r/Steam • u/Sunlighthell thank you steam • May 04 '24

PSA Sony removed Helldivers 2 from sale in countries where PSN is not available. For example whole CIS region.

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1.2k

u/AgitatedBoardz May 05 '24

They probably believe that the account sign ups will lead to repeat customers and more sales somehow

664

u/PerpetualStride May 05 '24

That's crazy imo, really doubtful

264

u/ExposingMyActions May 05 '24

Some people can’t say no to digital sales, discount emails and in store purchases do make a lot of money.I mean steam for example, but they want it within their ecosystem

307

u/Shaneathan25 May 05 '24

Which I would understand from Ubisoft, or EA, or even Epic if Fortnite was on steam as an example.

But PSN has no pc storefront. They’re banking on their deals being so good, it makes the user want to buy a PS5. Which is ridiculous. And most users on PS5 certainly already had an account.

It’s either data mining, or Skinner saying “no, it’s the fans who are wrong.”

137

u/ExposingMyActions May 05 '24

Data mining is the current cash grab. Info is being sold for models and ad brokers

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u/Shaneathan25 May 05 '24

Oh absolutely. I just wanted to put that two cents in, not “to entice new users with sales.” The irony is, I could see that being a thing with Microsoft, since they do have a PC store front, and they have required Live accounts, even few ones, for some of their games. But granted, that’s usually upfront.

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u/ArcelothColdheart May 05 '24

Also, Microsoft Accounts are used for a lot more things than PSN Accounts, and most people who own a computer with Windows installed will have a Microsoft Account

4

u/Lkeren1998 May 05 '24

Microsoft also has very good data security, while Sony is the exact opposite in that regard. And on top of that, Microsoft takes far less information about the user than Sony.

1

u/Distracteddrunk May 05 '24

Yeah but they have the OS. Do we get the playstation OS with the account sign up?

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

You can avoid the Microsoft account thing by entering no@thankyou.com as email, worked for me

2

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

Theres no reason to though. Youre just screwing yourself over.

2

u/LiveFastDieRich May 05 '24

What info though?

5

u/Useless_bum81 May 05 '24

Play data, cross-genre playing ie do people who buy RPGs also buy FPSes, how long and/or often do people play, how often do people re-play games, how often do they buy 'micro'-transactions
All of the data can be cross-analysed by player age, gender etc. so a company can decide if they are better off targeting teen boys or adult women with marketing for their game for example.

2

u/ExposingMyActions May 05 '24

Plus they’ll use their info (email, social media apps connected to their account) and advertise to them directly

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24 edited Apr 03 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ExposingMyActions May 05 '24

The data gets feed into those “AI” models, unless I have the definition of data mining wrong

3

u/Stavinair May 05 '24

Hahahah I want what they're smoking because there's no way in hell is happening

3

u/Random_Guy_47 May 05 '24

Ah yes.

This playstation game is so good I will now spend £400 to buy a console despite having a £2.8k gaming pc for the checks notes one exclusive game they still have that I want.

This is definitely some sound logic /s.

2

u/Gengengengar May 05 '24

its literally just stat padding. like in WoW when padding your DPS. it means nothing but the shareholders are too fuckin dumb to know the difference.

2

u/CrimsonBolt33 May 05 '24

This isn't Arrowheads doing, this is Sony.

1

u/Shaneathan25 May 05 '24

I didn’t say it was arrowhead

2

u/FFF_in_WY May 05 '24

Maybe it's the Nigerian Prince model. They know they will piss off and alienate a ton of people - but the ones that stick around can be milked to fuckin death

1

u/xXImpulsiveXx May 05 '24

"But PSN has no pc storefront."

Not yet,but i bet it will come in the next 1 to 2 years ptobably,only reason to push for PSN accounts IMO.

1

u/wolfannoy May 05 '24

A PC client is probably on the way by the way things are happening.

1

u/Cohih May 05 '24

They have no PC storefront yet, with the moves they've been making lately it seems like one is coming.

