cobysev

When I lived in Germany for a couple years, I was surprised to learn that the large church in the center on my village was about 1,000 years old. This one building has been standing longer than America has been a country. Over 4x as long, too! European culture amazes me because there’s such a lengthy history, and so many things are much older than I’d imagine. American history is so short in comparison, and we’re more likely to tear down and build new and cheap than create a solid structure that will last for hundreds of years.

I think it’s great for a ground-floor investment in a YouTube competitor. It draws more people to the platform, gets a chunk of money flowing up front to help boost the service, and they can always sunset the lifetime option if the site gets popular and revenue starts to get tight. As long as they continue to honor it for everyone who paid initially.

Like I said in my original comment, a Nebula subscription is only $6/mo. A lifetime access payment is over 4 years of subscriptions up front. That’s a nice chunk of change to help get them established.

I saw someone’s video about how Nebula works (I think Legal Eagle? He was advertising it hardcore on YouTube for a while) and the subscription service is how they pay content creators. He said it’s a more stable income than YouTube, where your videos earn advertising money based on trends and visibility. If you’re not YouTube famous (and the algorithm doesn’t make you visible), you’re not going to make any money on the platform. But Nebula gives you a more solid income, plus the freedom to make the content you want. No AI moderators flagging videos because it thought it detected the word “suicide” or something. No forcing you to include key words or pushing regular videos on a tight schedule to ensure the algorithm keeps recommending your channel.

Yeah, like I said, it needs more content creators to dump their libraries there. It could be a fantastic competitor to YouTube if only more people knew about it and used it.

Find me a self publishing video platform with the reach of YouTube that doesn’t require self hosting and I’ll happily move my content there.

Nebula is the next best thing to YouTube, but not enough content creators have moved their stuff there, so it’s easy to run out of interesting videos to watch after a while. Some of the bigger folks I follow share their content on both platforms, and the incentive to watch on Nebula instead of YouTube is that content creators have more freedom with their videos on Nebula. They can post bonus/extra footage that would be automatically flagged and blocked by YouTube normally. Don’t need to dance around the censors on Nebula.

Nebula is subscription-based, so they don’t show ads anywhere on their site. But if you don’t want to pay for another subscription service, you can also do a one-time payment to have lifetime access to their site. It’s $300, which is the cost of just over 4 years of their subscription service ($6/mo). Considering I’ve had an account for over 3 years now, it’s almost paid for itself.

I worked at an Arby’s back in high school (over 20 years ago). They told me free refills were a thing because most customers don’t refill more than once, if at all. Also, the soda water costs pennies and the bags of concentrated soda syrup were only like $10 (at the time). A single bag of syrup, mixed with soda water, could fill customer’s soda cups for maybe 2-3 days before it needed to be replaced. Fast food restaurants make insane profits on soda, so they don’t care if customers refilled multiple times during their visit.

Otherwise known as shrinkflation. Selling a product for the same (or higher) price, but adding less of the product. By cutting small, barely noticeable portions out a little at a time, the company saves money in materials, but continues charging the same price. Basically, min-maxing profits.

My birth year is the same as the title of a dystopian future novel by George Orwell.

I LOVED books as a kid. I was reading at a high school level by the time I started kindergarten, and I just absorbed every book I could get my hands on. I would bring a 100-200 page book to school every day and would finish it before I got home in the afternoon.

I also enjoyed writing and would write my own stories. I was part of an organization in elementary school called Young Authors that encouraged kids to write, and I wrote 3 books through that group. It was my dream to be an author one day.

Then the Internet became a thing.

Suddenly, I didn’t need to spend hours in a library reading through dozens of books to find information I needed. I could just do a quick search on Infoseek, or Excite, or AskJeeves, and have a repository of knowledge at my fingertips. It was life-changing!

As the Internet evolved and more data got dumped on it, I started spending more time perusing its depths and less time reading physical books. I ended up getting a job in IT because computers fascinated me so much. Eventually, I realized I hadn’t picked up a book in years. Everything I wanted to read, I could find online.

Now here I am at 40 years old and my dream of being an author is gone. In our modern age, most people don’t read physical books anymore and authors don’t make enough to survive, unless they make it on a best-seller list or something. Even Stephen King is more well known today for his political commentary on Twitter/X. I haven’t heard much about any books he’s been writing in a long time.

I once wanted a library room in my dream home. I still kind of do, for the aesthetic. But I don’t really read physical books anymore, and I could only fill maybe a single wall with the books I currently own; mostly treasured classics from my childhood that have been stored away in boxes for years. I’d be better off having a PC gaming/theater room in my dream home, as that’s more where my modern interests lie.

