Framework Update Causes Internal Developer Revolt.
Also; Google Keeps Browser, and Intern Gets $13 Billion.

The New Departmental Software Is, In Fact, Infuriating

The latest development framework, Next.js, is currently serving as a focal point for what can only be described as a corporate existential crisis among the development staff. The consensus suggests that the tool has evolved past mere complexity into a kind of "megaframework" whose primary goal appears to be requiring the use of one specific vendor, Vercel, for even the most basic task. It is a bit like the new office coffee machine; it promises to be the single source of joy for the entire floor, but the proprietary pods cost twice as much and it only brews when the moon is in the seventh house.

Developers are complaining that the constant breaking changes feel less like innovation and more like active sabotage against anyone who dares to host their own code outside of the preferred ecosystem. One staff member noted in the comment threads that the framework is currently "a big monolithic blob" that tries to do everything and, as a result, does most things badly. This is a common pattern in our line of work, we tend to design a simple tool to solve a problem and then we add enough layers of abstraction until the tool becomes the problem.

Google Allowed to Keep Its Desk Chair; Must Share the Conference Room

A new antitrust ruling has determined that Google can keep its browser, Chrome, but will be prohibited from forcing the janitorial staff to sign exclusive contracts. Specifically, the ruling bars Google from maintaining agreements with device manufacturers and distributors that essentially force them to use Google Search by default. The company gets to keep its favorite, slightly stained coffee mug, but it now has to let other people bring their own mugs to the kitchen.

The court decision essentially upholds a ban on using market leverage to coerce partners, which, in non-legal terms, means Google cannot just pay the other departments to only use its preferred brand of sticky notes. The search engine giant is allowed to compete, but it must do so on merit, a concept that is frankly terrifying to any major corporation. The tech community comments have generally concluded that while the ruling is a gentle nudge toward better behavior, it remains unclear if a ban on certain contracts will actually dislodge the incumbent from their dominant position at the head of the meeting table.

Anthropic Receives Absurd New Budget for "Safety"

The AI startup Anthropic has raised $13 billion in a Series F funding round, securing a post-money valuation of $183 billion. The general consensus is that this is a large number. It is difficult to visualize thirteen billion dollars, so for perspective, that is roughly the equivalent of five and a half years of our current departmental budget, minus the cost of the good coffee pods.

This money is, ostensibly, to continue the important work of training large language models that are polite and safe, which sounds a lot like teaching a toddler not to scribble on the wall with permanent marker, except the toddler is going to eventually control global logistics. The comment threads are predictably focused on the immense, speculative valuation, noting that the only thing that appears to be multiplying faster than the AI's parameter count is the valuation multiple. It suggests the stock market is simply throwing money at anything that includes the letters "L" and "M" in the name, hoping one of them eventually files the correct quarterly report.

Briefs

• AI Incompetence as a Feature: A staff engineer's journey with Anthropic's Claude Code found that the AI's first attempt was "95% garbage", which is exactly the hit rate we expect from our most junior summer interns; only the intern charges less.
• X Bans Turkish Candidate: The social media platform formerly known as Twitter apparently shadow banned a Turkish presidential candidate, proving that regardless of the executive leadership, the process of politically censoring global content remains a core feature.
• Apple Pulls App: Apple, using its new European side door, removed a torrent app from the AltStore PAL, demonstrating that even mandated competition does not make the company feel any less proprietorial about what users are allowed to do with their own expensive hardware.
• Crawlers Gone Wild: New reports indicate that AI web crawlers are destroying websites in their relentless quest for content, which is a perfect metaphor for the AI industry itself.