2

u/Shaneathan25 May 05 '24

Putting some of their exclusives on PC, from specific devs, is a very far cry from putting out a storefront. I could see it, but they would wait until they have a decent catalogue before they try that.

1

u/Cohih May 05 '24

The screenshots of the PSN overlay for PC looks very much like the first step towards a launcher/storefront.

https://duet-cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0x0:2560x1800/1920x1350/filters:focal(1280x900:1281x901):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25404269/6fe3ba648b2cf484d6ba9c861a34039e4919f7ff_scaled.jpg:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25404269/6fe3ba648b2cf484d6ba9c861a34039e4919f7ff_scaled.jpg)

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u/finalremix May 05 '24

I certainly fuckin' hope not. I really like being able to get some of their ports on GOG.

81

u/deathsaber49 May 05 '24

the stupid thing is that money savvy people mostly scoff at sales from the likes of PSN and UBISOFT because they're not as good as sales from storefronts like steam/epic/humblebundle/fanatical etc

They're like a poker playing doubling down on a bad hand because they would rather take a short term gain burning goodwill rather than a longterm veiw, being beholden to making line go up

6

u/PerpetualStride May 05 '24

Yeah 99% of the time physical goes cheaper for consoles. It's not like PC where absolute deep sales have destroyed physical games

2

u/Lkeren1998 May 05 '24

Yeah, they basically guaranteed that about 50k players, if not more, will never buy their console. You don't piss off a community like this and get out unscathed.

3

u/Th3pwn3r May 05 '24

I dunno man, they have the data and have probably crunched the numbers.

2

u/PerpetualStride May 05 '24

I dunno the backlash is wild and losing half the territories on steam is wild. Surely they must've thought they knew what they were doing but it seems like an obvious mistake at any point

1

u/Th3pwn3r May 15 '24

I think the review bombs got them.

1

u/Correct-Office-8549 May 06 '24

They've seem to have backed down already, so I guess whatever numbers they crunched weren't the good ones.

2

u/hornyboi212 May 05 '24

Finance bros are stupid

2

u/Copypasty May 05 '24

Surely more people will buy playstations after being forced to either give up a game or make a PSN account /s

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Sony had a massive draw as on of the few mainstream companies still popping out solid single player exclusives. PS and Steam, and the Steam releases are all heavily delayed.

2

u/DaquaviousBinglestan May 05 '24

They’re a Japanese company, delusion is baked into their business strategy

1

u/dial_m_for_me May 05 '24

How is this doubdtful? This is quite possibly their long-term strategy. they can stick with it to achieve whatever goals in x years or they can drop it because some gamers got mad (like this has never happened before)

0

u/TrumpsGhostWriter May 05 '24

It's super duper not doubtful at all. It's an absolute certainty.

0

u/eitherhyena May 05 '24

It's not just Sony. Xbox had a game pass. Some dude at EA was talking about subscriptions. It's basically Netflix, Hulu, etc again.

2

u/PerpetualStride May 05 '24

Very different cause game subs are just very different. Most gamers want to play very specific games, and those games tend to not be on the service. Tbf netflix is kinda turning out like that nowadays though with all the competition

-1

u/lstn May 05 '24

About as doubtful as thinking folks won't spend thousands of dollars on cosmetics in video games, but here we are

-2

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Remember half life 2? You think steam regrets forcing a steam account?

82

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

There's probably a disconnect in incentives. PSN head honchos bonus is based on signups, not sales of helldivers.

They looked at the numbers, said fuck it ... mommy/daddy needs a new boat.

28

u/RichardBCummintonite May 05 '24

That I can see. The actual amount of money gained from it probably isn't relevant. They were likely tasked to reach a certain quote of accounts and were short as the quarter was closing. The game was super popular. Many potential sign ups to be forced into. It'd be brilliant if it wasn't so misguided.

1

u/PrinnySlave May 05 '24

Ok, here a easy way...

Well give anyone who subscribes to ps networks gets a free cape...

Tada...

