The start(-up?)[sic] generates up to $2 billion annually from ChatGPT and an additional $ 1 billion from LLM access fees, translating to an approximate total revenue of between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion annually.
one does not become dependent on tech giants without a critical loss at some day, no matter whats the “reason” for it and they tend to do weird stuff within or without laws…
For others or for a new start and how to avoid such in the future (maybe “migrate” your relatives to secure services “before” you get ripped off):
get your own domain like somestupidtext.info make sure the toplevel (.info .com .net or whatever) has laws that let you effecticely reclaim your domain if one of the providers block something or fail to do their job. also make sure you do not fall into only-first-year-very-cheap traps for domain prices. maybe check that the toplevel domain is not one regulary found to be used by spammers and thus maybe blocked by some providers.
use one company only for DNS related things, maybe name.com, but there are plenty others and lots of generic hosting providers also provide dns-only hosting.
get some provider to host email for your domain or run your own emailserver and set mx records to that mailserver.
configure and change valueable services to your email addresses under your domain
make sure you have a local(!) copy of all your emails that automatically updates itself, if you can, at least daily, offlineimap checked in into a git repo could do a good job
if one provider sucks, change it and leave the rest as is.
the setup alone already shows the provider, that only gov (of that toplevel domain) can effectively block you, as when the email provider tries to block you, you find a new one and change MX records (and obviously cancel and stop paying the blocking one), if the DNS provider tries to block you, you get a new provider and transfer the domain to it, if that fails a lawyer could help) also the small providers have usually no way to know what you do on another account at another company, only if you put your whole life into the hands of the few known big evil ones, you are that vulnerable to the chaos they produce.
also setting up recovery addresses (if possible) is a good idea, like when one email is unusable for whatever reason, the provider already has a known email address from you to start a recovery process, of course that second email address MUST be out of reach of the provider of the first one, that is, if you have somemailprovider.com address and one at microshits, then microshit buys somemailprovider.com, you have to change everything from that somemailprovider.com to a new one just to stay secure. due to this, your own domain with a connected email service of a random hosting provider comes in handy as you would not have to change all the email adresses but only that random email provider. also if skype/zoom etc does not work for you, there are plenty of other ways to do video talks on the internet. i prefer to be independent for same reasons even though i haven’t been blocked yet, i just saw the signs of possible approaching evil because of the shitflow big evil tech produces all the time just to flush their believers view of what would be possible down the drain and choosed independence ahead of losses. following signs like leaving companies with red flags (like just too big, like already robbed their users, like give a shit on their users security, like give a shit on their bugs and blame users while their own big-tech-company-network is pwned by someone unknown for month and such) a more privacy aligned messenger that supports videocalls would be for example matrix, there are multiple clients to choose from and lots of providers to choose from (also self hosting or becoming a provider is possible while for talking to each other it is NOT necessary to use the same provider, but again self-hosting of course is most-secure) one cannot do things securely without knowing a bit about what it is. to learn more about dns, email, matrix or other topics the internet is full of informations, sometimes wikipedia is very helpful and linux user groups exist for talking about stuff and helping each other. the type of support is different and -as i see it - much more efficient, but different, there is no one to do it for you (or you get into the very same dependency trap again) but you are encouraged to learn what it takes to do so and do it yourself.
example prices from a random dns provider: .de 10€ / year .eu 16€ / year
random mail provider imap email 100GB storage 3 € /month
that is having more control over your email than when using big tech, may cost you more or less 4€ per month (and maybe the learning time to set everything up). for matrix server one might use managed services, looking around i found etke.cc with 5€ as a base minimum when you provide your own VPS for it, but with many other options too. maybe the free hosting announced by element.io where i did not look into yet is an option too. i prefer my own domains and servers, but just using separate hosting companies for dns, email and matrix gives a whole lot more control while still beeing a simple and adjustable setup. while matrix does not lock you in into one instance from the beginning (i can chat/call from/to my own account/server to any other account on other servers while beeing able to try this out using a multi-account-client that connects to all acvounts/servers at the same time) they now have bridges so one can use the same client to chat with others on telegram or whatsapp (and others) too, so this is rather the opposite of vendor lock-in. while a matrix hoster could still block your account in error and if you did not use your own domain for your matrix account at the hoster, you could connect to your friends again from another account at another hoster as you would still have their matrix adresses stored in your client. however to securely use matrix one should read about its security mechanisms and what backup keys are and why one should validate new connections.
if you had the loss, at least take advantage of the message/lesson: big tech is too powerful and thus insecure. maybe do three steps in parallel: choose and migrate to smaller providers, more providers each for different things, if one f**ks up, everything else stays in place, thus less stressful on problems. second step in parallel: get yourself into DIY your digital life. every little step into independence is a step more powerful while removing the very same power from big tech to attack the stability of your digital life. third step in parallel: share your problem including the possible solutions, which you choosed and how it went to those you think might take advantage of that information ;-)
I love these ideas but self hosting is simply not a solution for average citizens who aren’t skilled at such things. To them it would be like paving their own highway with bridges and also maintaining and policing them. It might be easy for you and me, but that’s because we have training and experience and we chose this way. It’s not a justifiable opportunity cost for most people.
