[a2128]

During the time of the Soviet Union, it was an urban legend that during supply shortages, Soviet factories would have no real work, but workers needed to keep up the appearance of working, so they would have one line of workers continuously assembling devices, feeding into another line that would continuously disassemble them, all in a loop where nothing gets produced.

In many ways, it feels like we are seeing this today in the digital world. As a specific example, GTA 5 (singleplayer) is a game that has been pirated for about 10 years now, and has received zero content updates in that time, yet somewhat recently (maybe a few years ago?) they updated the game on Steam to have new DRM that constantly conflicts with the Steam Deck sleep mode and kicks you out of the game at random after waking up, or just won't even let you launch if you're without internet and haven't launched it within a few days. Nothing worthwhile was produced by this endeavor, that's for sure.

[pjc50]

I have a slightly different story, told by a Romanian coworker who was old enough to have worked in a factory under Ceaucescu: the workers stole from the factory, all the time, at every level. Managers would be able to take away complete items for "testing"; ordinary line workers would be limited to what parts they could plausibly conceal in their overalls at the end of the shift, then assemble them in their own time.

As someone who used to be a Pirate Party supporter, piracy has to exist in an equilibrium to avoid killing the host, and I don't know if that's possible on today's internet. Both "absurdly onerous DRM making the game unplayable, especially once abandoned" and "Rockstar spends $265m making the game, one person buys a copy, and everyone else pirates it" are bad outcomes. The optimal one is probably somewhere in the "a small number of people who Know A Guy pirate the game, gradually increasing over time" range. But that may not be sustainable either.

[dmos62]

> the workers stole from the factory, all the time, at every level.

I think the context is important. These were people in poverty, in an extremely mismanaged society. You could get very little from actual shops. Most things would have to be bartered for. Stealing from the state accounted for a very important part of peoples' sustenance. My grandfather would try to explain it like this: even if you had money, there wasn't anything to buy. In that sense, even the factory managers were poor. Sarah C. M. Paine says that, in terms of buying power, the First Secretary of USSR's wife was poorer than an average American middle-class wife.

[pjc50]

Yes. Hence the stories of people (Brezhnev?) being astonished and baffled at simply walking into an American supermarket.

Of course, one reason why there wasn't much on the shelves was it had been already stolen by other people closer to the source ...

(something of a generic problem of low trust societies, not specific to Communism. I think we sometimes don't appreciate how valuable a high trust society is to us in the West, which is why people trying to destroy it by looting from the top are particularly dangerous: the rot spreads from the top)

[jsiepkes]

> Yes. Hence the stories of people (Brezhnev?) being astonished and baffled at simply walking into an American supermarket.

Way later even; It was Yeltsin who wandered (it was unplanned) into a grocery store in Texas [1].

[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/happy-yeltsin-supermarket-day-0

[mft_]

Does the stealing come from the low-trust society, or does the societal situation drive people to theft, which we then label ‘low-trust’?

[zorked]

If there are extremely poor, high-trust societies, then trust is its own variable. If not, then it's a post-hoc explanation.

[mft_]

I suspect it's an imperfect correlation. Other factors like level of income inequality, efficacy/harshness of law enforcement, societal cohesion, would likely influence.

[Scroll_Swe]

And still people on this very site and especially on Reddit and TikTok want communism.

[dmos62]

Do they? I've not seen that.

[Scroll_Swe]

Hasan & Mandani is bigger than ever

[mittensc]

communism means taking everything from regular people to give to the elite.

[stirfish]

I think the algorithms have determined that you'll engage with videos about people who want communism.

[Scroll_Swe]

Hasan & Mandani is bigger than ever

[nancyminusone]

I think the algorithms have categorized so correctly, my green-named friend.

[mghackerlady]

Because communism isn't synonymous with marxist-leninism. And even as a leninist, the USSR had several problems that aren't inherent to leninism. The entire way they managed the economy completely ignored the material conditions of the country and attempted to brute force a jump to communism by bypassing both capitalism and socialism to different extents. That's why china started working after Deng, the party realised that the productive elements of capitalism can be useful in building socialism when there wasn't the creation of excess by capitalism as assumed by marx

[Scroll_Swe]

"Soviet was not real communism because bla bla"

The best is when you guys say you want to be like Scandinavia. None of us are communist, we are a market economy like you.

[mghackerlady]

The soviet union objectively wasn't communism though, they didn't claim they were either. They had the goal of developing communism, but failed

[dmos62]

Honestly, this forum expects you to differentiate between socialism, communism, and the Soviet Union. Whatever your views might be.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> attempted to brute force a jump to communism by bypassing both capitalism

USSR had NEP for several years.

> and socialism

This is incorrect. USSR policy was to build socialism, and then, when it was declared to be successfully built, "developed socialism" in 1961.

