Linus Tech Tips Discussion

 New Government Petitions Against Payment Processor Censorship Summary New government petitions have opened in Australia, Canada and the UK calling for regulation against payment processors restricting the sale of legal digital content. These petitions were opened in response to payment processors forcing Steam and itch.io to delist thousands of lawful adult games by threatening to no longer provide service.               Quotes Quote "At the end of August, Carmen Tam from Waterloo, Ont., initiated a petition with local Liberal MP Bardish Chagger in response to recent action from companies like Visa and Mastercard to stop facilitating certain financial transactions from gaming storefronts Steam and Itch.io." - Bradly Shankar Quote "Mastercard, Visa, and other payment platforms have been leveraging their power over consumer ability to purchase legal content;" - Canadian Petition Quote "Government should legislate that payment processing companies may not place stipulations on use of their services regarding sales of otherwise legal content" - UK Petition Quote "Just like water companies or electricity providers are regulated to prevent them from stopping service based on arbitrary views, VISA and MASTERCARD should be held to the same standard." - Australian Petition   My thoughts Unlike petitions seen on sites such as change.org, these petitions have the ability to force government discussion. I like the point that payment processors are utilities and hence should be held to the same service obligations as power and water companies. As it stands, the ability of payment processors to condition service based on political views poses immediate threat to literally everyone. I feel it's imperative these petitions get as many signatures as possible to help push for the protections we need.                    Sources Australian Petition: https:/

 ASRock motherboards keep on killing AM5 CPUs (yes, even non-X3D) Summary   ASRock has been struggling with dying X3D CPUs since earlier this year, and it seems like the issues not only persist, but also affect non-X3D CPUs.   Quotes Quote "Had a chat with someone from ASRock today at Gamescom. While he couldn’t give me any new information, he assured me that ASRock is actively monitoring the situation and continuing to investigate the issue together with AMD. He also mentioned that he was really glad we (the subreddit) are collecting data and that we’ve given them access to the form responses. They are taking this seriously, even if there hasn’t been a public update from them recently."   Additional info   It would appear that most, if not all ASRock B650/X670/B850/X870 boards are affected. I don't think we can conclude that B840/A620 boards aren't affected, it could be that PC builders who report these issues just don't buy such low-end boards.     My thoughts   Pretty bad optics that ASRock still hasn't manage to identify and fix the issue. I was looking to buy a Taichi Creator for my new AM5 build as I thought it only affected X3D CPUs, but now I'm strongly considering the ASUS ProArt X870E and Gigabyte B850 AI TOP, even though the Taichi Creator looks more appealing to me.      Sources https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/asrock-confirms-its-bios-settings-are-killing-ryzen-cpus-is-fully-committed-to-fixing-any-damaged-motherboards https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRock/comments/1mvgndh/9000series_cpu_failuresdeaths_megathread_2/  

 UK Parliament to debate ‘Stop Killing Games’ equivalent The House of Commons will debate the petition, “Prohibit publishers irrevocably disabling video games they have already sold”, the UK’s equivalent of the EU petition, ‘Stop Killing Games’ on the 3rd of November 2025. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074 The petition has over 180,000 signatures from residents.

 Popular Podcast App "Pocket Casts" Showing Ads to Lifetime Premium Members Summary  Pocket Casts began life as a one time purchase app, for $10. After its acquisition by Automattic, that option was removed and it was changed to a subscription model. Automattic did the right thing at the time, and honored those users with a conversion to a special "Pocket Casts Champion" membership: "a lifetime you-get-the-best-of-whatever-we-sell deal". Recently however, these Champion accounts have been getting shown ads in the app, similar to a free account.   An employee posting on the official forum said this was on purpose, but the Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg claimed it was a bug and will be resolved.   Quotes Quote “Anyone who has ever paid for Pocket Casts, even before Automattic acquired it, should not see ads,” Mullenweg said in a Hacker News thread. “I don’t believe in ‘lifetime’ purchases, and we don’t create new ones at Automattic, but we have honored the legacy people who paid a one-time fee to Pocket Casts when they were a startup with basically what we call a “Champions” account, which is a lifetime you-get-the-best-of-whatever-we-sell deal.” There are only a few thousand lifetime Pocket Casts members, according to Mullenweg, adding that it “seemed better to try and make it more of a gift than attempt to migrate people to what is actually a sustainable business model.” We have reached out to Pocket Casts for comment.   My thoughts  This seemed relevant to the LTT community given Linus' ongoing war with Teamviewer on the exact same problem. I love a lifetime sub, I spent a hundred or so on a Nexus Mods lifetime many years ago, and a Plex Lifetime as well. It's a great way for me to just not have to worry about something ever again. However, the CEO's comment here about an "actually sustainable business mode" is hard to argue with. It's the buy-it-for-life issue all over. The plastic container com