I think a different kind of org than the googles metas and Microsofts of the world is in need, like a compute & communications co-op that can actually compete on that level of capability offerings, accessibility, performance and security.
i think it should not be too difficult to compete with m$ security, that is at least true for the state of the last 30 years or maybe more.
But something like a non-profit organisation - or a bunch of them- that make self-hosting for essential services (like email, messenger, video calls) a charm could be a big win for billions of peoples.
eNom is supposed to forward all emails from one of my domains to Gmail. I get maybe half of them. Really gotta get around to moving that over to SimpleLogin and Cloudflare.
This is cool and all, but why do we always stop at Microsoft? I think it would be more impactful in 2023 if we can uninstall Safari from iOS devices and Chrome from Android?
Cs is a special case. It has a very nice pacing. And requires no storfisk knowledge to be watched, you can almost not have played cs at all and understand what’s going on.
I think the finals could also be a very cool esport. With it’s very short rounds and tournament format. Although a bit chaotic.
It’s less about genre and more about the visual clutter overload, which seems to get exacerbated with each update. Like the last character they teased literally places a giant cylindrical barrier and chains all enemy characters inside or it, plus himself. Now imagine 2 of those
Apex Legends is great to watch as a spectator, especially when you’re able to get multiple points of view.
I’ve also enjoyed CS esports previously. I’ve actually never been a fan of the LOL/Dota/StarCraft spectating as I find that it makes for a terrible viewing experience, so ymmv.
Same here. Ironically I’m using a bunch of original Xbox controllers on it. I just like the shape. whaddayagonnado microsoft? Your OS and your consoles are shit! You are the third party now!
Me too. And I even purchased the official proprietary dongle from Microsoft and play it wireless. Why not Bluetooth? I don't like Bluetooth, as I have bad experience with it in the past and would need a dongle for it anyway. Otherwise, the controller works very well with Steam and with non Steam emulators. Microsoft knows how to make good controllers, I give them that.
But on the other hand, I wonder how it is to have a PS5 controller. First, Sony has open source drivers for it and they are included in the Kernel I think (tag me wrong, if it's not true). Plus it has some features, which the Xbox controllers do not have. I'm very curious, but the prices for new controllers are so expensive!
Well… this is not cool. On the other hand, it was clearly an experimental product. Do not think people purchased it expected a mainstream like support.
Yeah lemme go buy that fire ass Linux phone thats a pocketable, foldable tablet with split displays, a pen with haptic feedback and rigid glass screens for stylus use and a great camera and has support for my office products and also isn’t totally busted half the time. Where is it? Because I legit would buy the fuck out of it
Android is literally Linux, and also you can put whatever custom rom you want on your phone. Write your own if it's that big a deal to you. Don't stick with stock Android, but if you want a customizable phone, that's your option. Microsoft and Apple don't give you the option for custom firmware. Android does.
No, it isn’t. Can you install Flatpak apps on Android? Can you plug it in a monitor and run GIMP or desktop version of Firefox? Because actual Linux phones can.
The difference is that Android phones only use Linux kernel and it is so much modified by SoC maker and OEM that by side effect it can’t run anything beside Android anymore. There are projects like PostmarketOS trying to port real (mainline) Linux on phones but it takes awful amount of work and supports like 5 phones still with no things like cameras. There are also systems like Droidian trying to strip Android to bare minimum and run Linux on top of it like an always-on-top app, but this also is only for a couple of phones.
It’s a heavily-forked version of Linux with so many changes that it’s not really Linux anymore.
Is XboxOS literally windows?
Is MacOS literally FreeBSD?
Is PlayStationOS literally FreeBSD?
Omg do MacBooks and PlayStations have the same OS?? I can play Ratchet and Clank on a MacBook???
Android does not use an up to date, or mainline Linux kernel. It gets rid of most of the GNU core utils. It doesn’t use other big parts of Linux like Wayland or X11. I can’t install random Flatpaks on my Android phone. Etc etc.
Calling Android “literally Linux” is incredibly misleading to the point of basically being a lie.
No, the alternative is an open source rom on Samsung's hardware. No Google required, at least for now. Though I do expect that to get much more difficult in the future.
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