> That's why china started working after Deng, the party realised that the productive elements of capitalism can be useful in building socialism

You mean they completely abandoned the whole idea? It it is 2026 and China still doesn't have some basic things like free healthcare or a state provided housing (things Soviet people enjoyed for most of USSR existence). In fact, looking at China objectively for a moment while ignoring how the ruling party calls itself it appears to me quite authoritarian capitalist state.

> wasn't the creation of excess by capitalism as assumed by marx

What? Owners of major enterprises in China enjoy exceptional luxury created as an "excess" from their businesses fueled by cheap 996 labor.

Overall, you might want to reconsider engaging in such discussion on this forum that is full of people born in actual Soviet Fucking Union.

[mghackerlady]

> USSR had NEP for several years

they did, and it was good for them. Stalin ended up gutting it and it would end up shooting the country in the foot

>You mean they completely abandoned the whole idea? It it is 2026 and China still doesn't have some basic things like free healthcare or a state provided housing (things Soviet people enjoyed for most of USSR existence). In fact, looking at China objectively for a moment while ignoring how the ruling party calls itself it appears to me quite authoritarian capitalist state.

I won't deny that they are authoritarian, I disagree with them on a lot of things regarding how they handle political freedom. They don't have free housing or healthcare, but the average person is doing fine. The healthcare isn't expensive and people can afford to "own" (they don't own it in the capitalist sense but own it in the "it's mine, I can do what I want, and don't have to worry about rent" way).

> What? Owners of major enterprises in China enjoy exceptional luxury created as an "excess" from their businesses fueled by cheap 996 labor.

I also won't deny that. It is a problem that the chinese government is currently trying to deal with. Meanwhile, the production of the goods they got rich on has built up chinas economy and created industrial capability that wouldn't exist otherwise. It's kinda hard to redistribute wealth when there isn't any to redistribute, which is ultimately (when combined with other factors) why the USSR failed

>Overall, you might want to reconsider engaging in such discussion on this forum that is full of people born in actual Soviet Fucking Union. Although it is kinda entertaining reading champagne socialist opinions of western hipsters fancying themselves left-wing (because they read couple of pages of wikipedia and voted for Bernie, who upon returning from his getting-drunk-in-a-sauna-with-party-aparatchiks trip to Soviet Union in 88 was telling you how good of a country it was when Soviet Union was actually completely falling apart by then).

again, I'm not denying your gripes with the soviet union. It was objectively falling apart and was managed very poorly. I dislike your categorization of me as a "champagne socialist" who "voted for bernie and read wikipedia" as those are both objectively incorrect (aside from the wikipedia bit, as it is where I started unraveling my misconceptions about marx and socialism before moving on to actual theory). I didn't vote for bernie and while his reforms are undoubtedly good for the working class, it's putting a bandaid on the gaping gunshot wound that is capitalism. I'm also not a champagne socialist, I don't have a lot of money and don't really like champagne anyway

[AnthonyMouse]

> Both "absurdly onerous DRM making the game unplayable, especially once abandoned" and "Rockstar spends $265m making the game, one person buys a copy, and everyone else pirates it" are bad outcomes.

Fortunately the second one isn't a real thing. There are many games that have already been cracked, or that never had any DRM to begin with, and there are still large numbers of people who pay for them. Because they want the publisher to continue making games more than they want to avoid paying <1% of their annual income for something.

Which is in turn why the DRM not only doesn't work but is actively harmful to the publisher. Getting people to want to pay is a lot easier when you're not actively pissing them off. Meanwhile the DRM gets cracked anyway and then you're worse off than when you started, because not only can they still pirate it, now more of them want to.

[SXX]

In Soviet times in Russia there been rhyme:

   Тащи с завода каждый гвоздь - ты здесь хозяин а не гость.

Which is literally translates as:

   Take every nail from the factory post,
   You aren't a visitor, you are the host!

And yeah almost everyone was stealing even if it would be things they absolutely not needed. Then you can change it for something you need or use it weird way in your home repairs.

This is how some people end up with parts of ICBM or space ships as part of their country datcha landscape design.

After all propaganda loved to tell that everything is owned by people's.

[fl0ki]

Workers seizing the means of production is out, workers seizing the product is in.

[PowerElectronix]

most games make a very good chunk of their lifetime revenue during their first weeks. If you can avoid piracy during that period (through wishlisting, preorders and such) piracy is not going to eat into your revenue significantly.

On the other hand, having strongly anticonsumer DRM will certainly affect sales. If you have a loss of performance or make it too much a hassle (mandatory connections, updates, etc) that will eat into your revenue, and twice as you are paying money to third parties to have consumers be shun away.

[wildzzz]

That assembly line workers are constantly being kept fresh on their skills and processes. If you can't get some component for 3 months, new units can almost immediately be pushed out of the factory when the component does arrive. If you bring on new workers, you train them on the disassembly process first and then move them onto the assembly line once they understand the construction.

