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You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.
The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.
I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible.
Edit: I am trying to compile all of the sources of info at this time into one big post for ease of access, if you want to keep up with that as it's updated: https://www.tumblr.com/literalgrill/738694194534776832/do-not-support-hard-drive-on-patreon
Kevin Podas is just among one former employee speaking out on the subject over on the bird site, there are other corroborating this evidence and dropping more.
Seriously, DO NOT SUPPORT HARD DRIVE! Their CEO does not deserve to rake in profits after exploiting their entire staff.
I always come with multiple sources. This one gets a bit long to reasonably screenshot and has issues for providing good captioning, so I'll be sadly linking directly to the bird site for this source:
A similar issue with the size of the screenshot and potential captioning issues, but here is another source of information from Luca Fisher on the bird site: https://fxtwitter.com/lucanfisher/status/1743136313157591308
Going to just add this to the end of the thread as well, I'm doing my best to compile all this information into one post over on Tumblr right now for ease of reading. This includes alt text for screen readers on EVERY included image.
You can find that here: https://www.tumblr.com/literalgrill/738694194534776832/do-not-support-hard-drive-on-patreon
One last thing: Yeah, there are people still employed at the site now, most of which seem to be extremely recent hires. I don't wanna see anyone in my profession go unpaid obviously, it's just extremely upsetting all this support and cold hard cash isn't going to end up in the hands of the people who made the site what it is right now because someone made absolutely garbage business decisions.
@chirpbirb@meow.social@literalgrill what the fuck, this is awful
do you have a source for this? not saying i don't believe you, just wanting to know more
@chirpbirb Just added in source one to the thread, I knew folks would want evidence don't worry!
I'm going to try and collect more as I can.
@betty@koko.micenest.xyz@literalgrill link a mirror/private frontend whenever you can instead, that also helps!
nitter [nitter.net] exists for a while
@betty I just plain made a big ol' post with direct text posts for folks now and edited it into the main toot here.
It's long as hell, but has everything someone should need with alt text to boot to understand the situation!
@SiteRelEnby@tech.lgbtOh shit. Is this why some of the other related stuff like Hard Money etc. went quiet too? (and apparently, have now disappeared...) I really appreciated that one in particular, because it genuinely showed a level of understanding that was rare in such satire, but was still solidly on the left.
@literalgrill
Where did they people they pushed out go?
@phi1997 I'm trying to find folks to support, unfortunately the best list right now is a bunch of Twitter @'s.
Once I finish compiling info from writers on management, I'll see what I can do about building a list of ways to support those who deserve it most. (Just waiting on that since I don't know who wants to be dragged into things or not, I get how bridge burning can hurt careers.)
@literalgrill Huh, Today I learned!
@literalgrill Fuck, this is really upsetting to read :< I thought Hard Drive was well above all that kind of thing, buh. Damn. :<
@KayOhtie @literalgrill so sorry to hear this. Thank you for speaking out about it and spreading the word.
@Quinn9282@mas.to@literalgrill Is there a suitable substitute for Hard Drive out there that's written and supported by actual writers and not supported by money-grubbing CEO's trying to push AI onto everything? I will gladly subscribe to them and/or support them if any substitutes exist out there.
@Quinn9282 I do not know, if one is presented to me I will absolutely do the same. I can only hope something like Second Wind can exist but for the folks at Hard Drive.
@literalgrill And that's why we can't have nice things: greedy, stupid and useless CEOs, no matter what they are there to ruin everything they touch just for what they think its profit.
@schafer@ohai.social@literalgrill I'm guessing this applies to Hard Times, as well? They made a similar pitch.
@schafer I'm not sure about the writers over there, I haven't seen things from them specifically yet.
@literalgrill Bullshit "AI" can't write comedy.
That's like asking a dog to describe a spiral staircase.
@retrosponge We have proof currently they've used AI images for articles. There seem to be accusations that AI has been used to write things, but I haven't seen the hard evidence yet.
I'll update if that comes up. Either way, where one comes, the other tends to follow. It's concerning.
Edit: Wow, right as I send this and go check, loads of direct accusations of the owner constantly pushing AI for writing now too. Wouldn't trust the site now.
@literalgrill Such a shame. The writers did all the work building it, and then get tossed aside.
So sick of this AI bullshit. My girlfriend is an artist and is involved in the suit against Midjourney.
AdoraBeryl 
@Rasp@raru.re@literalgrill Damn it was really funny for a while too. I hope the staff find somewhere new to shitpost.
@literalgrill God dammit, we can't have anything nice without capitalism eventually ruining it
@lawlznet@vt.social@literalgrill you know its a dark day when a satire site that used to meme on an often corrupt games industry is itself extremely corrupt.
-> yassie_j@labyrinth.zone @yassie_j@0w0.is@lawlznet @literalgrill they became what they made fun of
#
@b4ux1t3@hachyderm.io@lawlznet @literalgrill as the saying goes:
Life imitates art.
God dammit that phrase is really ominous given recent trends.
@claudiacaesaris@ohai.social@literalgrill Does this go for the Hard Times as well?
@claudiacaesaris At this point, I would not trust either to not use AI with how into it the owner seems.
@redhero@famichiki.jp@literalgrill good to know, thanks!
@delta@a.tela.moe@literalgrill well that is beyond upsetting, begging for money after kicking out everyone who actually built the damned thing
@literalgrill a.i. doesn't have a sense of humor. It can't write jokes. Actually, it can't _write_ anything.
I've seen many (formerly enjoyed) pubs become a.i. generated clickbait farms.
Hoping content policies catch on, but so far we're alone in "human content policy" Google search results. 
#HCP 
https://toobzee.com/human-content-policy/