Marques Brownlee's ‘Panels’ Backlash, Explained - eviltoast
YouTuber MKBHD (Marques Brownlee), sparked controversy and backlash after launching ‘Panels,’ a subscription-based, HD wallpaper app for phones.

Bro really tried to sell his subscribers a “50$ a year” subscription to a “wallpaper” app.

Interesting points about the “app”:

  • the app has premium and free wallpapers
  • the free wallpapers are only available in sd quality and if you want hd youd have to subscribe
  • in order to unlock the sd quality you have to watch two 30 second ads.
  • theres a wallpaper called “orange” thats just the color orange
    • burgersc12@mander.xyzEnglish
      36·
      2 months ago

      And there’s people in the comments being like “its only $5 for my favorite wallpaper app” which I just shake my head and laugh at. What kind of idiot eats this shit up? There’s nothing better you can spend $5 than a shitty jpeg?

      • usualsuspect191@lemmy.caEnglish
        12·
        2 months ago

        Granted, it’s probably my favourite wallpaper app too and I only learned about it yesterday. It’s also my least favourite for the same reason. I’ve never used it, or any wallpaper app, or even knew they are a thing so it wins by default.

        • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
          10·
          2 months ago

          my phone tries extra fucking hard to sell me on its built in wallpaper app which has data-scraping permissions out to here also

          • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
            9·
            2 months ago

            every fucking time I swipe wrong on the cheapdroid used for work things, the $vendor crapware “GLOBAL SEARCH” shitware app permission prompt comes up

            and it’s always a bloody effortful nuisance to click no on it. I legit can’t tell if it’s rejecting the clicks, or just trying so damn hard to spin up that it’s eating all cycles. malware fucking everywhere.

    • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
      15·
      2 months ago

      honestly, samesies

      I’m kinda taken aback at how many people are popping in saying they have such things. at almost all usage times I can barely see my bloody wallpaper, too much else going on/present

      • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        I always have my windows tiled or maximized so I just keep an epty black desktop background.

        My wallpaper is white and subtly stripe patterned and it was in a surprisingly good condition when I moved in.

        • self@awful.systemsEnglish
          8·
          2 months ago

          mine’s xsetroot -solid black so I don’t get a flash of the 80s in the moments before emacs loads and tiles its windows across my displays

          it used to be a color I stole from the Amiga’s boot ROM for diagnostic purposes (I was going to do something like the Amiga’s diagnostics for my setup, where you could tell roughly what was broken by the color of the screen) and really I should revisit that one day

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        My wallpaper is the january page of a frieren themed calendar. From 2021. I only remembered what it was today after learning about all this