Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.

The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.

I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.

Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.

Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)

It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.

I like the classic Usenet “Micro$oft.” Producers of Microshaft Wind-blows.

Yeah - I’ve noticed Big Lots (similar kind of store) hasn’t been that much better than Walmart or whichever store the items first came from.

Clearance sales also seem to getting worse across the board. My Walmart puts dented cans and packages with missing stuff out for maybe $1-2 off at most.

Isn’t it wonderful that google SEO algorithm updates essentially killed off independent forums and blogs? Half of my search results are Reddit and completely irrelevant AI spam.

For as long as it lasts. It’s clear they’re neglecting it - features like chat don’t work well. Not that the app isn’t a broken glitchy mess either.