It’s 2020, Opera is evidently now a predatory loan company, MySpace is still running, and Google’s gained sentience but isn’t telling anyone
In the year 2017, the company that produced Opera, the browser for the rest of the rest of us, but not that group of the rest of us, became publicly traded after being purchased by a Chinese investor group.
Since then anything not Chrome has been sinking in market share. So Opera decided to do what any good browser based company would do and turn to predatory lending apps in violation of Google Play’s terms of service.
Android Police is reporting 15-29 day loans, interest rates up at 876%, and your contacts being sent to Opera to call up when you’re a second late on payment.
Opera’s investor site claims the report has numerous errors, but you can check out people’s experiences on the various Opera loan app reviews. I’m seeing reviews of phone calls from random numbers, multiple texts days before demanding payment, and a host of activity that I’m pretty sure is not legal in the US and hopefully not elsewhere.
Fun times. [Android Police]
MySpace still exists. I was trying to figure out who it’s actually aimed at and discovered there’s going to be a Punky Brewster sequel series so I guess it’s aimed at me.
Also sometime quietly last month Google gained sentience and will be adding the internet to the list of things killed by google in 2022.
