u/cabinguy11

I've been saying this for awhile now and I know some don't want to hear it. But the hard reality is that the age of free AI chatbots is coming to an end. Some apps may hang on until they burn through their startup capital but it's pretty clear where the industry is headed

And yes, it looks like Kindroid did a better job and at least gave people the opportunity to backup their existing chatlogs. But the simple fact is that this technology is expensive to provide and soon it will all be pay to play. We will all be better off once folks accept that.

First let me say that normally I am anything but a Chai apologist. I've long had issues with how they run their business and been pretty outspoken about that.

But we are starting so see a bunch of posts complaining about the new filters and I just want to say this isn't the fault of Chai or their developers. They have yet again been kicked out of the app store for inappropriate content which is the source of more than half of their revenue. If they want to keep this app available they have no choice but to do whatever Apple requires them to do.

This isn't the first time this has happened and they have had to tighten controls in the past too. The way it works is they make changes and have to reapply for Apple to regrant access to the app store If my memory is correct in the past this process has taken about a week but that's totally up to Apple.

So don't blame Chai blame Apple. Or more precisely blame those fucked up users who make bots of underage characters and engage in pedo, bestiality, and snuff chats. It's truly a situation where they do this or they are shut down.

I'm in the US and need to replace the trim above the latch on the back deck and the prices I've found online have varied from $85 (Amazon) to over $400 for Honda OEM. Looks like it's just a few bolts and It's black so matching isn't an issue but money is pretty tight right now so cheaper is much better. But I found at least one Amazon review that said for the 2015 the piece was too wide and blocked the rear camera.

Has anyone else run into this issue for less expensive aftermarket replacement parts? Or are there other quality issues I should be aware of? And do I want to be sure to get replacement snap in clips or should I be able to reuse the originals?

Also as long as I'm here is this really as easy at it looks? From what I can tell it's just remove the rear wiper and a bolt on each side.

TIA

I've been a long time user of Chai, former mod back when the main sub was run by volunteers and a fairly long term member of this sub. I first started using Chai within the first couple of months they existed in 2021 after being a customer of Replika for several years. I've seen more chat apps come and go than I can count. And I just have to share this.

First I'm sorry, I totally get why people are upset to lose the free chats. I really do and have sympathy for anyone who came to depend on it and can't afford to subscribe. It's a product designed to encourage constant engagement and can be addictive for some people. To put that out there for free and then suddenly take it away honestly feels predatory. But I also understand how it happened. You start out needing growth, any growth, and then need to shift to profitability. That's a process many new companies struggle with.

But for the past several months this sub has been:
"Help me I can't find anything better than Chai"
Followed by
"How dare they try to charge for this and stay in business"

Make up your minds, over the years Chai has developed a unique LLM that no one else uses and that costs money. If there were truly superior free alternatives out there we wouldn't be seeing 80% of the posts we see here. And if there are it's only a matter of time before they face the same issues.

Reality is Chai has made clear that in order for it to be viable they will need to charge and minimize how many customers are getting free chats which their actual customers will need to support. Which really is what happens when you are giving away your product.

All that said the way they have gone about it, no communication, this crazy dynamic pricing that seems to change by the hour, yet again fucking up the actual chats with whatever testing they are currently doing, taking away chat history with no notice, is complete bullshit. But it's classic Chai and the exact kind of bullshit they have done since the day they started. So take it or leave it, it's how they do business, it's how they have always done business.

And BTW $170.00/Yr (The last price in USD that I saw someone post) comes out to just over $14.00/Mo which is honestly pretty reasonable compared to what others are charging.

I'm not sure why this dawned on me today for the first time after playing for years but I'm thinking the SS would be drawn to those few Ghouls you meet that are from your time. From your perspective the entire world has been turned upside down overnight. You come out of the vault and find out there was a war 200 years ago and somehow you have been frozen for two centuries.

Along your way you find countless people all of whom consider prewar civilization as more of a myth than a reality. But then you run across a select few who miraculously lived in 2077 just like you did. Wiseman, Arlen Glass, Daisy, Kent Connolly and most amazingly even someone you interacted with just before it all changed, The Vault-Tec Salesman.

