nerd

29 Oct 2026

Slashdot

DoorDash Strikes $17 Billion Deal For US Rival Instacart

DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart for about $17 billion as it expands beyond restaurant delivery and deeper into the U.S. grocery market. The deal, expected to close in late 2027 or the first half of 2028, could face regulatory scrutiny over further consolidation in the delivery industry. Reuters reports: DoorDash has offered Instacart shareholders $65 per share held, representing a premium of about 26% to the stock's closing price on October 22 before reports of deal talks first emerged. The consideration will be at least 75% cash, with Instacart shareholders able to elect cash, DoorDash stock or a combination of the two, the companies said. [...] The transaction is expected to close at the end of 2027 or the first half of 2028. The deal could face scrutiny over its impact on competition, with New York City's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) saying on Wednesday that a potential merger continued a "troubling trend" of corporate consolidation. DoorDash, however, pledged on Thursday that local grocers could continue to work with any delivery platform they choose.

Hacker News

Tomas Mikolov (creator of Word2Vec) receives the Medal of Merit

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29 Oct 2026 4:56pm GMT

For the first time ever, Google Search is less than 50% of Alphabet's revenue

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29 Oct 2026 4:42pm GMT

Toxic Experts

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29 Oct 2026 4:41pm GMT

Slashdot

Reddit Is Getting a 'For You' Feed

Reddit is overhauling its homepage with separate "For You" and "Following" feeds, with the former combining posts from subscribed communities and algorithmic recommendations based on users' interests and activity. The Verge reports: It's a big shift for the platform, but not an entirely surprising one, as Reddit hasn't been shy about wanting to switch up the homepage. Earlier this year, the company announced it would be deprecating r/all, which surfaced posts that were popular across the platform, as part of its "ongoing efforts to simplify Reddit and improve Home feed personalization." "This new feed experience is a first step in helping drive discovery that leads to something novel and relevant -- an idea, a connection, a unique perspective, or even a new interest," Reddit says. "A more human internet is not just something you sit back and watch, it is something you find value in and want to participate in."

'Please Let the Internet Die'

Slashdot reader fjo3 shares an article from Wired: The internet must be put out of its misery. Any rational observer can admit that the current iteration of the web -- and the social fabric woven there -- is not what they signed up for. Symptoms of advanced cultural decay can no longer be ignored. This thing is eating itself. Giants including Meta and Google have been forced to settle massive consumer lawsuits brought over privacy violations and mental health harms allegedly caused by the addictive mechanisms of their platforms. Schools are banning smartphones as multiple countries institute social media restrictions for under-16s. Parents are in a panic about their kids aspiring to careers as social media celebrities, losing themselves in a vast ecosystem of online casinos, or joining extremist movements. Generative AI, briefly considered an amusing novelty, is now a turbocharged slop engine for the web, filling feeds and comment sections with useless, grotesque content. As humans scroll past headlines about AI taking their jobs, confusing fantasy for reality, and contributing to cognitive decline, any consumer appeal the technology might have is turning to anguish. The data centers that power it have become increasingly unpopular, and politically radioactive. To be online, many now admit, is to be endlessly manipulated and exploited. In December, Oxford University Press declared rage bait to be the word of the year, noting that use of the term had tripled over the previous 12 months. The lexical spike represented a heightened awareness that monetized social accounts churn out bad-faith takes and extremist content, automating this abusive behavior with generative AI, simply to profit off hostile engagement. Billionaire oligarchs have opened the floodgates to such inauthentic activity, conspiracy-mongering, and hate speech by rolling back moderation. In short, when you hang around online in 2026, you see little worth saving. Perhaps a decade ago, you felt that the glimmers of community and joy, of artistic and intellectual exchange, were enough to balance out the toxic junk. No longer.