or even pseudo-incriminated for attempting to maintain our own life.
It seems so stupid that I’m like a suspect for wanting an exchange of information without dropping my pants and bending over. No, I don’t want cookies. Yes I want to read the article but no, I don’t want to “sign up.”
It makes me feel like being a f*cking hermit. But I prefer to pirate. Even though I’m not that good at it. Screw them. I got two private trackers, a VPN, and I hope that’s enough.
Preach it.
Capitalism.
The NYT, Guardian, BBC and many others have onion sites you can access via tor that have none of that shit because they assume you’re a Chinese dissident or something (and no ads).
Interesting… I’ll have to check that out.
Thx for the info.
I’m not so much interested into reading a bunch of west propaganda but it could be useful for some references.
Corpos are greedy for money and will attack anything that stands between them and it. That is until the Govt steps in, then the lobbiests fend it off with handfulls of money.
Whatever you are getting your hands into remember that there’s plenty of free alternatives and libre products available in the public domain. Supporting these is a good way to unsupport the closed counterpart.
As an OSS advocate, I fully agree. Sadly, OSS alternatives have to compete with easily accessible, slick and well-integrated products that are aggressively positioned. Just imagine all the steps you need to go through, just to install Fennec from F-Droid.
I just installed Fennec from F-Droid and it was like three steps. Search, install, and confirm install. I guess if I didn’t already have F-Droid, it would be more steps to install it, but that’s not too hard either, and you only have to do it once.
“Allow install from unknown source” permission for f-droid, and verifying the f-droid download’s checksum are too complicated/involved for many people, especially when compared to what another commenter rightly called “aggressively placed” spyware-laden alternatives.
Nobody verifies the checksum. It installs just fine (probably) if you don’t. Just like reading the EULA.
Sure, it’s a good step if you’re extra paranoid, but otherwise people are just allowing installs from unknown sources and immediately installing, especially since Android takes you straight to those settings when you try to launch a downloaded APK.
It’s easy for you and me. But imagine you’re Joe Everyman. First off, you need to know about F-Droid and where to download it. Then confirm that the browser can install software. And this is where I would imagine many users second-guessing if everything’s legit. And after it’s installed, you’ve got two separate app-stores to deal with. You need to know what you can install where.
If I extrapolate from my mother-in-law, who still can’t wrap her head around the concept of an app-store, let alone alternative browsers, that’s just too much hassle for most people.
I remember a message appearing on my android device when I first started using F-droid, something like: do not trust any programs you can download from anywhere except places grubby capitalists can molest you and feast on your data.
Not so much ago i was handled an iphone and i had no idea how to unlock it and use it as there aren’t any keys or instructions on the device. Joe Everyman is just used to it but in fact iphones are not easy to use. I think this really thread can also hint something, some OSS may not be easy to use or well supported but it is designed to be open and accessible. Proprietary software and standards puts you through a set of restrictions for example having to register and give away all your personal informations to download binaries.
Dude seriously. I use one for work, I’m relatively tech savvy and can intuitively figure stuff out. Iphones are obtuse by design, they want people to use them and get so used to them that they can’t switch to other options. I’ve used other phones and other OSs and it takes me a little bit and some Intuitiveness to figure it out but I get there, it’s been a pain with every single step for iphones.
I have had the identical experience; Samsung user who got an iPhone from work.
When I receive a text from a number not in my contacts there is a blue link prompt asking if I want to block them. However, there isn’t any prompt to add them to my contacts. Doing that is two non-intuitive clicks away.
LOTS of things like that.
Just today I got a called from one of my inspectors and I accidentally swiped it away. I saw that the call notification went to the top so I tried swiping down like it intuitively would be, it was just bringing down the lockscreen wallpaper. I missed the call and ended up having to just call him back.
Exactly
If you want to pirate, pirate. But there are plenty of free and public domain sources of entertainment and information.
Same with software. It won’t be exactly the same experience but if the goal is truly an altruistic attempt to not give money to bad companies or avoid tracking or whatever… there are ways.
I pirate shit. I am not going to pretend it is some holy struggle. I want things that I don’t/won’t pay for.
Worse is when you have to justify your view on privacy to family and friends.
to the point of being denied service
Yes. Spotify blocks my account if I’m using VPN, ChatGPT asks to solve ridiculous captchas (on a paid account!). It’s crazy. Reddit blocks access if you’re on the VPN and not logged in.