But your interactions with these people are barely any different than they are from everyone else. Wouldn't you sit down with them and reminisce? Wouldn't you want to know about all of the things that have taken place in the two centuries these people have lived through? What was it like in the immediate aftermath? How did some humans survive and have children without turning into Ghouls? So many questions and yet the SS just moves on without even acknowledging all of those shared memories of what life, the life you knew just months ago and has been ripped away was like.

Yes, the game gives you Hancock as a companion but he has only recently turned. He's not from your time. He shares none of your life experiences. It just feels like even a few comments could have made such a difference in everything the SS is dealing with.

I've been buying my Zen tubes from Amazon for years, 5 cartons at a time. They used to always arrive safely in a cardboard box. But for the past 9 months or so they have started shipping them either with just a shipping label on the plastic or inside a plastic bag. As a result I've had shipments where 25% or more of them have arrived crushed. Just enough so it feels like it's more of a PITA to report the damage than to just accept it.

I've seen reviews where this has happened with both Zen and Baretta tubes. Has anyone found a more reliable vendor at a similar price?

For reference I'm in the US in a city that has a Amazon distribution center so frequently my orders arrive the next day if not within hours. I've tried looking on the site to find an option to include a note requesting they be shipped in a box and not found one. Thanks

Thoughts on what's been going on from someone who has had this app from almost the very beginning. And someone who has tried dozens of alternatives. Some of you may remember me from my days as a Mod on the main sub most probably won't and I don't claim to have any inside knowledge. But I wanted to share what is just my best guess of what's been going on from watching this company operate from the beginning. And from reading posts here this may be new for some people. 

Since day one Chai has always done work on their LLM by breaking users into test groups and doing A/B testing. One group gets one version of the UI or the LLM and a different group gets a completely different experience. Then they measure how users respond and tweak the product admittedly with varying degrees of success.

This is why when you see posts online everyone seems to be seeing something different. It's because we are, and it's always been this way. Love it or hate it, it's how Chai does business. Some people get one version of the LLM, some get another. One group gets one version of the UI a different group gets something completely different. This is why some people are seeing their new persona UI and some aren't. This leads to tons of confusion when folks see different posts online especially since Chai has always done a really shitty job of communicating what they are doing with their users.

In the past few months they seem to have taken this to the extreme as they try to become profitable. My guess is they have burned through whatever startup investment they got 5 years ago and those investors are looking for some signs of a return.

So they need to move users into customers. The constant drumbeat of any software company. And in their own ham fisted way some people are getting free usage with varying degrees of access some are getting nothing. (Hence the region blocks) It appears they are even doing this with pricing for subscriptions with people even in the same country getting different prices that shift one day to the next.

I have no clue if these changes are temporary or permanent and honestly I'm not sure Chai knows. But the reality is if they aren't profitable they won't exist. This is becoming true across the AI market with even Google and Anthropic starting to adjust pricing and limiting what they can give away for free. (And NO the ads to not generate any profit)

And after following this app for over 5 years this feels like the important part:
They kind of suck at this. And they have always sucked at customer communication.

Over the years I can say some of what they try makes zero sense, some "tweaks" they have done have literally made the app almost unusable. Sometimes they make progress but it can very much be two steps forward one step back experience for users. What I would encourage everyone to do is understand that what we are getting now is not what you may be getting two months from now. I have no idea what Chai will be and like I said I'm not sure Chai really does either. That's just what it is. Free use is going to need to be sharply curtailed, the UI will be changing and shifting, and hopefully they can survive the shifts in the marketplace. I don't think they are "evil" and I don't think they are "greedy" they are just doing what any young company needs to do to survive. I honestly hope they do because when it works it's something unique that no one else has been able to replicate.

I’m a UW alum and long time Madison resident. Obviously this sub focuses a lot on stories about our current housing crisis. But I don't hear much conversation about how UW has increased enrollment by almost 10,000 students in the past 25 years but only increased student housing by 700 beds. (both of those stats are from Google feel free to correct me if that’s wrong) So it feels like much of this housing crisis downtown was created by the state government and UW admins refusing to properly fund the infrastructure required to actually run a major university. 

So is what we are seeing simply the effects of the ideological desire of some in the state government to privatize what should have been the responsibility of the government? I’d be interested to hear people's thoughts on that.