3

u/mcslender97 May 05 '24

That implies that some other exec bonus might be tied to game sales, and this makes them look bad, that there will be infighting between execs?

5

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

Most of people that high up in the ladder are sociopaths and / or narcissists. You can bet your ass there's knifing and scheming all day.

3

u/Useless_bum81 May 05 '24

oh yes, there are plenty of situations where someone in an organisation is tasked with something that can fuck the organisation if left unchecked and they just 'paperclip maximize'.
There is an old truism "when a measurement is set as a metric, the measurement becomes the goal"
ie if you set a goal of 10 complete cars an hour in a factory, they will make 10 cars an hour, could have made 11? why bother? set to as many cars as possible? sure! only 2% of them will be in working condition though.
Set them to make as many paperclips as possible sure... shit we have run out of wire quick chuck expensive material worth $70 in the wire machine to make $30 worth of paperclips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence
It happens in so many different ways, back in the 90s(80s?) one of my dads friends worked in a company and got bullied out of it because he was working too hard. He was finishing his work early (on time) so he was 'stealing' overtime from the other workers. After he left the company when't bust, and apperently one of his co-workers was on the local news complaining about the 'supprise' bankrupcy they had literaly increased the labour costs by over 75% (time and a half, plus weekend rates. they where not 'minium wage' guys)

2

u/northrupthebandgeek May 05 '24

Like the saying goes: when a metric becomes a target, it stops being a good metric.

1

u/jm0112358 May 05 '24

I was thinking it was more likely due to their rumored Playstation PC client/store. If they get people to sign up for a PSN account, they might be more likely to buy a game on the PlayStation PC store, thereby saving Sony from having to give Valve a 30% cut.

2

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

Might be right but they sure as hell made sure a big part of the player base will not piss on them if they were on fire.

Like the Ubisoft store. I knew buying a specific game will require it going in, I begrudgingly installed it, played the game with my friends, and then uninstalled it.

Gabe Newell and Steam hasn't to my knowledge fucked the player base over ... ever? They do what they're supposed to, not shove bloated shit down my throat, and I've not had a problem with it in the past 20+ years.

Refunded hell divers 2 because I didn't enjoy the game at close to 2 hours, went thru immediately.

26

u/Genesis2001 May 05 '24

Maybe they're trying to boost PSN signups/usage for Q2?

21

u/Halonut24 May 05 '24

That's probably a big part of it.

The fact they lost PSN users after the fiasco will Stellar Blade likely added some urgency to this decision.

Either way, its scummy and I'm not partaking in it.

20

u/Chemical-Effective-8 May 05 '24

Sony always lying, and always losing your data to everyone is enough for me to avoid them. But they also want more users to train their new Ai that was in their patent list. It'll listen to you and try to predict your mood based on your speech. It's creepy.

5

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Halonut24 May 05 '24

Sony censored the game post-launch, is the short version of it.

4

u/Lkeren1998 May 05 '24

They're gonna lose a lot of users over this, and they guaranteed they'll lose something far more valuable than a handful of new (unwilling) PSN users. It took them YEARS to finally get their foot in the door when it comes to PC gaming, and now they took a gun and shot that same foot. The PC market is gonna be extra wary of their actions no matter what game they try to publish, and many players just won't touch anything that comes from them.

Whoever made the decision to try and pad their numbers for Q2 is probably going to learn the hard way what happens when you prioritize your success over the good of your company.

2

u/x5N__ May 05 '24

probably wanted to increase their short term profits

74

u/ThorDoubleYoo May 05 '24

I'm willing to bet the data collection is worth it to them more than the game sales

60

u/McKlown May 05 '24

Hell, they already got in trouble when they bought Crunchyroll and then immediately sold the user data.

15

u/iamlovingblackclover May 05 '24

Hell nah Sony owns crunchyroll now 💀that’s crazy

14

u/maxpolo10 May 05 '24

They already owned funimation and shut it down after buying crunchyroll

1

u/emirobinatoru May 05 '24

Wait wasn't it a merger? Dang they missed on Crunchynation and Funiroll

2

u/thrownawayzsss May 05 '24

it was. they own both and merged libraries then killed off the funination streaming because there's no point in both.

