What popular product do you think is modern day snakeoil?

Majority of the "AI inside" software and solutions. It's in a bubble and everyone is throwing crap to a wall hoping it sticks.

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Essential oils. Homeopathy. Chiropractic. Reiki. Juice cleanses. Perineum sunning. Internet accelerator software. Iridology. Faith healing. Organic food. Oil pulling. Gold plated digital audio cables.

Hi-resolution audio, especially for streaming. The general idea is that listening to digital audio files that have a greater bit depth and sample rate than CD (24-bit/192Khz vs 16-bit/44.1 KHz) translates to better-sounding audio, but in practice that isn't the case.

For a detailed breakdown as to why, there's a great explanation here. But in summary, the format for CDs was so chosen because it covers enough depth and range to cover the full spectrum of human hearing.

So while "hi-res" audio does contain a lot more information (which, incidentally, means it uses up significantly more data/storage space and costs more money), our ears aren't capable of hearing it in the first place. Certain people may try to argue otherwise based on their own subjective experience, but to that I say "the placebo effect is a helluva drug."

Blue light filter on glasses. When I got my glasses, the lady said they come with blue light filter for free, and I said, “I don’t want that, my job requires that I see colors accurately, so I can’t have any sort of color filter.” She said don’t worry, it doesn’t filter any colors. Ok, then what the fuck is it exactly?

Anti virus software. To protect your computer let's constantly run this software with root privileges!

I have a couple from the hip actually, because America has grifting baked into it's soul. In no particular order:

• MMS (Drinkin' bleach)
• Crystal healing (most sellers)
• WitchTok kits (TikTok influencers selling expensive spices)
• Brain pills
• Any product peddled by a megachurch (see the Baker bucket for a great example)
• Chiropractors

As more of these come to me, I'll try to expand the list.

Update: I can't believe I forgot chiros! They turned themselves into a religion at one point to try to dodge medical licensure laws.

Shampoo and conditioner with vitamins in it.

Your hair is dead. It can't metabolize anything.

Chiropractic anything. John Oliver covered it quite well.

VPNs for internet access, at least the way they are advertised

The Mayers Briggs Type Indicator test. It was developed with the same rigor as horoscopes, yet I still hear people I know are smart proudly tell me their four letter personality code.

Anything sold by Gwyneth Paltrow in her online shop, which I will not name here so as not to promote it. In the best case, goods sold there will be harmless and entirely useless. In the worst case, they will cause serious harm.

Any "quick fix/all-in-one" fitness or nutrition solutions. While there are minute optimizations for elite athletes, 99.99% of the population can adhere to the general consensus of nutrition and health science.

1. Do something that gets your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes a day. Speed walk, bike, row, shoot hoops, jump rope, doesn't matter, just get your heart pumping hard for at least half an hour a day.
2. Roughly a third of your food should be fresh leafy greens & veggies. A third should be whole grains and unprocessed starches and sugars like sweet potato and fresh fruit. The final third should be a protein. Lean meat like fish or chicken, or if you're veg/vegan, beans, tofu, seeds, peas, etc.
3. To build strength, general bodyweight exercises combined with stretching is fine for most people. If you wanna get really strong, get a few kettle bells or adjustable dumbells on the used market for $50-$100. You don't need an expensive fitness club membership or one of those all-in-one $2,000+ fancy machines that mounts on your wall.
4. Don't drink often, don't smoke, don't pound stimulants like caffeine or nicotine.
5. Brush your teeth well.
6. Get 6-8 hours a night of good quality sleep.
7. Keep your brain engaged, read, play music, play games, learn a language, etc.

I'm speaking from experience, because I have fallen for stuff over the years that promised fast results and optimal methods with minimal effort. Fact is, unless you're training for the Olympics or you have very specific heath conditions, those basic bullet points will cover the vast majority if general health and fitness.

Homeopathics, though sometimes even a placebo can have beneficial effects.

AI, particularly in how the likes of microsoft are marketing it to businesses.

Cleanses. You don't need a cleanse if you have a liver and kidneys, and if you don't you need dialysis.

