ampcold

joined 1 year ago
[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 4 points 7 months ago

Cops have alternative means to access encrypted messages, court says.

Do they mean https://xkcd.com/538

[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 17 points 8 months ago

How can anyone with a straight face call these things pro-life? It has become a death cult fueled by hatred against women.

[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Well, there is also this news https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/netflix-subscribers-up-q2-earnings-1235673960/ showing that apparently many people just pay up to keep their access.

[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I have been using https://getvau.lt for years. It is really just a very small JS lib. No need for paying for complicated services in my opinion.

[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I have been experimenting with this week and while I like it, I am still not sure I like it enough to find it worth paying. It is still mostly using Google and Bing as a search provider, so I haven't so far found drastically different results than what I get from DuckDuckGo. Having a limit on searches also makes me a bit anxious when you are used to just searching for all kinds of stuff simply because I am lazy and don't want to type in full URLs or go to my bookmarks. Lots of muscle memory that needs to be revamped. I do see the potential in how it can be customized with personalized lenses and lowering/raising specific domains. And the people behind it seem really nice on Discord, so I expect to see a lot of innovation in search that we haven't seen from Google in years.

[–] ampcold@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Totally agree on the news and journalism part. I subscribe to three different publications, which gets expensive, but it is worth it. Many newssites have also started to hide their articles behind paywalls, which is understandable, but also make sharing and discussing news with others on social media harder. And since most people can't afford to subscribe to several news outlets, they will be limited in their exposure to different viewpoints - unless that particular newspaper is really good at challenging its readers and not just giving them what they think they want.

 

We all know the saying of if you are not paying then you are the product, which again became relevant with how Reddit is dealing with its business model and trying to get everyone into their dataharvesting for more ads ecosystem. It is really sad how many of the worlds brightest techminds are building technologies that in the end all leads to show more ads.

I have been online for over 25 years, so it is a hard expectation to break that everything should be free. Free email, free search, free news, free social media etc.

Given how much time many of us spend using various online services, paying a little seems reasonable. Yet I often tend to think way too long on even smaller digital expenses, like an app for €2, but I will happily pay €10 for a coffee and a croissant at a train station like it is nothing.

I have seen many saying they wouldn't mind paying a bit for a good Reddit experience, and I think I could even be persuaded to pay for Facebook if it removed all the ads and let me control my feed again like we could in the beginning. Yet these companies don't really seem interested in providing that option.

What services do you find worth paying for - even though free alternatives exists?

I have a neutral email provider, a todo app (Todoist), a journal app (DayOne), a podcast app (PocketCast) - as well as the usual plethora of streaming services. I have considered trying Kagi for a paid search engine, though that is really a hard pill to swallow when good search have always been there freely available. Though Googles quality have really gone down in recent years.