TIL: Rotten Tomatoes is owned by Comcast (75%) and Warner Bros. Discovery (25%)

And IMDB is owned by Amazon

Along with good reads
- And many bad reads
I remember when IMDb was fully free and it was normal to download the entire database to run locally on one's own computer.
- Im another 10 or 15 years we're going to be trying to explain how it was possible to create things just for enjoyment to be part of something, and people will think we're conspiracy wack jobs for suggesting anything was functional before Googazon made everything we interact with.
- ok unc (same, the good ol days)
That's why we have tmdb.org themoviedb ;)

No wonder I find their scores so unreliable

Edit: I also now kind of want to do a web scraping project and see if there's any correlation between scores and whether the media in question is owned by Comcast or Warner Bros

I used to work at the Comcast Center in Philly. In 2010 they won the Consumerist's "Worst Company in the World" contest (after being the runner-up the previous year). The following year they sent out a company-wide email asking employees and contractors to vote for any other company. They were bailed out by BP and Deepwater Horizon, "fortunately".
They would also regularly send out emails telling employees to download the Comcast and Xfinity apps and rate them 5 stars. I would just assume there's a correlation between rotten tomato scores and ownership of the media.
Wouldn't it be nice to think that proving they were rigging the ratings, would stop them doing it?
Yea, I haven't been using them a lot but they were still somewhat reliable until a couple years ago when their ratings started feeling off. The last straw for me was two years ago when I actually convinced a bunch of friends to see the barbie movie based on RT scores. Never again.
it was wierd how they are praising crappy shows with such high praise, now it make sense. like the reason seasons of ISAIP, and the shitty apple movie of rob mythic quest.

and metacritic is owned by fandom

Fuck Fandom. They recently put registration mandatory even to read comments on a page.
- Fun fact, fandom is made by the same guy who made wikipedia. He’s a bit of a capitalist brain.
And in turn Fandom is owned by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales. Which makes me uncomfortable in strange ways.
- from wikipedia: Fandom was acquired in 2018 by TPG Inc. and Jon Miller through Integrated Media Co.
- And in turn Fandom is owned by Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales. Which makes me uncomfortable in strange ways.
  https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/03/fandom-acquires-seven-brands-from-red-ventures-gamespot-tv-guide/
  Lauren Forristal 8:24 AM PDT · October 3, 2022
  "...one-stop shop for fans across their entertainment and gaming journey,” said Perkins Miller, CEO of Fandom, in a statement. Miller had become CEO in February 2019, as the company rebranded from its former name, Wikia, and began to update its core platform technology.
  edit:
  https://www.tpg.com/news-and-insights/wikia-incs-fandom-announces-investment-led-media-veteran-jon
  Feb.20.2018
  Nikki Flynn nflynn@fandom.com
  Luke Barrett media@tpg.com
  "As part of the investment, Miller will join Wikia, Inc. as Co-chairman with current Chairman and Founder Jimmy Wales. Miller brings a history of leadership at media and technology companies such as IAC, AOL, Viacom, and News Corporation and Fox Inc., where he most recently served as Chief Digital Officer and Chairman and CEO, Digital Media Group of News Corporation. Wales is also founder of Wikipedia and founder, Chair Emeritus and Board Member of The Wikimedia Foundation."
  edit2: formating

Does anyone actually like Comcast? I feel like absolutely 0 consumers, no matter the political background, enjoy the Comcast experience.

My most recent Comcast crashout™️ was how their router does port forwarding.

First, you have to pay an extra fee per month to get more than 1TB monthly data usage (crazy)

Next, you can't change the default DNS server (annoying)

Third, I had this random issue where the gateway would randomly force clients to be ipv6 only, and sometimes ipv4 only. (Diabolical)

But their port forwarding was the worst.

I, as an advanced user, go to the admin panel. EVERYBODY who knows what tf port forwarding is and why they'd want to do it would use this admin panel.

I go to advanced. Wait 5 seconds for their god awful panel to load. I click "port forwarding". while I wait, I reflect on the fact that this panel has a 6mb JavaScript bundle for absolutely no reason. And then, the page loads.

"Port forwarding has been moved to the My xFi page -- some link -- manage your router easier than ever!" - I DONT WANT EASIER THAN EVER!!!! I AM PORT FORWARDING. I AM NOT A 79 YEAR OLD GRANDPA WHO NEEDS AN APP TO RESTART THE WIFI.

Whatever. I go to the page. Log in to the mandatory account that I shouldn't need, because a router is independent of external services (or at least should be). After I log in and download the 8 gigabyte JavaScript bundle, a new page appears. "Download the xFi app for easier access". I HAVE TO PULL OUT MY PHONE AND DOWNLOAD SOME RANDOM APP FOR "EASY ACCESS" TO A FEATURE THAT ONLY PEOPLE WHO DONT CARE ABOUT EASE OF ACCESS WOULD USE!

I download the app. I log in. Get redirected to a WebView. I log in twice. Finally.

