Medium.com says #1 reason to use Windows over Mac is for pirated software

[CrumbDumpster]

Back story (feel free to skip): I wanted to make a video for my channel, comparing 4 systems. A Mac Studio, a Windows laptop, a pre-built desktop and a custom built desktop, all at the same budget, with a set list of minimum requirements for RAM, storage, etc. and then benchmark them, as well as explain pros and cons of each. So I searched for other videos to see if anyone had already done it and if they'd done it recently enough that there would be no point in me doing this. (basically, since M2 release). Anyway...

...I found this strange article on Medium.com
https://medium.com/@the.architect.vibhu/pc-vs-mac-which-one-should-you-go-for-63c2486cce49
"PC vs Mac — which one should you go for"
 
For context, it was written in August 2023 by Architect-Vibhu.

I just kinda skimmed through it and it was just an opinion piece. It was kind of poorly written, filled with pretty broad commentary on the pros and cons of each set up, a bunch of ##s, really inconsistent formatting and, at one point, a suggestion that there might be a video version of the article when it says "But if you are curious about why, keep watching."
So, at first, I thought I was reading a transcript from a YouTube video.
But then I got to the "When to Use a Windows System:" section and the number 1 reason was:

"1. Usage of pirated software is straightforward here, unless you need software that’s exclusive to Mac."

Now, I haven't used MacOS enough to know if this is true. But it seemed a strange claim for a fairly large media business to include at all, let alone in top spot. So I started re-reading the article and found a bunch of strange comments. Here are some examples:
"Consider the M2 only if your requirements cannot be met by the M1 or M2 Pro chip."

"- Do you professionally edit videos for clients?", "Are you a motion designer or a VFX artist?" well then, you better "- Invest in 16GB of RAM for long-term use and get the MacBook with a 1TB built-in SSD." Yep, that'll be great for big video projects. /s
 

By this point, I knew I was reading an article written by AI. Complete with "## Continuing:" left in there, presumably crtl+c, ctrl+v'd from when the chatbot hit it's word limit before starting again. While the entire article is written in a pretty boring way, it should be noted that the ChatGPT part was the most well written section. The article's title is missing a capital letter and a question mark. The intro is also missing capital letters and there are spelling mistakes in the sign off. 

Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT to write an article on the same topic. The talking points were near identical though I couldn't get it to talk about piracy without specifically requesting it. 

So, I guess this is journalism in 2024 (well, 2023 and the future). Ask ChatGPT to write the article. Copy, Paste and don't bother proof reading because who cares about the reputation of your publication. Then slap on a poorly worded title, intro and outro, riddled with spelling and grammar errors and call it a day. 

And all of this creative writing from the same Author who brought us "How to be more creative", which I haven't read but have just seen that it references itself as a video in the opening line.
https://medium.com/@the.architect.vibhu/how-to-be-more-creative-5669fda39c56

[ccnow]

Medium is a blogging platform though - this is the commentary of the user who posted it, not the site itself. It's also important to keep in mind that anyone can make an account and post on Medium, you don't need to be a professional...you could do it.

 

I just think you're holding this random blog post on a public blogging platform to a bizarrely high standard when you likely wouldn't scrutinize a Facebook post the same way. 

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, CrumbDumpster said:

...I found this strange article on Medium.com
...

By this point, I knew I was reading an article written by AI.

Medium is a UGC site (User Generated Content), it is not a curated site.

 

Remember Huffington Post? Buzzfeed acquired it after it passed through several hands. Then Buzzfeed fired everyone from "Buzzfeed" and tried to breathe life into HuffPo. Huffpo was basically "Medium" except the people posting were indie journalists. Or at least called themselves one.

 

This is a basically the same thing seen here. Medium is suffering from the AI UGC disease, much like Youtube.

 

ChatGPT creates low quality content. Most LLM's do.

 

Watch me:

https://chat.lmsys.org/

Prompt: PC vs Mac — which one should you go for

If I had not said this was a LLM, you'd think A copied B or B copied A.