Homeopathic remedies

Apple products

Not "snakeoil" per say; employers will care about your history of education: but as an aspiring computer engineer currently in CC looking to move to a university, I've learned exactly 0 useful things at community college. Outside of the piece of paper you get at the end, it's all useless busywork, testing how much bullshit you can put up with. Everything useful I've learned in life has been for free, provided kindly by passionate communities. Hopefully this changes in university.

I think the value employers place in modern education in the United States is snakeoil, however.

Software/game DRM/anticheat (as a service/product) that involves code obfuscation and/or kernel driver.

Full Self-Driving: For sure next year... maybe.

"Artificial Intelligence": CEO's create a copy of themselves in a computer, creating an expert bullshitter program.

Customer Service: Most pre-recorded phone loops are actually built to try to frustrate people into giving up and not getting their issue resolved. Further, they record calls not because they care about your experience, but so they can collate tons of data to further exploit you and their workers. CEOs have purposefully insulated themselves from ever directly having to deal with a customer and hide behind "well we didn't tell employees to break the law!" while demanding employees hit numbers that... aren't... possibe... without... breaking... the... law.

If it's from a corporation and the PR says its to "benefit consumers" it's fucking Snake Oil, by default.

Organic food versus GMOs. I think big farma is in on the organic food prices and put false narratives about the dangers of gmo foods.

Extra expensive digital hifi cables.

Crypto. Most LLM based AI. 80-90 percent of the startup world after 2009.

Anything related to toxins or detox. Keto and Carnivore diets.

Most online college programs.

Those vibram finger shoes and barefoot running. Most gym memberships; honestly half of the gym bros need to diet more than they need to slam weights and HIIT

Probably ozempic, since people going off it immediately balloon back up

I've wondered for a long time what the long term impacts of aggressive teeth bleaching are on enamel, too, but not sure if I'd call that snake oil; it works entirely as intended

Vitamin and mineral supplements. You only need supplementation if you have a specific deficiency, and deficiencies are not extremely common. Most people who take supplements do not need them and are just peeing out all the extra things they're putting in their bodies while shelling out ridiculous prices to "natural remedy" companies.

If you think you have a deficiency, explain why to a doctor. A blood test to know for sure is simple. A doctor will know what kind of supplementation would best serve you, and there may be an underlying reason that can be treated to fix it. Also eat some god damn vegetables you fat little piggy

Anything sold as a "detox"

CBD oil. It doesn't matter which exotic ailment you're talking about, someone will ask you if you've tried it and that they think it might help.

AI

Middle managers

"Enterprise solutions"

Student loans

The current discourse around AI and how we are close from agi. Meanwhile we are just using machine learning... With a shit ton of gpus... All of that to approximate a math function.

Subscriptions.

The core slikt of anti aging creams and other hydration products.

I can get like, one. But god damned, my wife has so many different products They can't all possibly be needed

Accupuncture. It is a placebo at best. At worst it is the ccp’s way of expanding its influence In the world. It is medical astrology is what it is.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

There was no 'Rich Dad', it's all made up snake-oil.

Not all, but a lot of coaches. Like the 23-year old just out of school "executive coach", or the "lifestyle coaches", "energetic coaches" etc.

The new age environment comes to mind, with everything from colonic washes to crystals.

I'm shocked that no one has said Essential Oils yet.

"Social" "networking"

Essential oil.

If you run a website: Paid SSL/TLS certificates. Free ones like Let's Encrypt and ZeroSSL are just as good, and can be automatically renewed.

Agile Coaches.

It’s like having a cadre of political officers in your team.

I mean isn't it obviously homoeopathy and a significant part of the rest of alternative medicine (not all of it I guess). It is a billion euro business in Germany alone.

Not a product, but life coach feels like the snake oil version of therapy.

Gamer glasses

Upward mobility

GrapheneOS. Among the considered Android custom ROMs suitable to use, it is THE snake oil for security and privacy. It is mostly a rebranding of AOSP features and kdrag0n’s project put on top of AOSP. It is a deep rabbit hole. I did a dissertation of what it is over a year ago. https://i.imgur.com/pQHoq84.jpg

Linux/FOSS/privacy communities across Telegram, 4chan, Reddit and Lemmy are filled with propaganda they disseminate, often via few hour old accounts or via long thesis like comment spam. They have instructions on how to do this publicly. https://imgur.com/a/fpcsIL2

Any questioning or criticism of this snake oil product will result in an instant ban, and further questioning may result in internet wide harassment, bullying and witch hunting.