It seems so strange to me that everyone buys the bullshit that personal data is worth very little.
The data brokerage industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Yet, there are only ~8 billion people in the world, many of whom don’t have internet access or have very little data being traded. Thus it’s reasonably safe to assume that an average regular internet user’s data is worth somewhere in the region of $1,000 per year.
These companies don’t do anything with the data. We create the data, they collect it and sell it, then whoever buys it is the one that actually makes something from it. If we allow the brokers a very generous profit margin, they are still stealing $500-700 from every one of us, every year.
ChatGPT, summarize this for me like I’m a geriatric politician.
If you’re online. You need to assume that your data is being used without your permission whether you like it or not. Nothing is going to change. Look at the hordes of brain dead idiots who use tiktok
Nothing is going to change.
That’s the wrong attitude to have. It can change, and arguably it will change once a critical mass of people realise the value being stolen from them.
You can’t build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts. The people who make nuts and bolts don’t know how to build a car, but they’re still paid a fair value based on the fact their product can be used in cars.
We don’t know how to do anything with our data, but we should be paid based on the value derived from it by those that do.
This problem affects everyone, including the people who make laws. It is entirely feasible that we can get enough people on side to change things and make it more fair. Incumbent businesses won’t like that, because it will reduce their profits (100% down to 30%), but what they’re doing now is absolutely wrong. They’d still be taking the piss at 30%, but at least that’s more in line with other industries.
That critical mass will never come because people don’t feel the data has been stolen from them.
Rather, it’s traded in exchange for whatever online services they use.
And to them it’s a decent trade.
I think that’s fair if the service is free. If I’m paying for it then they shouldn’t be double dipping with my data as well.
I don’t want their money. I just want them to leave me alone. Now, the politicians? They would love their money. And I’m sure big tech lobbyists are already giving them some
The efficacy of advertising is sold primarily by advertisers. It’s possibly worth a vanishing fraction of what these ghouls say it’s worth. But so long as buying it and acting like a greedy invasive bastard is more profitable than ignoring it, even by a tiny margin, corporate giants will keep doing it, since the cost to them is a rounding error.
The industry enabling this is large because they get to sell the same garbage to so many bastards.
It is not strange. They are greedy. Period. If ever someone is less greedy, then even if only after they die the corp becomes as greedy as possible, ASAP - e.g. Disney.
What’s weird is that we are also hard-wired to be generous, so piracy does weird things to our conscience. If that bothers you, my advice is to learn to tip well irl, and in CASH whenever possible - the WORKERS deserve your aid.
Fuck tipping. American tipping culture enables employers to get away with paying their hospitality service industry employees starvation wages. By giving a big tip you are just telling the employer “Don’t worry about paying your employees a living wage. I got you fam.”
Obviously I still tip depending on where I am, but the minimum amount that is considered socially acceptable.
The ethics are complex for sure… a bit like sailing the high seas:-). I have no right to tell you or anyone else what to do, I just shared my own thought. Fuck the SOBs that started this for sure…but the WORKERS are the ones getting pinched in the middle of that clash of wills:-(.
Also I know of no better way to be generous to my fellow human - unlike some “charities”, this is no hand-out b/c there at least you can be 100% certain that they work. Also, a LOT of people do not tip (or if they do, then not much), thus necessitating a more extreme tipping from those that do if the scales were to ever to be balanced (which they ultimately never will, but still a little bit can help).
This is really a trolly problem through and through: someone puts a human on the tracks (lets say mostly innocent - possibly they were goaded rather than forced into being there but for the sake of argument let us presume they have no malice or any ill intent whatsoever, like this is no scam that they are “in” on, again just for the sake of argument), and a tiny but noticeable pile of your cash on the other, then offers to allow you to pull the lever to switch the track. Fuck the evil POS who would do that for their own amusement ofc but… given that it happened, do you play along and sacrifice your cash to help the human, or allow them to get hit? Let us also presume that you have the “right” to your cash, i.e. you would get it back rather than it being impounded for evidence or whatever.
