Microsoft guts Microsoft Rewards points, and its fans are outraged::Microsoft appears to be nickel-and-diming users and fans of its Microsoft Rewards program, which gives “frequent-flyer” points that can be traded in for gift cards.

      • @beerclue
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        910 months ago

        I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

        • @gekkonaut
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          510 months ago

          there are six ducks out there, and they all want sun chips.

          • @ohlaph
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            110 months ago

            And Voss, those thirsty bastards.

    • @shalafi
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      1510 months ago

      Bing, uh, has it’s uses. IYKYK.

      • @Anomalous_Llama
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        1010 months ago

        Don’t think Bing has been good for that for some years no?

        • @Evilcoleslaw
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          810 months ago

          Bing’s fine in general. Meanwhile any time I get curious and use Google, if I have to go deeper with anything past the first 2 results, it will be absolute garbage.

        • @shalafi
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          110 months ago

          Works great for me. LOL, tried DuckDuckGo today for giggles, no joy. Even with safe search off, same exact results.

        • @shalafi
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          310 months ago

          Failed for me, even with Safe Search off. Same results.

  • @JTskulk
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    3310 months ago

    Let’s make a replacement program for Free software. The more points you get, the more Free software you can install.

    • @kurwa
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      1410 months ago

      That makes the software not free though 😥

      • @darelik
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        710 months ago

        It’s not free, it’s Free^TM

      • unalivejoy
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        10 months ago

        That’s impossible because my time is worthless.

    • Natanael
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      210 months ago

      The points are measured in gigabytes of storage on your hard drive

  • Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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    10 months ago

    I remember using this (cheating a little bit with VPNs and proxies so I could claim the rewards like 20 times every day, because they are separate in every country) to get some Xbox giftcards

    I also had ~15 Microsoft accounts and I put them all in a Microsoft family so I could transfer points from one account to another, it was really fun lol

    • @RagingInside
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      10210 months ago

      This is why we can’t have nice things.

      • @[email protected]
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        3210 months ago

        I mean in their defense, fuck Microsoft with a rusty nail, and this system was basically designed for exploitation.

      • @[email protected]
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        110 months ago

        No, this is why systems that aren’t rigorously designed to preclude exploitation like this simply shouldn’t be released. If flaws like this exist in the system, they will be exploited. It’s not on the users if they exploited a flaw, even if you say “please don’t exploit the flaw”.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          There’s a continuum between this kind of thing and, say, ransomware attacks. I’m not sure where the line should be drawn.

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          Idk man I get free game pass every month and people much more patient than me have been able to get entire free consoles. I’d call that pretty nice

    • @just_another_person
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      10 months ago

      You sound like part of the reason they gutted the thing, then.

      • @grayman
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        -210 months ago

        They’re giving out made up points and then letting you trade them for copies of digital files. They’re not really losing much.

      • Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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        -910 months ago

        I stopped doing this a few years ago but the system was flawed from the ground up. The fact that they did nothing to this kind of abuse it mind-boggling. No one actually used this the way it was intended to be used.

        • Wrench Wizard
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          710 months ago

          But they did do something eventually lol

    • @[email protected]
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      410 months ago

      People like you are why normies can’t buy pax tickets. This isn’t simmering to be proud of, you should be ashamed of abusing a system.

    • Pxtl
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      110 months ago

      For ones where they give you a code for a non-MS service (eg LoL or Overwatch tokens) couldn’t you bot-farm this and then literally just sell the redemption code?

      • Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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        -210 months ago

        If you actually started selling these, they would probably shut that down pretty quickly and maybe even sue you

        • Pxtl
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          410 months ago

          Obviously. Don’t get caught.

  • @Evilcoleslaw
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    1110 months ago

    Meh. This seems relatively minor, and geared towards people purposely gaming it. Which, yeah, I’ve done at one time or another. Lately I’ve just been getting the points from searching. It might take a couple extra days to get enough for each $5 gift card. Oh well.

  • @kbtaco
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    710 months ago

    I’m most disappointed with the cooldown between searches. The lowering of points was expected as they were cutting back everywhere else.

  • Pxtl
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    510 months ago

    I mean I’ve bought 2 Overwatch passes using those points. I couldn’t justify paying cash for skins to myself, but MS rewards points I could rationalize. But I basically fire up Edge/Bing to collect the points and then go back to Firefox & DDG. It was obviously not sustainable for them.