If you consider Marketplace its own product it’s a massive win but they haven’t monetized it beyond some very ineffective post boosting and advertising. I honestly think they could charge 10% of list price for items over $50, plus membership levels that reduce or remove listing fees. and make a significant amount of money.
I use marketplace to search for cars, and the algorithm is beyond frustrating. I just want some decent filters. How a company that big can create something so terrible is beyond me.
Oddly enough - facebook groups are not terrible for very niche hobbies. Not sure what makes them attractive, but the groups are there. Thinking about it - there is really no alternative. My Retro Computing group is there, car owners group is there, very niche metal bands' posters group is there.
I know what you mean, but I am willing to lose that content, in that form. Similar to the way I have used Instagram for a decade but have no idea what a reel is and ignore them.
I've deleted the app from my phone. When I want to watch YT I open Brave, which blocks shorts and promoted videos in search. As an added benefit watching videos feels like a slight chore and is not frictionless.
On my Mac I also use Brave and have allowlisted only the YouTube domain and Google auth. No shorts, no search spam, and just slightly inconvenient.
I have done similar grafting experiments, although at present I am navigating a change in motivation. I got into apples through cider, but gave up alcohol this year. (As an aside, this was a long time coming and absolutely worth some small sacrifices!)
While I’m interested in heritage apples, I think it’s probably more important to find and cultivate wild apples showing attributes that can keep them hardy in 21st century climate. An apple that thrived over a century ago depended on conditions that are different today and are continuing to change.
> I think it’s probably more important to find and cultivate wild apples showing attributes that can keep them hardy in 21st century climate.
The neat thing is that these tend to be self-selecting! These older orchards drop a lot of fruit and can self-propagate new seedlings. The ones that manage to survive are the ones well adapted to current local conditions.
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