I am an atheist and I believe the world would be much better without religions. Having said that, I don't conisder it as a scam in itslef. Instead they must have been something evolved over the time due to our ignorance, fear and helplessness. The very same factors that still keep them going.

But hell yeah, people are exploited in the name of religion. I'm from India, one of the largest so called democracies, currently under the governance of a fascist hindutva party that thrives on polarizing people in the name of religion.

BTW I was actually looking for specific instances of scams carefully plotted by known people, companies or even countries instead of broad answers like religion.

Thunderstorms & lightning strikes can severely affect "cloud" computing!

One of the best examples of unintended consequences, aiding in one of the largest human caused disasters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Yes, but things can change. Stories of Mastodon and Lemmy are inspiring. When Reddit backslash happened, Lemmy was already there as a good alternative for people to switch to. So was the case of Mastodon with the Twitter exodus. It's good that we've Pixelfed, it may be just a matter of time.

You're free to have your own opinions. But please note that your tone is not helpful and you may be just doing what exactly you're speaking against. Let's keep the discussions civil and healthy instead of labelling people.

I agree, but unlike usual blunders this was very much planned!

At least something we can all cheer about :)

This also reminds me of Yahoo turning down the offer to buy Google in their early stage! https://finance.yahoo.com/news/remember-yahoo-turned-down-1-132805083.html

There are many, but right now it's definitely "Infinity for Lemmy" ❤ (Available from IzzyOnDroid F-Droid repo).

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/456

Thanks for sharing. This is exactly the kind of blunder I had in my mind when asking the question, a seemingly silly mistake like forgetting to do something causing way too much trouble!

Stories feature is there. But I haven't used it myself, so I can't tell more about it.

I've heard that in such situations one can drop such docs, with address, in any postbox nearby and the postal worker will deliver them. I've never tried this myself & I don't know if people actually do that, but sounded like a good idea to me.

Anyway, I understand that the underlying issue is more important and finding any immediate solution alone won't help. It's much more important to spread awareness about the importance of privacy.

Oh yes, I've heard about this. Thanks for reminding.

Adding more details for others:

Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in a $10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014. The company claimed that it had devised blood tests that required very small amounts of blood and that could be performed rapidly and accurately, all using compact automated devices which the company had developed. These claims were later proven to be false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

Sorry, I've been hearing about this for some time and I don't know the story behind it. Can someone please explain the enshittification that happened with digg? How good was it before and how bad was it after?

I got started with ![email protected], just 3 posts so far. I'd like to see askhistorians & askscience communities gaining more traction.

Sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to remind people of their personal mistakes. Hope you'll recover your password soon.

"Freedom-respecting software" is another less ambiguous term.

Earth is flat!

Whether many of the answers here count as a blunder or not, I'd like to say that I got way more replies than I expected and came to know about a lot of stuff I would have never heard otherwise. Thanks for sharing.