This is the Facebook playbook: you lure in publishers by promising them a traffic funnel ("post excerpts and links and we'll show them to people, including people who never asked to see them"), and then the rug-pull: "Post everything here, don't link to your own site. Become a commodity supplier to our platform. Abandon all your own ways of making money. Become entirely subject to the whims of our recommendation system."

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Today was ... interesting. If you followed me for the past months over on the shitbird site, you might have seen a bunch of angry German words, lots of graphs, and the occassional news paper, radio, or TV snippet with yours truely. Let me explain.

In Austria, inflation is way above the EU average. There's no end in sight. This is especially true for basic needs like energy and food.

Our government stated in May that they'd build a food price database together with the big grocery chains. But..

Game/toy manufacturer HABA has filed for "insolvency" (I'm guessing the German equivalent of bankruptcy).

I don't believe that HABA will vanish, but they will likely sell their brand and assets to someone else, who may or may not continue the path they've taken.

It's a sad milestone for a company with hits like Rhino Hero. That yellow box is iconic to so many family gamers.

#boardgames

https://observatorial.com/news/economy/510171/german-toy-manufacturer-haba-filed-for-bankruptcy/