Dang. I guess I’m more disconnected from the average consumer than I thought. My 48" has felt like plenty for even a good size living room for a while, and I’m used to 32" monitors and 7" phones, so it’s not like I prefer smaller screens. I had to go and fact check that 65" being the most popular. If you had asked me beforehand, I would have thought 55" was pushing it.

Not really my thing actually. I usually just want a song to be faster with no pitch change. If that’s your thing though, I’ve not listened to a ton, and I’m open to recommendations to convert me.

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Is that “1x is only used for music” or “all music is 1x?” I’m sure music purists hate the idea, but there’s a lot of music I definitely like more at 1.25x or 1.5x.

Interestingly enough, I don’t seem to have that exact problem. The content speeds I’m comfortable with are highly variable, and I think it has something to do with attention bandwidth.

My default speed for videos is 2.5x when I have it on a big screen and I can pump the audio directly into my head via headphones. Without the headphones, anything over 2x usually feels too fast, so I guess filtering ambient noise is using 0.5x worth of brain power. When I lose the visual component (as with audiobooks) to anchor attention onto, I’m most comfortable at 1.5x.

In real life conversations, so much of my attention is on other things (like what my hands and eyeballs should be doing) that 1x is back to feeling normal.

The only thing it maybe hurts is watching videos with other people, but I don’t do that a lot and can usually still get away with 1.25x or 1.5x. Also, I sometimes get the feeling that I’m talking too slowly, but I think I’ve always felt that.

In case you’re not being hyperbolic (or for anyone else legitimately thinking this because I’ve heard it multiple times), I think Valve really did the best thing they could. I know Valve feels huge, but MasterCard and Visa together are over a hundred times bigger, and any payment processing system Valve could make would definitely be a pushover.

Also, never underestimate the casual normie population. If Valve lost Visa and MasterCard support, I’m pretty sure that would mean losing two-thirds of their playerbase if not more. Those people would either prop up alternative stores like Epic or Microslop’s or just pull away from PC gaming altogether.

Anyway, it’s a bit like the people saying Valve should make their own DRAM to combat the shortage. It doesn’t acknowledge how entrenched the existing manufacturers are and how far away Valve actually is from that level of manufacturing.