Now, B sounds a lot like a wiki article.

A is GPT-4

 

This is how LLM's work. They "autocomplete" sentences.  Notice how a lot of the same words appear in the same order.

 

The fact that "piracy" came up in that medium article, is probably because the article "author" was incapable of understanding the output and is just putting dangerous garbage out. Like 5-minute crafts does on youtube.

 

Content farms do not care if the content is accurate, or can harm someone, or even harm the platform it's posted to. 

[seanondemand]

That’s like saying that “Xbox Live says I Fucked Your Mom Last Night”

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, CrumbDumpster said:

But it seemed a strange claim for a fairly large media business to include at all, let alone in top spot. So I started re-reading the article and found a bunch of strange comments. Here are some examples:

As others have said, medium is a blogging platform. You're not reading content endorsed or written by the owners of Medium. You're reading content posted by random users. This is like reading a YouTube comment and saying "I can't believe YouTube and Google wrote this". They didn't. 

 

Likewise, this comment is not written by LinusTechTips, despite appearing on their website. 

[Mark Kaine]

19 hours ago, ccnow said:

also important to keep in mind that anyone can make an account and post on Medium, you don't need to be a professional...

So, like any other platform on the internet planet? got it, ty for telling me! *giggles*

[Mark Kaine]

19 hours ago, ccnow said:

I just think you're holding this random blog post on a public blogging platform to a bizarrely high standard

or maybe they just thought the absurdity is funny, hence the "/s" and words like strange, also mention its an "opinion piece" etc...  

 

i know some people have no sense for sarcastic content, they just can't tell if something is serious or meant more comically,  and no it doesn't matter if on the internet or in person,  they flat out don't get it, period lol.

 

not sure what to do about it tbh.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

So, like any other platform on the internet planet? got it, ty for telling me! *giggles*

There are a lot of sites that doesn't let everyone sign up and post content. 

The person you replied to was just making it clear that anyone can post on medium.com if they want, which is not the case on plenty of other websites.

It's not like you can go on Reuters and post a bunch of articles if you want. 

 

 

13 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

or maybe they just thought the absurdity is funny, hence the "/s" and words like strange, also mention its an "opinion piece" etc...  

 

i know some people have no sense for sarcastic content, they just can't tell if something is serious or meant more comically,  and no it doesn't matter if on the internet or in person,  they flat out don't get it, period lol.

 

not sure what to do about it tbh.

That's a very strange way of interesting their post. The /s is clearly meant to be the sarcastic sentence preceding it, not the entire post. If anything, the /s just further enforces the idea that OP thought this was a serious post endorsed and published by medium.com.

[CrumbDumpster]

On 1/3/2024 at 3:29 PM, Kisai said:

Medium is a UGC site (User Generated Content), it is not a curated site.

I never use LTTforums so I haven't checked back but you're right. I didn't know it was 'User Generated Content'. But I can also see that they offer writers to become a partner with the only real requirement being that they are a member (free) and have posted 1 article in the last 3 months. 

 

On 1/3/2024 at 5:23 PM, seanondemand said:

That’s like saying that “Xbox Live says I Fucked Your Mom Last Night”

Except xbox live donesn't offer 'partnership' to those people. 
 

On 1/3/2024 at 5:49 PM, LAwLz said:

As others have said, medium is a blogging platform. You're not reading content endorsed or written by the owners of Medium. You're reading content posted by random users. This is like reading a YouTube comment and saying "I can't believe YouTube and Google wrote this". They didn't. 

 

Likewise, this comment is not written by LinusTechTips, despite appearing on their website. 

Again, LTT doesn't pay ad revenue to you for the comment. Also LTT doesn't claim " In a world where the most sensational and surface-level stories often win, we’re building a system that rewards depth, nuance, and time well spent. A space for thoughtful conversation more than drive-by takes, and substance over packaging."
 

[seanondemand]

Just take the L man, you really didn’t need to bump this post.