My god, this is the most atrocious app I've ever seen. No dark theme, probably not native kotlin or java or anything. The backstack makes no sense, some pages will exit out of two simultaneously.

I finally find the port forwarding page. I click "Add a port forward".

Instead of forwarding to an IP address, you have to select from a list of NAMED devices. The router isn't detecting the hostname of my home server, and the router won't let me assign a new IP address.

I desperately try and fix that, but it turns out the list updates on a fixed timer of 2 minutes, where it suddenly appears.

I click Add port forward again, and select my home server. I added port 443. Suddenly, the router seems to reboot completely, which was strange. After it finally reboots, I add port 222. IT REBOOTS AGAIN! THIS APP MANUALLY REBOOTS THE ROUTER FOR EVERY SINGLE CHANGE MADE TO PORT FORWARDS!

Luckily those were the only ports I planned to port forward.

Later while debugging this terrible router, it turns out FOR SOME REASON OTHER LESS ADVANCED OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE HERE! I CAN MANAGE UPNP, DMZ ZONES, WHAT IS HAPPENING

Thank you for reading my rant. I needed to scream into the void about this.

What's funny is later on injust gave up and started to use cloudflare tunnels, nullifying the need for port forwarding. Maybe I should just go completely ipv6 too.

I used to work at Comcast as a programmer (consultant, never worked directly for them). The only surprising thing about your story is that you were eventually able to do what you were trying to do. Software and apps at Comcast are overseen by a constantly rotating cast of executives and managers, and are mostly written by a constantly rotating cast of contractors, most of whom are provided by InfoSys (who provide workers that can only stay in the country for six months at a time). A few people here and there are competent but it makes no difference as nobody is involved with any project for long and documentation is nearly nonexistent.
I was only there for a few years, but by the end I (a consultant grunt) was constantly having to explain to vice presidents why certain things were even being done in the first place. For example, I had been put to work ensuring that Comcast's suite of apps passed accessibility testing (mainly seeing - pun intended - that their apps were usable by blind and low-vision people). I was on my third VP by the end of this process, and she asked why we cared whether or not blind people could use these apps. Um, possibly because we faced million-dollar-a-month fines from the FCC if our apps failed the accessibility tests?
Fun fact about all the InfoSys contractors: I was there before the second Comcast tower in Philadelphia was completed, working at the company's HQ. There were enormous numbers of InfoSys employees working in the building. You would go to meet someone to talk about some issue, and there would be 7 or 8 people working in an office meant for one person. And this was on nearly every floor in the building. The scuttlebutt was that Comcast executives had gotten mightily sick of there being so many Indians in the building (even Indian executives said this was the case) and that they had commissioned the second tower (called the Comcast Technology Center) to get most of them out of their HQ.
- So, the cheap assholes who run Comcast are also racist. What a not surprise.
Your first mistake was using a Comcast router. I just use a Surfboard to connect and got my own router that I have 100% control over.
- What's a Surfboard? I currently run my own router connected to Google Fiber's required router and am wondering if there's a benefit of some sort using the Surfboard.
As someone who's never had an issue with Comcast. I still hate comcast for the pure fact that they have a monopoly in my area.
Terrifying
I am so sorry. Comcast is truly a scourge
My first IT adjacent job was remote support for Support Dot Com who contracted me out to Comcast. This was just as they were trying to get away from the maligned 'comcast' brand by calling everything 'Xfinity' like they think their customers are idiots. Well, turns out they mostly are. I don't even think I lasted six months. Despite having the best metrics in the company, I just couldn't take the abuse, or the lack of downtime between calls.
Anyway the point is you can call up Comcast and have them put your router into 'bridge mode' making it essentially an expensive modem, then connect your own router.
This is why i stopped using an ISP router.. And went eiht pfsense. Last time i tried to change a port forward my wifi went out for a whole week before they even answered. I gave u at that point. They think you're absolutely brain dead, they treat you like you're absolutely brain dead. And they themselves are absolutely brain dead. I had enough. So I've installed my own shit and i haven't had an outage since then. Surprise surprise?
So you baited everyone with a Rotten Tomatoes title just to bitch about your Comcast Router?
- This guy is not the OP.

The context “Rotten Tomatoes” primed my brain to interpret the (75%) as a score, and I was like “There’s no way Comcast is even in double digits.”

same... it took me a second to re-calibrate the context

I believe the CEO is a former Disney exec as well. I remember reading up about this when they were messing with all the review scores for the Star Wars sequels.

Why doesn't this surprise me? A media conglomerate buying a media rating website so it can control the stats.

Ironically the source of much of their liquidity.
Big if true

Fuck

I've been using Tastedive which recommends movies, music and tv based on what you've watched before, I've found it much more reliable than reviews and scores.

I use Trakt.tv (and/or one of its many apps, currently Hobi) that does the same.

I use letterboxd for movies

Serializd for shows

Storygraph for books.

All owned by individuals as far as I know.

I always knew it might have been rotten!

Doctorow is never wrong.

So that's why their critic reviews are like that

No wonder their taste is trash