I choose to play along, knowing full well that the system is unjust. Maybe I am contributing to the problem, but I do not know what else to do that could help in even the tiniest manner. Passing laws to enforce payment of a minimum wage that is actually a livable one seems like an entirely separate matter to me btw - b/c whether you tip or not, or whether you want to tip or not (I saw that you do the former but neither of us really do the latter, though I come closer to that in one manner of speaking), without being forced to, greedy-AF people will never (it seems) voluntarily pay the workers more on their own initiative, so simply “not tipping” in protest seems to me to be an approach doomed to failure. I do not deny that you are correct though - they will certainly take my doing so as their cue that they can continue, not that it would matter if laws were passed to literally prevent that happening - it is just that I cannot control them, I can only control me.
Thank you for this respectful conversation btw:-).
Honestly I think you should re-examine your perspective on charities. Just because they have some amount of administrative overhead doesn’t mean that they are always worse than simply giving money to a random person. That administrative overhead probably helps them operate at a scale that allows them to help far more people than a smaller organization could.
Like, if I give money to a local food bank, that would feed far more needy people than if I went to my local restaurant and bought a bunch of take-out and then went down to a homeless camp and gave random people the take-out. Because food banks have supply chain connections and economies of scale that allow them to buy a lot more food for every dollar than you can get at a restaurant.
By giving a big tip you are just telling the employer “Don’t worry about paying your employees a living wage. I got you fam.”
And what’s the alternative? Giving them nothing and telling yourself that it’s on them?
Yeah no thanks. I hate tipping culture as much as the next guy, but this isn’t how you change that.
I literally stated my preferred approach in the last sentence of that comment.
Oh right so you’re a piece of shit. Got it.
Maybe if you spent one day working food service, or any other job that makes $3/hour plus tips, you’d get it.
Maybe you shouldn’t take a job that pays $3/hour and then blame other people for why you get paid so little. My brother in Christ, you accepted the job.
“Maybe people should get jobs that pay more”
Yo holy shit, I can’t believe nobody ever thought of that! Wow, thanks!
Sounds like a book of Victor Pelevin
How do I set up a YouTube account anonymously?
I want to use revanced and figured setting up a youtube account not attached to my Gmail is a good idea. But they require a phone number.
But if I’m using an android maybe it doesn’t matter anyway and Google will know I’m not looking at their ads? If they want to delete me Gmail and whatever I’m sure they could right?
You actually don’t need a Youtube Account, unless you are a paying subscriber to some creators!
Check out FreeTube, it’s a desktop app similar to NewPipe on Android, that allows you to subscribe to creators while still not requiring an account, and without ads.
As for Android, I don’t know what phone you have, but if you’re ever buying a new one, I highly recommend just getting a (paradoxically) Google Pixel and installing GrapheneOS. An older Pixel is OK, just check which versions are still supported and for how long on the Graphene website. And the installation is super easy, and can actually be done in a browser without any issues, and takes like 15 minutes.
I’ve recently switched to Graphene and it’s amazing. I have a separate profile for apps that refuse to work without Google Services, so they are contained, and additionally Graphene sandboxes the google play services, so they can’t do anything you won’t let them, in contrast to any other Android phone where Google Services can basically do whatever they want without any way to limit it.
I also run Mullvad VPN on my phone all the time, but I don’t think that it’s neccessary.
Thanks that’s very helpful. Exactly what I wanted (just didn’t know it)
I was just worried because I got banned from reddit then my alt got banned. Don’t know how they put that together. But was worried google could do the same.
But doing some research I found out about LibreTube
Stolen comment: "This is the part where LibreTube is different than Newpipe.
Libretube proxies the YouTube connections to the instance you choose, so your IP is not exposed to YouTube, with the cons of videos might be loading slower than Newpipe, depending on your connection to that instance"
Yeah it’s weird how privacy and piracy have blended together over the years.
With some games you need to pirate them if you don’t want a Russian nesting doll of launchers and accounts that are able to leak your information and fill your computer with bloat.
I do find the argument interesting some YouTubers try to make about ad blockers being a form of piracy.
To be fair, it makes sense to liken the use of ad blockers with piracy. Consuming the content without paying for it either way, either without directly paying yourself or without indirectly paying through watching ads. Doesn’t change that ads on most parts of the internet are extremely invasive and far too much.
I feel fully entitled to protect myself from the ads because of the problems with them. But I don’t feel the need to lie to myself about the fact that I’m consuming content without paying for it in some way. Then again I support some content creators that I feel deserve it. Not sure if that helps offset it somewhat or not, but I don’t really care that much either.
