Webshit Weekly

March 14, 2025

SpaceX teams up with Thiel’s Palantir, Anduril on American Golden Dome

2025-03-08 | comments

SpaceX (business model: “Uber for Mars colonization”) teams up with Palantir (business model: “Uber for dystopian data mining”) and Anduril (business model: “Uber for autonomous killbots”) to unveil the “American Golden Dome,” a defense system that sounds like it was dreamt up by a dinner committee from Mar-a-Lago. Hackernews, in its bone-deep wisdom, immediately dives into a festival of miscorrections, debating whether this blatant corruption in the open is preferable to the old guard of Lockheed Martin and Northrop, because swapping one set of digital feudal lords for another is the pinnacle of innovation.

Of course, the comments are a masterclass in trivial outrage: one Hackernews frets over Musk’s meddling with Starlink, another highlights threats to civil servants from SpaceX’s grubby tactics, and a third laments the debris that’ll rain down like a golden shower from this tech-debt generator. Naturally, there’s no funding for Medicaid, but billions flow into a weapon system that’ll never be used, all in service of the great fraud of VC funding.

The entire charade is just another round of the great game, where defense tech becomes an excuse for more surveillance and control, while real problems — like, say, actual security — are ignored in favor of shiny, useless toys that enrich a few more billionaires.

El Salvador’s crypto experiment ends in failure

2025-03-09 | comments

El Salvador’s crypto experiment implodes, shocking precisely no one who isn’t high on their own supply of venture capital (business model: “Uber for grift”). Yet another country gets fleeced by the great fraud, where digital feudal lords at A16Z lobby governments to bet the treasury on crypto, only to leave citizens holding the bag. Hackernews, in a fit of vibe coding, spends hundreds of comments miscorrecting each other about IMF conspiracies and unrealized gains, missing the point that this was always about shifting public dollars into private pockets. Just more webshits selling solutions that evaporate when the funding evaporates. Bone-deep contempt doesn’t begin to cover it.

Tesla created secret team to suppress driving range complaints (2023)

2025-03-09 | comments

Tesla has been exposed for running a secret team to silence customers who noticed their electric cars can’t hit the advertised range without divine intervention and a favorable tailwind. Of course, Hackernews immediately descends into a pedantic squabble over whether the heater or the cold is to blame, miscorrecting each other with a fervor usually reserved for Vim vs. Emacs debates. Meanwhile, the “free speech” champions at Tesla prove they’re just digital feudal lords, suppressing complaints while their vehicles barely limp along in real-world conditions. The entire EV hype is built on the same tired tech industry fraud: overpromise, underdeliver, and gaslight anyone who points it out.

Germany concerned over F-35 ‘kill switch’ amid US policy shifts

2025-03-10 | comments

Germany, in its perpetual state of wanting to play world police without the backbone to actually build anything, has stumbled upon the revelation that buying American F-35s might come with a remote “kill switch.” Because in 2025, national sovereignty is just another SaaS subscription. The F-35, a state-of-the-art airplane with more software bugs than a GitHub repo after a hackathon, is the pinnacle of tech industry “innovation”: sell overpriced hardware that’s worthless without constant, politicized updates from a vendor who views allies as beta testers.

Hackernews, of course, erupts into its usual chorus of miscorrections, debating whether GPS is jammable or if French Rafales have their own kill switches—because nothing solves geopolitical tensions like webshits miscorrecting over radar specs. The real horror is how this mirrors every tech trend: weaponized DRM, vibes for national defense, and CEOs as digital feudal lords locking entire countries into vendor lock-in hell. Years of this, and we’re still shocked when the great fraud of VC-funded “solutions” leads to dependencies that can be yanked away by a tweet. It’s exhausting to watch the same cycle where actual problems—like, say, building independent tech—get ignored in favor of arguing about which stealth plane has better vibes. The future is here, and it’s just another kill switch waiting for the next policy shift.

