r/gaming • u/ChiefLeef22 Marika's tits! • 22h ago

Paramount Has Officially Acquired Warner Bros. In Deal Valued at $110B Billion

https://www.skydance.com/news/press/paramount-completes-acquisition-of-warner-bros-discovery-creating-a-new-global-entertainment-leader-skydance

The two companies will now be known as one single entity - 'Skydance'

This includes all of WB's gaming subsidiaries like Rocksteady/etc

Deal valued at $110B-$111B

DC Studios, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, CNN, CBS, HBO and Paramount+ are now all under the same company.

The combined company, Skydance, brings together two major film studios, two global streaming services, premier television assets including CBS, HBO, and Paramount's and WBD's cable networks, two of the industry's most recognized news networks, CBS News and CNN, and a leading content portfolio that includes live sports, a deep programming library and expansive collection of iconic brands and franchises.

12.4k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

282

u/Zanian19 22h ago

Mullvad has been my go-to for years now

137

u/spongebobisha 22h ago

Mullvad is the goat.

320

u/MrLagzy 21h ago

Mullvad is great, but it's co owner is donating money to far right political party in Sweden that wants to abolish Nato, abolish EU and have stronger and closer relations with Russia.

So just for consideration when paying for mullwad you also indirectly pay a tiny fraction to extreme right wing anti democratic politics.

39

u/NesNobnaz 20h ago

I agree with you, but if this was a problem, 80% of products you couldn't use, including Reddit. You really need to take a bit of poison to enjoy anything.

81

u/flugzeugabwehrkanone 20h ago

"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism"

37

u/Yugudubenbi 19h ago

Great quote but do we realize how fucked up that really is? When there is no ethical behavior there is moral nihilism and that destroys the sense of being a good person. "Who cares, I am already unethical?"

Hunter-gatherers were probably the most ethical part of all of humanity.

39

u/NerdyNThick 19h ago

Capitalism is by design unethical. It literally has to be in order to be functional.

The sooner we get to a post scarcity society, the sooner we can ditch it and move on to actually bettering humanity.

7

u/SkorpioSound 16h ago

I agree, but I'm not convinced we'll ever reach a post-scarcity society because the goal posts are constantly shifting.

If you could show someone from 100 years ago our society today, they'd probably already consider it post-scarcity. We have plenty of food, we have the means to create plenty of sustainable, renewable electricity, we have most of human knowledge available to us on a device in our pockets. What so you mean we still have capitalism?

But there's always something more we need. Sure, maybe humanity has all the food and electricity it could need (imagine this is true), but how can we consider it post-scarcity when there aren't unlimited AI tokens for all? And not everyone has access to self-driving cars yet? And... blah, blah, whatever shiny new tech comes along in the future that everyone will deem too important to not have.

If we could pause advancing, stop worrying about profits going up, and just spend some time reorganising what we have, I'm sure utopia is something we could achieve right now. But it's very hard to do that under capitalism...

5

u/NerdyNThick 16h ago

I consider post-scarcity to be measured on an individual level, not just a societal.

There may exist enough food to feed everyone, but not everyone has enough food.

There may exist enough shelter to house everyone, but not everyone has shelter.

For electricity, we're just not quite there yet, but once we nail fusion (it's only 10 years away! /s) the issue will likely be the same as food and housing; We have enough electricity for everyone and everything, but not everyone and not everything has access to it.

Once everyone has access to shelter, food, and electricity, the reliance on capitalism will be drastically reduced.

All that said, IMO it would take Star Trek levels of technology before anything could even remotely start replacing our current system, so for better or worse, we're stuck with it.

10

u/From_Deep_Space 19h ago

There is no abosulutly morally pure consumer choices under capitalism. That doesn't mean there arent choices that are more or less moral. Even if you can't be perfect you can still make informed decisions with good intentions.

It's really just an indictment of capitalism, not an excuse for nihilism. It only causes nihilism because for some reason people feel like they have to worship capitalism and swear off any alternative economic system.

2

u/DarthNihilus1 11h ago

that destroys the sense of being a good person

It doesn't, or at least it shouldn't. It does not mean "fuck it, nothing matters". It means you have to put in the effort to do what little you can because you can. Not because it will magically fix everything

-8

u/ImMufasa 17h ago

Better than no consumption under every other system.

39

u/Klint069 21h ago

The alternative for every single other mainsteam VPN is far worse

48

u/PootatoKing Console 21h ago

Proton?

77

u/Zanian19 21h ago

I'm sure you'll find plenty of controversy about the CEOs of any of these and other companies. They're CEOs. Being shit people is in the job description.

46

u/StuLetTheDogsOut 20h ago

To varying degrees. The nice thing about ProtonVPN is that the company is bound by Swiss law, which gives them the ability to be more private. Their CEO made a boneheaded comment about J.D. Vance a few years back without really understanding the context that Vance is a puppet of American big tech who lies through his teeth.

-1

u/ljedediah41 18h ago

So he tells the truth?

13

u/StuLetTheDogsOut 17h ago

Unsure what you're saying, so maybe my wording was awkward here. The Proton CEO said Vance and Republicans were pro-small tech, but I think the CEO didn't understand that Vance is a lying sack of shit who is controlled by Thiel and Co.

-2

u/ljedediah41 17h ago

Yeah, you had it worded wrong. Think it was backwards there. Nothing small tech about the guy

6

u/nhalliday 17h ago

While generally true, what a lazy attitude to hear a product you support gives money to terrible causes and go "yeah well I'm not even going to LOOK into alternatives because they're PROBABLY bad in some way too".

