You’re right, but also They get alot more from the deal than you acknowledge. The service has never been free. They already had a profitable model, and now they want even more. I call it evil, but in a sense it’s standard corporate behaviour.
The two approaches you mention need not be mutually exclusive. I ditched google services more than 10 years ago, while loving somewhere they did some truly despicable antidemocratic things. but so what? They’re a corporation. There are political lobby groups, privacy foundations and advocacy groups you can contribute to. Despite being respectfully evangelical with those around me, most other than a fringe really don’t care enough about this. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop. I will still suggest alternatives. They’re my principles. you’re working in their interest if you tell your allies to give up. I understand and share the cynicism around political process especially in democratic nations with disappointing levels of corporate influence over legislation, we can only engage in it best we can, as well as exerting our rights as consumers. The critical mass required may seem insurmountable but negativity toward those effectively on your side is not going to help either.
To a degree perhaps. It has also monopolised industries that feed into each other. Even if you choose not to use their consumer products, you are being used by them as the product in these industries if you use the web at all, which is most of their business model. That isn’t consumer choice. Political intervention is one hope, which in some countries I guess there is some consumer power over, if consumers were to collectivise to a degree more valuable than the lobbying power of this monster. The internet was turned into the yellowpages with sharp teeth by google .
Thanks for the headsup. This is the final push I needed. Been running Jellyfin for 6months or so but need to put more time into it. Plex has been great, and I’ve also been paying (though felt a little conflicted) a sub which I’m willing to do if it keeps a worthwhile project on an honest trajectory aligning with my needs and restrictions, for a good service or product. However they’re now doing exactly why I started on the self hosting path. Who’s to say the third party is jot going to be a heavy handed industry body, corrupt authority , let alone the problematic world of adsales? They’re walking a very strange line and seem very confused about their purpose. Other than the all ruining ‘growth’. Seeya plex.
They would still have everything else to make up for and improve, but maybe it would be a start. Unfortunately self criticism is not in the programming, and its a very dangerous failing. Saying that, the boom in mental health awareness in China is an interesting cultural development occurring since covid, and Beijing has been involved in it.
I ditched it around 2014 when I noticed it had effectively become the yellow pages. Its pretending to be one thing to the ‘user’ when its actually serving someone else. This is transparent of course but the balance/compromise or tradeoff of it still providing some utility to the user despite this is what may vary for different people. My threshold was low. That and the privacy violations. Unfortunately its a corporation.
raindrop.io works well for me for most of what you’ve mentioned, but its not selfhosted so I’m interested to find out other options also.
Thanks both. I’ve seen enough. Beyond problematic on substicks part.
Mind providing a bit more context to this so I can look it up ? I’ll boycott substick if need be.
If we have to pay for access to something we then don’t own, we may as well do it as a collective. So public libraries. Librarians in my country and city are excellent curators and, information and topics on display are more interesting and less insulting than what a pyramid scheme’s algorithm thinks I should ‘buy’ next. They’re often topical, relevant to our local community and timely. Libraries and librarians have a vested interested in books being good for us, and the service being useful to individuals and community, which goes beyond physical books also as you say. Amazon is in a race to the bottom with total disdain and disregard for readers, authors and probably even the sellers.
I’m a non dev and non IT worker but found myself using warp the last year on mac and linux kde for home things and work. I really like it particularly its history per tab and various intuitive usability things like click and drag to select text , copy pasteetc. The login requirement did creep me out, as well as the AI things I’m not using. I don’t trust businesses going in these directions. Anyone recommended another terminal cross platform (not that important i guess) and good for a non uber techie like me?
Edit: apologies I hadn’t seen the earlier comment thread but perhaps my requirement mentions will produce some interesting replies.
A global look at Short form video as the latest trend in mass misinformation campaigns, including which interest groups, or states conduct them and who they contract (from large scale to possibly unwitting small creators) to produce and post it. How it developed from prior trends, and where it might go next. Perhaps not particularly controversial (in the true sense of the word), but geopolitically worth looking at and discussing more in imo. Of course a privacy and security focus on this is very much integral to the issue by default. How the existing business models around the data involved (harvesting , auctioning etc) might play into this already , and in the years to come. As well as how other business is implicated. Good old “Follow the money” I guess .
Thats a job for ‘journalists’ these days.
Me too. Tried twitter way back in the early days of it. Never found it useful. Others did though obviously, which I don’t understand, but they did. What I find interesting is the seeming need to replace it with something similar. Why? Is it like gradually kicking an addiction by switching to something slightly less bad, but not going full cold turkey?
Good thing FB and Insta themselves are skippable.
Yeh it’s a sign-in for a free trial wall. Alternatively
Thats a good point as far as your visual identity being exposed to other fb users. However, with where facial recognition is at now, they’re sure to be able to match that and your identity on their business side with your (IRL) friends location data, cross site tracking and other data to effectively have a db of images of ‘you’. Whether or not they have a business use for it is another matter but not a stretch to see it as a part of the data harvesting and broking landscape, though I’m not sure of the value of images of you to them : perhaps demographic data for adsales. All speculation on my part, and I’m not sure where this would sit with regulation in various places. Just interesting to think about.
They have other ways. Cross site tracking etc. People without accounts on the platform itself still have profiles on the business side, which is a decent chunk of how they’re making money.
Bury the ashes of the pieces in the deepest hole. We need rid of this whole concept of information being monopolized and harvested for profit.
Presumably IRL they live in a fairly secular, non theocratic society, so perhaps its their chance to start a virtual cult. Strange that they’re non specific about this higher being. Guess I could bring one of my equally fictitious higher beings on one of their fictitious raids.