I love the Internet age. It revolutionized my childhood and brought us into a wonderful age of information. But I can’t help but think about how completely different my life would’ve been if it hadn’t been invented. I sometimes wonder if I would’ve been more happy and/or successful in a world without the Internet.

I’m terrified of Gabe retiring or passing away. He’s been amazing for the company and I don’t trust anyone else to not want to use Valve for their own greedy purposes. The next president of Valve will likely ruin all the good things about it, thanks to late-stage capitalism.

I firmly believe in voting with your wallet; I normally don’t invest much long-term interest into businesses because you never know how they’ll change over time, but I’ve been so happy with Valve that I’ve gladly given them thousands of dollars over the decades for Steam games. My library is sitting at just over 3,500 games right now. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when Valve crumbles one day. I really hope they give me an option to download and play offline all the games I’ve bought, because that’s a massive library to lose.

I’ve never given a penny to Epic Games, and unless they get on-par with Steam’s functionality, I won’t ever buy or play any of their games. The one thing that might make Epic Games competitive (and could convince me to use their platform) is letting Steam users copy their libraries over, so we’re not just starting over from scratch with a new service.

That’s what got me on Steam in the first place. Back around 2010 or so, I discovered that if you had a physical PC game that was also in Steam’s store, you could type in the serial number on the game box and it would register and add it to your Steam library. That’s how I got my collection of early Call of Duty titles on Steam, as well as Half-Life and some others. I moved my physical game library over to Steam and I’ve been a Steam loyalist ever since.

I usually eat it on its own. Maybe a glass of milk to wash it down. Maybe some chips if I’m really hungry.

For me, a PB&J is usually a snack if I’m feeling hungry between meals, so I usually eat light if I’m having one.

I have a genetic predisposition to be a night owl. I proved it with a DNA test, comparing my results with actual scientific research on various genetic-related conditions. Plus, my mother’s side of the family always stays up super late every night.

Unfortunately, I signed up for the US military when I was 17 and they require you to get an early start every day. So I spent 20 years going to bed when I’m not tired and getting up at godawful early hours of the morning. I would basically get a lack of sleep for a few days until I was so tired, I’d pass out early and get a solid night’s sleep, then start the cycle over again. My days off were the only days I got to sleep in.

Now I’m fully retired and have nothing important going on each day, so I can finally let my body adjust to its preferred sleep schedule. I’m wide awake until 2-4 AM (sometimes later), then I sleep until 10 AM to 1 PM. It’s so nice not having to set an alarm anymore and naturally wake each day. I’ve never felt so rested!

I’ve spent nearly 2 decades connecting with friends, family, coworkers, and associates through Facebook. I hate Facebook, and actually use F.B. Purity to remove 90% of the content, ads, promotional junk, games, marketplace, etc. from it. But as the main way I’ve stayed in touch with people I’ve known over the course of my life, I just can’t dump it.

Besides that, I have Lemmy (of course); LinkedIn, which I’m not really using anymore since I retired young; Imgur, which I mostly just use for browsing memes; and Discord, which I only use to communicate with a few close friends whom I game with weekly.

I created accounts for Instagram and Whatsapp, but I’ve never used them. They were too self-promoting for my taste. When they first became a thing, they were all about taking selfies and sharing your face with your friends. I wanted discussion and interesting content, not to see selfies. They created the generation of “social media influencers” who think they’re entitled to things in life because X number of people follow them on social media.

I also avoid TikTok like the plague. I was in the US military (working as an IT guy) when TikTok became popular, and we discovered it embedded itself in your phone so deeply, you couldn’t fully remove it even when uninstalling. Plus, it gave itself full admin rights to your phone, then started trickling your data to Chinese servers. Which is why the president made such a big deal about TikTok being a national security threat. It’s not because we didn’t get along with a Chinese company; it’s because a foreign government was collecting personal data and building profiles on American citizens. I will never touch that program as long as I live.

I’m 40 years old, by the way. A lot of people say Facebook is only used by old people, and yes, I just turned 40 and am finally becoming an “old person.” But I’m still relatively young compared to people’s expectations of Facebook users. And I have a lot of Facebook friends who are much younger than I am.

I was in the US Air Force for 20 years, working as an IT guy, and our computers were so locked down, you couldn’t use password managers at work. Nor were you allowed to bring them in.

Almost every office I worked in was secured; no removable electronic devices allowed. No cell phones, no flash drives or removable drives. Heck, CDs were a controlled item. You had to check with a security manager for approval before bringing in a music CD, and and data CDs required a log of their use and physical control by a trusted agent.

