitteriffic. There was no announcement made, we only know this because a bunch of clients stopped working and the developers of those apps have told customers that yeah, it's not just you, the app is busted and there's nothing they can do about it. Elon Musk's Twitter didn't even have the courtesy to tell their API users that anything is changing. That's how little respect they have for users these days. Tweetbot developer Craig Hockenberry sums it up nicely. It's a particularly dumb move because as Mike Rockwell said on Mastodon, "that the people using third-party apps are the ones that are most likely to try and most likely to enjoy the fediverse".
OpenAI, the mob responsible for ChatGPT, announced on their Discord server that it's making a paid version of ChatGPT dubbed ChatGPT Professional. They said from the start they will find a way to monetise it as I assume running ChatGPT is pretty fucken expensive. Not sure how ChatGPT Professional will differ from the standard ChatGPT but based on a survey sent out to users, they'll tinker with response times and usage limits. There's also rumours of Microsoft increasing its investment in Open AI to the tune of US$10b. Makes sense that Microsoft wants a seat at the table considering how heavily they're integrating Open AI's products into Office and Bing.
The ACCC isn't happy with certain aspects of the NBN's latest special access undertaking (SAU) proposal. They're afraid that NBN's financial goals will lead to "inefficiently high pricing" and "limit [its] ability to make regulatory determinations that encourage NBN Co to invest and operate more efficiently over time or could risk price shocks in the future". The ACCC is also concerned that the service standards in the SAU, saying that "with the significant further capital expenditure and operational experience NBN Co could have realised a range of efficiencies that consumers could benefit from". Seems like we're gonna have more expensive, shittier internet. Perfect, exactly why the NBN exists.
We've sabotaged Telecom's Tower at Canberra. Created by David Morrow, Lucifoil Poster Collective, Tin Sheds Art Workshop, New South Wales, Australia, 1980. (National Gallery of Australia)
📻 Little Cream Soda - The White Stripes
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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.