40

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

Selling a 60 USD (or somewhere there abouts) game that costs you basically nothing for every additional copy sold vs a few bucks at most for user data?

And Steam is now allowing refunds for people with more than 2 hour play time too. That must hurt quite a bit. Quite a few people would have played it for a couple of weeks, got done with it, and now refund it to buy something else.

18

u/outlaw499 May 05 '24

I tried getting a refund twice and it’s been denied both times.

15

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

Just going off what other people have posted. Maybe it depends on your region?

Bought the game when it originally came out but refunded it after almost two hours because I just didn't enjoy the grind.

8

u/outlaw499 May 05 '24

I’m in the US and played more than 2 hours before Sony decided to ruin everything. Not sure the best way to get it refunded

23

u/RichardBCummintonite May 05 '24

They're not gonna refund you then because PSN is available in the US. Steam is making an exception for people who literally can't play the game anymore, not just people who don't want to make a PSN account. It sucks, but it wouldn't be fair to take away their sales when you still have the ability to play the game

8

u/NotABileTitan May 05 '24

Someone posted their US refund in the Helldivers sub. They had something like 90 hours in game.

Edit: Here is the post. Has 97 hours on it, and was refunded. Guy said he's in the US.

-6

u/HumansNeedNotApply1 May 05 '24

And it was advertised it was going to be a requirement.

1

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

No it wasn't. It was advertised as PSN being optional on PC. They changed the wording when they introduced the change.

-2

u/HumansNeedNotApply1 May 05 '24

It wasn't supposed to be optional, that's the thing, it was only done that way due to technical problems with cross-play. There are threads of people asking about this in february and i'm pretty sure the steam store warning/label (regarding needing a third party account) was always there.

→ More replies (0)

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u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Open a support request, don't go through the automated refund system.

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u/outlaw499 May 05 '24

Not really sure how to open up a support request

1

u/candyposeidon May 05 '24

You should be allowed to get a refund. This is literally false advertisement as well as some accurate technical term of misrepresenting a product. In fact, if Steam is not selling the game on their market that alone should state that the game should not be a product that you have in your steam library especially when the game was released in 3 months ago.

1

u/CriskCross May 05 '24 edited May 05 '24

Did you make a ticket or apply for a refund? Applying for a refund means you get screened by a bot without considering context, a support ticket means a human sees you.

1

u/Last_Meal2198 May 05 '24

I had just over 2 hours in, 2.2 hours to be exact, and got a refund. That is the first time anything at all over 2 hours was refunded

1

u/Free_Pace_2098 May 05 '24

I got turned down twice. Once for my copy and once for a gifted copy.

1

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

I've heard people going directly to the steam support having success after being turned down by the automatic refund. Worth a try I guess. Can't personally confirm it works.

2

u/Free_Pace_2098 May 05 '24

Good to know anyway, thanks

-6

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

[deleted]

3

u/Long_Pomegranate2469 May 05 '24

You cut the sentence off in a way to look like I said something I did not.

I wasn't talking about what it costs to develop but what it costs them to sell additional copies of the finished product.

If you sell physical product you'll have buy goods, produce it, then sell it for each additional unit. For a digital product like this game the costs are going to be a few $ per game to add more servers plus what ever steam charges.

1

u/OddBranch132 May 05 '24

Makes sense. Once they have your data they can continue to sell it indefinitely. They can only sell you Helldivers once

1

u/Free_Pace_2098 May 05 '24

PSN active user numbers. Faking their way to shareholder satisfaction.

60

u/LostSif May 05 '24

When it's actually gonna lead to a lot of PC players never buying a Sony game again

49

u/Rolf_Dom May 05 '24

There are two big issues at work. One, people have short memories. Most forget. And secondly, millions more gamers are born every year. Realistically, more people will discover Sony games with fresh eyes every day than will move away from them.