Plus, the computers themselves had a custom-configured OS and you couldn’t install any software on them that wasn’t on a pre-approved list. Half the time, normal users needed to talk to an admin like me to install something, and I might not even have the rights at my level to do it.

I didn’t get to mess around with password managers until I retired a couple years ago, and they’ve been a game changer! In the military, we needed unique complex passwords for everything, can’t reuse passwords, can’t write down passwords, and you had to change them every 60 days.

Having a password manager makes my personal accounts so much more secure. I can have super complex passwords for everything and not need to remember them. I currently have Proton Pass (been de-Googling my life and switching all my stuff over to Proton lately) and it’s been wonderful.

I don’t know why the military doesn’t get some sort of password manager approved for use. This is far more secure than what they’ve been doing in the past. I had 3 standard password templates, then made minor changes to them for every unique account. If they got too complex, I’d forget them (and again, we weren’t allowed to write them down). Now I can just auto-generate a 25+ character complex password and I don’t even need to remember it. I love it!

Technically, my Microsoft account. I created a Hotmail email account around 1997, my first ever online account. At some point, Microsoft merged my Hotmail login with their Microsoft login, and I still use it today; although I’ve changed the email address to a more current one. Microsoft killed Hotmail a long time ago, in favor of Outlook.

AskJeeves and Hotbot! Man, that takes me back. I also enjoyed Excite and Infoseek back in the pre-Google days.

Proton’s top tier service for individuals (Proton Unlimited) is only $7.99/month if you pay for 2 years of service. Gives you full access to all their services.

Proton just announced last month that they’re turning the company into a nonprofit organization, because security is more important to them than making money. That’s why their services are dirt-cheap; they want to ensure it’s affordable for everyone, and the only reason they collect money at all is to keep the servers online.

I’m currently de-Googling my life. Moving all my services over to Proton, testing other search engines, etc. Trying to slowly cut out/replace all services that Google provides me.

Oh, and I’m sticking with Firefox with Ublock Origin, to ensure Google can’t ever advertise to me, even incidentally.

Be careful… Don’t just click “Reject All.” There’s a category called “Legitimate Interest” that will still be enabled.

It was meant to be a way for websites to collect relevant data for adjusting content to your interests, but it’s been so loosely defined in legal requirements that literally any advertiser could pull your personal data through that category and use it however they want. This legal loophole is how websites continue to collect data and build profiles on you without violating the law. And clicking “Reject All” won’t disable anything in that category.

As much as it sucks, you still need to review all categories and manually change your advertising settings, then click “save preferences” (or however it’s specifically worded) instead of just clicking “Reject All.”

Same here. I exclusively browsed Reddit via app on my phone and tablet. After watching my wife struggle with the official Reddit app, I decided I would never use it. So when that became the only option, I decided it was time to move on to Lemmy.

Besides, I’m very anti-advertisement and Reddit has turned very corporate lately, looking for every way to make a buck at our expense. So I’m done supporting that site. Information and community discussion should be freely accessible, not buried behind paywalls, awards, and advertisements.

[…] I don’t think YouTube is even profitable for them.

Correct. Even Google, one of the richest companies in the world, is struggling to afford the massive infrastructure required to run YouTube. That’s why they’ve been cracking down on ad-blocking software lately.

Also, this is likely why they’ve been pushing their new updated Chromium-based infrastructure for web browsers, which will prevent ad-blockers from working on websites. If you’re not using Firefox or Safari to browse the Internet by now, you should switch. They’re the only independent browsers not using the Chromium framework.

Yeah, I was pretty jaded by the end of my career. Couldn’t wait to retire, which is why I left as soon as I qualified for retirement. I served exactly 20 years and 6 days.

I only made it to Technical Sergeant (E-6), but it was my ideal rank. I had enough rank and authority to manage personnel and resources, but I was also the technical expert and could get down on the ground level and do the work alongside my Airmen and NCOs. All career fields operate differently, but my IT field specifically didn’t allow Senior NCOs to do the job. They were upper-management; they always got put behind a desk and made to do paperwork, pass down orders, and oversee projects.

I didn’t want that for myself, so I stopped trying to promote once I made TSgt. I expected I’d have to keep working once I retired, so I wanted to stay technical and keep my IT certifications and experience strong, so I could transition into a high-paying gig on the outside.

Little did I know that I’d earn that coveted 100% Permanent & Total disability rating. Now my medical and dental costs are covered for life and my monthly VA check is bigger than my pension, so I’m essentially making a little bit more money than when I was serving, just to sit on my ass all day. So… yeah, I’m enjoying that hard-earned freedom right now.