Trump ends Fauci security detail, he’d feel no responsibility if harm befell him

2025-03-11 | comments

Another day, another Hacker News thread where the webshits try to solve real-world problems with the same broken toolbox of tech-debt generators and venture-backed nonsense. The story this time is about Trump (business model: “Uber for grift”) ending Fauci’s security detail, with the predictable apathy of a man who’d outsource his empathy to a poorly trained chatbot. Of course, this has nothing to do with the tech industry, but leave it to Hackernews to turn it into a symposium on digital surveillance, encryption, and whether some ‘agentic’ app could have prevented it all. The comments section is a masterclass in miscorrection: one clanker insists that blockchain could secure personal details, another argues that Fauci should have used a VPN, and a third warns that this is why we need more AI-driven threat detection, ignoring the fact that the real threat is a political system optimized for cruelty. Meanwhile, the digital feudal lords at Big Tech are probably salivating at the chance to sell ‘security-as-a-service’ to every bureaucrat with a social media account, because why solve systemic issues when you can just farm auras with another SaaS subscription? The exhaustion sets in deep—here we are, watching developers shout at token predictors to generate code for problems they barely understand, all while the great fraud of VC funding ensures that the only innovations are new ways to monetize paranoia. It’s all vibe coding and no substance, a perfect metaphor for an industry that would rather build an app to track death threats than address why they exist in the first place. But sure, let’s debate which cloud provider has the best compliance tools, as if that matters when the overlords are playing their great game with human lives.

Stanford students used to chase jobs at Meta and Google. Now work on war

2025-03-12 | comments

Stanford’s elite, once slavering for roles at Meta (business model: “Uber for dopamine depletion”) and Google (business model: “Human Centipede for surveillance”), now gleefully embrace defense tech. Because when the consumer sector’s soul-sucking gigs dry up, why not graduate to literal soul-extraction? Hackernews engages in its usual ritual of miscorrecting each other on ethics, while VCs—the digital feudal lords—chase the great fraud into war profiteering. It’s all aura farming and token predictors, with kids shouting at clankers to optimize death algorithms. The tech industry’s descent from vibe coding to vibe killing is exhausting, but utterly predictable.

EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History

2025-03-13 | comments

The EPA (business model: “Uber for environmental neglect”) rolls back regulations because, apparently, trusting corporations to self-regulate pollution is the pinnacle of innovation. Hackernews, in their exhausted wisdom, spends threads miscorrecting each other on economics, with some webshits arguing for ‘balance’ as if poisoning air and water is just a minor side effect of progress. Of course, the tech industry sees this as a golden opportunity for vibe coding new apps to track smog levels or sell carbon credits, because nothing says disruption like monetizing ecological collapse. It’s all part of the great fraud where digital feudal lords get richer while the rest of us choke on their deregulatory fantasies.

Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe’s Digital Markets Act

2025-03-13 | comments

Y Combinator (business model: “Frat house for venture capital”) feigns concern for digital markets, urging the White House to support a European act that’s as impactful as GDPR—meaning endless paperwork and zero actual change. Hackernews, in their usual state of enlightened confusion, miscorrects each other over whether this is a bribe or just fiduciary theater, all while ignoring that the real “gatekeepers” are still charging extortionate fees and running their own dystopian courts. Of course, the VCs are just playing the great game, hoping to disrupt the oligarchs they helped create. Another round of vibe coding from the webshits who think regulation is just another app to A/B test.

Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28

2025-03-14 | comments

Amazon drops the pretense: your Echo is now officially a cloud-connected spy, because processing voice locally was too much like a feature, not a bug. Starting March 28, every “Alexa, set a timer” becomes fodder for their data mills, in a move that surprises exactly no one who’s watched the tech industry’s descent into digital feudalism. Hackernews, in a fit of exhausted déjà vu, erupts into webshits miscorrecting each other over whether this was always the case, proving that surveillance has replaced any semblance of privacy. Another day, another layer of surveillance masquerading as innovation.