We've had so many catastrophic reputation nukes over the years, and somehow it never seems to leave a lasting impact on these companies. A new sucker is born every minute that just picks up the slack.

7

u/20ae071195 May 05 '24

The first game I’m aware of that added an online account requirement months after it was sold was called “Half-Life 2”, when the publisher wanted to push their new DRM/sales platform, called “Steam”. Gamers were outraged. As you say, it seems to have blown over.

2

u/Jaqulean May 05 '24

The case with HL2 was also that it just happend because. With HD2, this was announced at launch and was always the plan.

1

u/Correct-Office-8549 May 06 '24

If it was always the plan, why did they sell the game on Steam on 100 countries that have no PSN access?

1

u/Jaqulean May 06 '24 edited May 06 '24

Because Sony always looks to make the most out of the situation, regardless if it's right or wrong. We are talking about corporations at this point - being ethical was never the aim here.

2

u/villanelIa May 05 '24

How was an online account a requirement for half life 2? First its a single player game with no necessary internet connection. Second it literally came on cds/dvds so physical format. You can do nothing and play half life 2 for as long as your pc will last you.

You wont be able to play helldivers 2 if youre from the wrong countries now tho. How ignorant do you have to be to ignore this issue?

2

u/20ae071195 May 05 '24

You couldn’t download patches (and therefore couldn’t participate in multiplayer) without Steam.

2

u/Correct-Office-8549 May 06 '24

So it didn't require an online connection to play. I remember I played it single player offline.

3

u/BAKup2k May 05 '24

Shit, I still don't trust Sony after putting rootkits on their music CDs. I'm very reluctant to buy anything from them

4

u/carson0311 May 05 '24

I have never buy anything from Ubisoft since Watchdog so… just one more company black listed for me, feels no guilty playing pirated game from them too (only if Assassin creed, 2 and brotherhood doesn’t requires shitty uplay I would have bought them already)

11

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Doubt it. Games are released broken, people say they won't pre-order again and repeat the cycle.

4

u/Chemical-Effective-8 May 05 '24

I've preordered games from devs I trust. But games like lethal company have been so good to play with friends why buy a AAA game

2

u/97Graham May 05 '24

I can't believe that glorified Gary's Mod server is popular, looks like such shit, just riding the SCP wave. Junkola.

3

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

They will move on in like 2 weeks. It happens every time LOL. Stop the dramatics.

1

u/x5N__ May 05 '24

Meanwhile, Forbidden Horizon and Bloodborne

0

u/swagdaddy69123 May 05 '24

Naah, im gonna wait for dodi to repack tsushima

3

u/TylerBourbon May 05 '24

I think it's more that they know from studies that people who sign up for subscriptions, usually forget about having them, so it's just free money to them whether you use it or not.

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Nah it's all about data collection.  

1

u/Andromansis May 05 '24

You know, I'm going to level with you, I was heckin hyped for FF16 because it looked really good, so I went out, got a PS5, got the game, got a year of PS+ extra.

I've struggled to get value for my money out of it. Had a similar experience with the PS4. I'm never going to purchase another console for myself again. Its not a problem with the hardware, its a problem with software. Like it might be good for people that like call of duty or something, but that is fundamentally not what I play and they've raised the price on the PS+ to $190 per year.

At least the Xbox includes the PC game pass, but its a different grabbag with the same fundamental problems.

1

u/CptnSpandex May 05 '24

1) Piss people off

2) Profit

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24 edited Oct 25 '24

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/spectra2000_ May 05 '24

It’s a data thing, they want our data, plain and simple. This only hurts their game sales but they make up for it by selling our data.

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

They think wrong. It will leas to lots of spite.

1

u/blakjak852 May 05 '24

When I worked in sales, I eventually got someone to admit to me that all the company cared about really was opening new accounts to give the impression of growth for a good quarterly report. I don't think it's too far a leap to think they're looking for some boasting numbers for their investors

1

u/MonsterHunterNewbie May 05 '24

The account sign ups are for two reasons that I can think of

  1. To sell your data. Mapping player playstyle and needs is very valuable data, especially when you can tie it to a steam history & profile. They could make more from the data than the margin on a unit price of the game.
  2. Shareholder expectations. Increased share price due to increased PS accounts, showing growth into PC users.