I don’t see why a free market can’t take care of this problem. Let the suppliers run their ads and if it’s not profitable then let them fold. None of this “please stop using ad blockers our business model sucks and we need you to accept worse overall service so we can stay in business”.
I don’t really care that much either.
This is the most important thing imo. Some people just don’t care (not saying it’s a bad thing). Others do so to each their own.
Sure, let everything require that you pay upfront for everything. Those too poor to afford to pay don’t deserve to have access to it anyway, right?
I’m not saying that ads are good, but having an option for people to pay to access a service that isn’t directly tied to money they have accessible seems better than barring them from that access. At the same time that option cannot be too intrusive or otherwise be too much of a negative before it becomes predatory. We can wish for the world to be perfect as much as we want, that doesn’t make it so. We can work towards a future where people don’t have to work to be able to live comfortably and where we have very different ways to compensate people for their time and effort on top of that. But we’re not there.
I’m not quite sure what you meant by your last paragraph, though.
Those too poor to afford to pay don’t deserve to have access to it anyway, right?
Those too poor to afford to pay get it for free, comrade.
I feel like a lot of people are wholly unaware of FOSS. But anyway my free market idea would require consent, for example a pop-up that says “would you like to pay $0.30 or watch an 8 second ad to view the content?” and then people could make their choice. If their choice is neither then they will go somewhere else for the information or entertainment. Consent is absent from the current model, aside from using an ad blocker to signal your refusal.
There are tons of videos (educational and otherwise) on youtube that have never paid out to their creators, either because they were from the era before youtube enshittified or because the algorithm decided that the content creator has earned nothing. It reminds me of the old argument that “you shouldn’t pirate music because it’s not fair to the artist” but man you’ve got to see those record contracts, especially those made to black or otherwise underprivileged artists. Being fair to the artist was never an imperative, but this argument still persists with people who identify themselves with their jailers, or who actually don’t really care that much (not saying that in a bad way).
Humans by nature are creative and helpful. We will always make how-to videos, guides, music, stories, and art. We don’t need megacorps to facilitate this, it’s the megacorps that want in, and they’re going to have to come up with a better business model.
Well yeah, of course we’re consuming content without paying. But that is not piracy.
The creators are distributing the content freely, and we’re consuming it, while ignoring the ads, because we have the ability to do it.
Is flipping the channel on legacy TV when switching to commercials piracy as well?
Anyone who considers adblocking immoral shouldnt block anykind of advertising anywhere.
Where did you get that it was immoral from? I don’t see many (anyone?) that have claimed that.
If someone claims adblocking is form of piracy they are also claiming its immoral or bad thing to do. I doubt someone making claim like that would have anything nice to say about piracy.
I mean, why else would people speak against adblocking if they didnt think it was somehow “immoral” or otherwise negative thing to do.
No. Making a claim that adblocking is a form of piracy does not in any way say that either piracy nor adblocking is immoral. Only if they actually make a claim that piracy is immoral can it be transferred like that.
You also seem to make the claim that anyone equating adblocking and piracy are speaking against them. Why are you making such a claim?
Also *it’s, *didn’t. It’s not that hard.
I’m just so tired and annoyed about people wanting to restrict adblocking in anyway, so I guess i assume things too easily. I consider being able to not see ads my inherent right.
Oh, absolutely. And it’s just gotten worse with the intrusiveness and amount of ads everywhere. Piracy also seems to become the only way to avoid far too much data collection about us as well.
With some games you need to pirate them if you don’t want a Russian nesting doll of launchers and accounts
I’m not a gamer but is this really true? I thought it was the other way around, that pirated games were the ones filled with malware.
I remember the Internet in the early to late 90s. What a magical time it was. I’ve said for years now that giant corporations are going to basically buy out the Internet and pidgin hole you into using their services. They’ve basically accomplished that goal.
This is why we need a p2p mesh internet.
Everyone: “But Explodicle, the bandwidth will be terrible!”
Meh, all we really need is basic communication infrastructure that isn’t hostile. Everything else I can wait to download… like the 90s.
Set up a private dns too, just in case of an ambush.
Gotcha, thanks
This is almost verbatim the definition of a dystopia, fwiw.
