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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Fdroid shows Fennec with anti features, tracking to Mozilla and Google, and proprietary upstream code. Is there a good fdroid browser without anti features?
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.
I’ve started to get annoyed at people asking why I cannot be found on this or that social platform! I have given up on explaining and simply tell them I took an irreversible decision to do so and leave them in the dark as to why
deleted by creator
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 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.
Capitalism.
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.
This is almost verbatim the definition of a dystopia, fwiw.
eta: the start of it is nearly a Black Mirror episode
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"