The only downsides are paying the factory workers to spin their wheels and the 2x wear and tear on tools and replacement costs of any components damaged by the constant handling.

The US does something similar with the national defense manufacturers. We don't necessarily need more of a vehicle but if that factory sits dormant for 2 years until we do need replacements, it's going to take a long time to train workers. And you run a risk of losing any tribal knowledge those workers carried. You can lower production rates so you aren't buying too many things at once but keeping a small crew busy will allow you to quickly ramp production if necessary.

[close04]

> The US does something similar with the national defense manufacturers.

You also see this with the European space industry especially in the rocket building. A lot of money is poured into the industry even if there are no massive returns or advancements just in order to keep the people and skills. If you let these slip, rebooting the sector would be a decades long affair so doing busy work sometimes is the better option.

Heck, even most large tech companies do this type of busy work assignment. They hire en-masse but many of those people are never really put to work. Their greatest value is that they stay out of the competition's hands, if there is a massive project coming up the people are already there, and they can be dumped in case of emergency to prop up the stick price.

[matheusmoreira]

> they updated the game on Steam to have new DRM that constantly conflicts with the Steam Deck sleep mode and kicks you out of the game at random after waking up, or just won't even let you launch if you're without internet and haven't launched it within a few days

Meanwhile the "pirates" enjoy a superior experience. They don't have to put up with this nonsense. They can use the devices they want. They can install the games on as many machines as they want. They can play the games offline. Their games are faster because there's no obfuscated nonsense code running. They don't have to suffer idiotic invasive kernel mode DRM nonsense on their computers, software whose only difference from literal malware is legal boilerplate in a document that nobody reads but that everybody theoretically accepted when they fast forwarded through the installation screens furiously clicking next so they could play the game they paid for.

Makes me feel like a total moron for buying games every single time.

[dasyatidprime]

The “keep up the appearance of working” story feels like a misleading comparison to me, because the motivations are pretty much reversed. In the hypothetical factory, there's an external social element requiring the appearance of working, some observer to whom it looks good that this is happening: the way I read it, the assemblers and disassemblers may well be cooperating with each other to produce that appearance, so that the absurdity is visible from within (though they could also just be unaware of each other's assigned tasks). In the case of anti-copying technologies, game publishers trying to guard their revenue stream, and other groups trying to distribute or play unauthorized copies, are adversaries whose tactics create relative losses for each other that can bleed into the surrounding society: seems bad that it impacts other users / risks jobs and livelihood / is various forms of unfair (depending on one's moral feelings around which actions are ‘justified’), but their individual actions are incentive-aligned from within the conflict.

[devwastaken]

DRM authors and implementors know it doesnt work. The decision is made by people in suits based on traditional business culture that doesnt fit the digital world. The same people making denuvo are also the ones breaking it.

[dasyatidprime]

Are you grouping the implementors with the crackers because they understand the limitations of the technology, or are you saying they're directly working with each other to scam the publishers and/or audience (and that this is sufficiently common to overturn the whole framing—a conflict can have some proportion of double agents and defectors while centrally remaining a conflict)? If the former, even supposing that many individual implementors and crackers would agree that the technology is inefficient/breakable/whatever, I still think the driving conflict that causes the implementation and the cracking to happen at all is between a broad cluster of agents around the game publishing activity (including managers, investors, game developers and artists, and more indirectly DRM implementors, integrators, and salespeople) and a broad cluster of agents around the unauthorized copying activity (including people who do ripping and DRM cracks on a technical level, distribution channels, and people who look to those channels to play games without buying them the authorized way). That there are principal–agent inconsistencies within each cluster seems like more of a sideshow; a war doesn't stop being a war because enough of the soldiers have realized that their weapons don't work very well, or because they realize that in some other world they'd have been on the same side.

[vintagedave]

> DRM authors and implementors know it doesnt work

Really? I thought Denuvo (this one) and maybe others were famous for being genuinely effective. Unless I'm muddling them up (I have memory from reading articles a few years ago) this was a library that outright prevented piracy as well as cheats for significant periods of time for a wide variety of games.

[bombcar]

I've heard that story (or a similar one) about Boeing on a cost-plus contract in the War; one group of employees would dump screws together, and the night shift would sort them apart.

[b65e8bee43c2ed0]

the management must've forgot they literally gave gta 5 away on epic store like 5 years ago, lol.

[motbus3]

If you notice, if you said is correct, this means it would be incredibly easy to yank your ownership of GTA 5 simply by retiring denuvo related account.

All that would be publicised would be " GTA 5 denuvo key license is now over" and people would not know

[dwroberts]

GTA V got a major update last year that included eg DLSS support. It would perhaps make sense if the DRM changed at that point?