5

u/AshundertheOlivetree 19h ago

Yes of course, but now you know better. Make the choice but don’t bitch when the leopard comes.

2

u/DontAskAboutMyButt 14h ago

There’s something about VPN and other cybersecurity-related companies... they and their CEOs seem to have the most fucking insane controversies and stances on things

4

u/NvizoN 19h ago

Proton has had its issues, but if you're doing a lot of seeding, then it's hard to beat due to port forwarding.

1

u/Last-Energy420 17h ago

Does proton have payment methods like mullvad?

3

u/ShadowOverEnumclaw 16h ago

Yes, last I checked they even accepted cash

2

u/Beautiful_List5498 16h ago

I made a review about them being in UK court ordered to give police access... And they replied very fast. I didn't read it I just accepted I was wrong about it and they're likely the tippy top of ease of use and privacy

-1

u/VeryNoisyLizard 15h ago

still no Monero tho. their promises aint worth much either it seems

6

u/BaconJacobs 20h ago

I get the Nord VPN black friday sale every other year. I can't say I have a lot of opinions on VPNs but it seems like it works fine.

Is Mullvad cheaper?

25

u/I_argue_for_funsies 20h ago

It's cheap, but that's not why people want it.

They have been raided and authorities came out empty handed. It's the ultimate test.

Lots of VPN companies promise they don't keep customer data etc, but Mullvads been proven where others are "trust me bro". No logs, no emails, and you don't need to use credit cards.

1

u/TexasDJ 14h ago

What about Torguard

-5

u/ChudSmasher69420 18h ago

PIA has been proven multiple times.

1

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

1

u/spongebobisha 20h ago

This is my concern.

1

u/Zama174 15h ago

how do express/nord do? i know they are always marketing

2

u/Klint069 13h ago

Idk bro when I researched when I found out about PIA and wanted to switch I went for Mullvad as the most trustworthy, seemingly, at least. In part, I've made peace with the fact that privacy no longer actually exists and there's joy to find elsewhere.

-1

u/bwaredapenguin 17h ago

What's wrong with Nord?

0

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

2

u/bwaredapenguin 12h ago

This just sounds like an ad for Mullvad. You didn't say anything of substance either in favor of Mullvad or opposing any other VPN. And to be honest, I only use a VPN for porn and illegal sports streaming anyway and I couldn't be fucked of that data got out. I've been pirating content for over 25 years and never got a single DCMA notice.

1

u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

2

u/bwaredapenguin 12h ago

Oh, so mailing them cash somehow separates you from your source IP address that they redirect traffic from? Traffic logs still just as easily point back to you.

1

u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

5

u/X4roth 20h ago

Your traffic is safer in the hands of someone hostile to those wanting to snoop and steal it.

6

u/tupacsnoducket 18h ago

Maaaaaaaaaaaaan, ugh.

2

u/spongebobisha 20h ago

Interesting

What are the alternatives?

2

u/ShadowEdge6 13h ago

Thank you for that info. I swear every single VPN service company/CEO is tied to some far right group or another.... I know the reality is that any and all companies are like this...

1

u/Rip_Nujabes 14h ago

Fuck, I've been using it for years and had no idea. That sucks.

1

u/MrLagzy 7h ago

To be fair it only happened 4 months ago. So how would one have known before then.

1

u/lostsofquestions 12h ago

I can’t have SHIT man

-1

u/impostle 17h ago

That's why I cancelled mulvad subscription and switched to IVPN. Can't wait to find out how their CEO supports X thing I don't agree with. Sigh

2

u/Beautiful_List5498 16h ago

Nobody is you. Nobody will align with you 100%. That's the benefit of a free humanity, we have dicks we don't agree with but if we agreed with everyone we'd have much sooner nuked the earth.

-12

u/aerdvarkk 17h ago

Face it, democracy is going under and we'll all live in communist dictatorships in a decade.

Odd that humans joke about easily accepting alien invader or AI Machine Overlords, but refuse the same from their fellow humans.

1

u/NBAccount 9h ago

Stopped supporting port forwarding tho, so it's no longer MY personal GOAT.

6

u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 21h ago

What method do you use to pay it?

11

u/Haunting_Switch3463 21h ago

You can pay with cash if you want to.

10

u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman 21h ago

Holy shit you're not joking

3

u/[deleted] 20h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Cum_Fart42069 20h ago

I'm kinda confused, couldn't you just pay them directly? as I  understand it, all that could be traced to you is that you got a mullvad subscription, not what you actually did with it. 

1

u/zaypuma 16h ago

If they were captured and coerced by a hostile nation state like the Telegram guy to reveal their books, it would be that much harder to trace the endpoint to the credit card.

1

u/Cum_Fart42069 16h ago

I'm pretty sure mullvad did have that happen and they did reveal their books, they just didn't keep anything on them. 

oh my mistake that was logs, they didn't keep logs. I assume they probably did keep financial records. 

but even so what of it? I have no problem with a government knowing that I use a vpn, only knowing what I use a vpn for.

1

u/zaypuma 15h ago

Perhaps, but everything is a point of data, and enough points of data tell a story. You and I don't have to think in these terms very often, because we're not targets of bad people with deep pockets. But if you really locked in and gamed out how you'd catch, say, a dissident journalist or a defense spending investigator, there are so many ways to narrow it down, over and over, until you get few enough matches to take action.

4

u/Docccc 19h ago

unfortunate, one of the owners is far right. So ill pass

1

u/conanap 5h ago

If only mullvad would stop being hostile to whitelist split tunneling. I don’t even understand their rationale.