Great alternatives are CalyxOS and LineageOS. The devs and community behind them are respectful, helpful and welcoming of criticism. They also do not harass critics and go around shit flinging on other FOSS projects. They also do not shill for Big Tech or Google/Apple.

Edit: seems like GrapheneOS sockpuppets are back at downvoting

The American "food" industry, the American "health care" industry, American politics, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, entertainment, right off the top of my head.

Standing desks - stationary standing is just as bad as stationary sitting.

Blue light filter stuff - it's my understanding that there's no evidence that blue light causes eye strain.

Finance courses promoted by various youtubers.

the vast majority of skincare products.

• Alkaline water
• Smart toothbrushes
• Chiropractors
• Yearly bug and pest deterrent spraying around exteriors of buildings
• Self help books
• Apps like Nerdwallet

CBD oil. I bought some about 5 years ago and it did nothing but grease up my tongue

Snake-scented oil. (1% snake oil)

In a somewhat metaphorical but nonetheless very real sense - most politics is effectively snake oil.

There's a set of people who exhibit a particular combination of mental illness and natural charisma, such that they feel an irrational urge to impose their wills on others, a lack of the necessary empathy to recognize the harm they do and the personal appeal necessary to convince others to let them do it.

There's another set of people who feel an irrational sense of helplessness - who want to turn control of their lives and their decisions over to others, so they can just go along with a preordained set of values and beliefs and choices rather expending effort on, and taking the risk of, making their own.

And just as in any more standard "snake oil" dynamic, the first group, exclusively for its own benefit, preys upon the weakness and hope of the second. Just as in any other such dynamic, the people of the first group make promises they have no intention of keeping ultimately just so that they can benefit, and the people of the second group continue, irratiomally, to believe those promises, even as all of the available evidence demonstrates that the promises are empty.

AirUp/Flavored water companies

If you want orange flavored water, squeeze an orange in your water, damn it! You don't need a subscription service for some chemicals that taste like orange

IPhone.

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VPNs like NordVPN for almost everyone.

"Sun crystals". They're made of glass, which is NOT long range ordered

The latest Super Foods. Remember when coconut and especially coconut oil was called a super food and was all the hype, yet coconut oil is full of saturated fats (higher than in butter) and actually raises cholesterol levels when consumed regularly.

CBD products

Dietary advice based on the food pyramid/MyPlate. Before the late '70s, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and mental illnesses were all rare in the general population.

We need to be eating fewer carbohydrates, not basing our diets around them. We need to be getting most of our calories from fat, not demonising it.

Thankfully, we have people like Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Chris Palmer, Dr. Anthony Chaffee, Dr. Georgia Ede, Dr. Shawn Baker, Dr. Paul Mason, Dr. Tony Hampton, Dr. Jason Fung, and others spreading this message.

IoT, AI, much of consensus based academia and press.

Television. I cannot understand why anyone would willingly pay money to be advertised to constantly.

First Past The Post voting

Vagina rocks.

MS Windows

Insurance corporations

To be honest, the oil of a snake is probably pretty nutritious and would surely correct certain deficiencies

Car engine injector cleaner and almost any add-it-yourself fuel additive.

The News on TV. Misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.

Political solutions to Global problems.

Quite literal. The Chlorine Dioxide Solution scam came to me through a podologist a year or so ago. What makes this outstanding to me, it's they succeeded at having some academic backup, though, completely out of context. It's an absolute rabbit hole, you are warned.

Social media definitely. The whole internet probably.

Trickle down economics

Most antidepressant usage. Many of those people do not have a chemical problem in their brain, they are just unhappy due to all the societal problems. You can't treat social problems with a chemical.

Most of them.

Credit card insurance. If stolen you're only liable for the first 50 bucks

Lucas anything.

VPN services

Kineseo Tape

Basically all of them.

Airfryers. It's just a convection oven, but smaller.

All of them.

Just about all the products sold on amazon.

Psychiatric drugs.

Read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker

Tylenol (paracetamol).

Literally never does anything but make me feel slightly poisoned, and there is still no clear explanation of how it "works".