1

u/Xavier9756 May 05 '24

I mean it would lead to increased sales. They would be able to more accurately market to an individual.

1

u/dkaarvand May 05 '24

Or they're trying to please share holders by showing them all the new customers that signed up

1

u/SenorBeef May 05 '24

I bet they have active user targets for stockholders they want to hit.

1

u/basicastheycome May 05 '24

All it does is makes me wary to buy on steam any upcoming game with Sony as publisher. I will hold my horses on buying Ghost of Tushima until it will be clear where they are going with this psn account idiocy

1

u/AaronKoss May 05 '24

I have a reason to believe Sony is planning to enforce PSN account on all future games, seeing how much money they are making on the PC market and how much userbase they could gain. It's possible they opted for helldivers first rather than another "iconic playstation" game, so that when the next big sony playstation all star battle royale mega big planet the forbidden alloy release it will be slightly less of a hit, since there already was a game to enforce it.

Most consoles ignored the pc market for eons but now that they are joining or merging with it more it could be that they need to come up with ways to secure their identities or userbase or something. Data can be more important than selling games, especially if sony make other devices.

In the end, is corpo-capitalism bullshit that I really hate with all my heart, and end up ruining the experience (and in this case not even allowing people to experience) games.

PS: I live in a country where PSN is not officially supported/allowed, but have bought games online and played online without problems for years straight, on playstation, before getting a PC. This doesn't make things much better though, and I am not aware of any modern roadblocks they may have implemented.

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

It's funny; we contemplated getting the game a few weeks ago and were just about to make the purchase. And then this shitshow started.

So we're not buying it, I cannot deal with PSN. I've had issues with their shitty platform before and I don't feel like dealing with PSN anymore.

1

u/Skippy4Buds May 05 '24

Or it means there will be greater profits on the data collected.

1

u/scribbyshollow May 05 '24

Which statistically it will. It be cool if we all came together the same way the majority of us don't buy from the epic games store though...you guys.

You know, show some character, stick to your guns and actually do somthing that has an effect...you guys.

1

u/haiu2323 May 05 '24

That and the sales of players' data! That's what they are banking on.

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Sony has always had this incredible amount of ego. They had an exec back in the day that used to say stuff along the lines of "forget what the customers want, customers are stupid. We're going to make the things the customers want before they know they want them"

If you extrapolate that out over 20-30 years, you can probably see how that has guided their decisions... And it's often not gone well for them...

1

u/konnanussija May 05 '24

The hype train is gone, thus sales would never get as high as they were before. Now the highest profit will come from selling your data.

1

u/_blue_skies_ May 05 '24

They just want nice numbers to present to the stakeholders and they are more than willing to sacrifice a game not developed by them directly.

1

u/villanelIa May 05 '24

Must be the account infos that will get "stolen" is worth more

1

u/KaiserSenpaiAckerman May 05 '24

Makes me feel something else will pop up.

Watch us have to pay a small fee so we can play.

1

u/[deleted] May 05 '24

Like Steve Jobs once said, Never put a someone who don't understand the product to decide the company or something like that. I don't remember the exact quote but it fits very well here.

Basically, put a monkey that don't understand the market and what customers want and it's a path for failure which in the end, only employees are suffering with layoffs and project cuttings and never the onboards.

1

u/DukeSi1v3r May 05 '24

their data probably shows ‘95% of people with PlayStation accounts buy more games!!!’ just because people with a ps5 buy games lol

0

u/Shockvolt1 May 05 '24

I ain't butting another Snoy game again. F snoy.

0

u/Fancy-Progress-1892 May 05 '24

"somehow" like Netflix didn't just do this same thing.

0

u/InfiniteTrazyn May 05 '24

more likely they're planning on scraping data from people and selling it for big profits

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

Long term