ArchRecord

ArchRecord , 19 hours ago

This is kind of just a bad argument.

Nobody is arguing that an abortion can save a woman from all consequences.

Nobody is arguing that death is impossible as a result of abortion.

But when somebody dies because something prevented them from getting a procedure that would have been highly likely to save them, that doesn’t come into conflict with the possibility of death from the procedure. It’s a matter of personal choice.

Especially considering the maternal mortality rate (# of deaths per 100,000 live births) is 17.4, while the case fatality rate for abortions (# of deaths per 100,000 legal induced abortions) is just 0.45

Now imagine how much higher that rate gets when abortions are performed illegally because legislation like this stops safe abortions from being possible, without curbing demand.

Yes, people die from abortions. Yes, people die from pregnancy. Yes, this woman could have died from the abortion procedure even if she was able to get it.

But her chance of death was significantly lower if she had been capable of getting an abortion, which she was not.

ArchRecord , 16 hours ago

Hey, I actually missed that part. (I assumed it was deaths relating to the pregnancy itself, not including additional procedures like abortions)

Still, 17.4 - 0.45 = 16.95, which is still substantially higher than the case fatality rate of abortion-related fatalities alone.

ArchRecord , 9 days ago

The highest usage of ad blockers happens within the age range of 18-24, which categorically includes Gen Z.

The second highest age range is 25-34, and the third highest is 12-17, which is also included in Gen Z.

That said, I would argue that, while knowing how to use a smartphone doesn’t make you tech savvy, knowing how to use an ad blocker doesn’t either. It’s as easy as installing an extension.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

Same here, honestly. I would have thought they’d say something like “hey, we’re going to delete anything 1 year or older starting next month, and reduce that amount slowly down to 6 months with time” just to give people a general warning in case there was anything they were storing through Discord that they wanted to keep.

There’s also just a ton of optimizations they could have done. Are people repeatedly uploading the same file, with the same name and contents? merge them into one CDN link. They’d probably save hundreds of terabytes of data just from reposted memes alone through a hash matching algorithm.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

Matrix is nice, but it’s still very bad UX wise.

I’ve used it on and off for years now, and about 2-4 times a month it loses my chat view encryption keys, and loses me my entire chat history. It also regularly has sync issues between devices signed into the same account, and is relatively slow sometimes to send messages.

Of course, that’s just my anecdotal experience, but I’ve tried many messaging platforms over the years, and while Matrix (and multiple of its clients, primarily Element) is the most feature-complete compared to Discord, it’s nowhere near properly usable long-term for a mass-market audience.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

For real.

I emailed them once asking about how they were complying with GDPR regulations if they didn’t allow users a way to delete all their message details, and didn’t even have a procedure for GDPR requests, only their standard, much worse privacy-wise account deletion process. They claimed it was because they had a legitimate interest to keep any messages not individually deleted, so the chats would still look coherent after an account was deleted.

They only delete your message if you delete it individually, so naturally, I was concerned, since you can’t delete messages in a server you were banned from, or left, and Discord provides no way for you to identify old messages in servers you’re not currently in.

They eventually, supposedly, sent my concerns to their data privacy team.

They were then sued for 800,000 euros about a month or two later.

They still don’t allow you to mass delete your message data. They really want to hold onto it for as long as they can.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

Look, I’m as upset as you are about the enshittification of everything, but this is a bit too far.

There was always legitimate issues with Discord’s storage management, and they at least seem to be taking it seriously now.

I’m not a massive fan of Discord, but this is a bit of an overreaction.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

The thing is, I did have encryption keys set up. The problem was that Element would repeatedly forget the very encryption keys passed by the other user, and would then have to request the keys again. Any historical message history would be permanently encrypted forever, and wouldn’t decrypt with the new view key.

After this happened about 4 times, I stopped using it, because it was impossible to maintain conversations for longer than 1-2 weeks before they’d inevitably be lost, and I’d then have to spend about an hour waiting for Element to receive the new encryption keys from the people I was contacting, even when they were already actively online.

I have no clue what was causing it, but it happened on multiple accounts, on multiple devices, all the time, and there was no conceivable fix. I’m not sure if this is fixed now, but I haven’t had a good reason to go back, especially with other encrypted messaging options out there.

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

I suppose they could, but even cold storage has a cost, and with the scale Discord’s operating at, they definitely have many terabytes of data that comes into the CDN every day, and that cost adds up if you’re storing it permanently.

I also think the vast majority of users would prefer being able to upload much higher resolution images and videos, to being able to see the image they sent with their messages a year ago. I don’t often go back through my messages, but I often find myself compressing or lowering the quality of the things I’m uploading on a regular basis.

They could also do the other common sense thing, which is to, on the client side of things, compress images and videos before sending them.

ArchRecord , 11 days ago

The train also only runs between Erkner Station, and Tesla Sud, which is literally just the station right at the Tesla manufacturing facility in the area.

“It’s also free to not just Tesla employees, but regular passengers as well.”

That’s great and all, but are everyday people taking trains to go see the outside of a Tesla factory, then leaving again?

ArchRecord , 10 days ago

“At the suggestion of Elon Musk […] I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” -Donald Trump

[Trump noted] the task force would be responsible for “making recommendations for drastic reforms” to the government.

The fact that this man doesn’t understand that our entire system of checks and balances is what makes recommendations (and implements) drastic reforms, just shows how much of a fascist he is.

Adding Musk to his own special “task force” meant to “recommend” changes, which would, in reality, just be another avenue of control, is a clear attempt to centralize power.

ArchRecord OP , 13 days ago

As opposed to dying from the disease you already have because the traditional pharmaceutical industry makes the drugs you need out of your price range?

It won’t be a life long ailment for long if you’re going to die from a lack of care soon anyways.

ArchRecord OP , 13 days ago

They could do that, but the drugs are still much too expensive comparatively, and it doesn’t include many drugs, especially the ones that are the most absurdly priced.

For instance, after looking through various articles on him and scraping together some of the data, out of the medications referenced as being some that he’s made:

Misoprostol (Abortion Medication) - $14.90 on CPG - $0.89 via MicroLab

Sovaldi (Cures Hepatitis C) - Not available on CPG (normally $84,000) - $70 via MicroLab

Kalydeco (Treats Cystic Fibrosis) - Not available on CPG (Normally ~$500/day) - $10/day via MicroLab

Daraprim (Treats Parasitic Diseases & Some AIDS Patients) - $2443/30 pills on CPG - $80/30 Pills via MicroLab

Epinephrine (Treats Allergic Reactions, AKA epipen) - Not available on CPG (Normally $650-$750) - Initially $30 via MicroLab ($3/reload after)

The pharmaceutical industry is so screwed up, and these prices only show it more clearly.

ArchRecord OP , 13 days ago

And it’s only made more inspiring by the fact that he has his own personal history with the pharmaceutical industry that didn’t work for him.

I found another article on him and the collective, and there’s this honestly saddening quote:

“A toast to the dead, for children with cancer and AIDS,” Laufer said, raising a glass of bourbon and quoting the hip hop artist Felipe Andres Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique. “A cure exists, and you probably could have been saved.”

It’s even posted up on their page for the MicroLab right at the top.

ArchRecord OP , 13 days ago

Well that’s the coolest part about this, everything is based on the existing research.

The drugs they’re making are the exact same chemical compounds formulated by the drug companies, and contrary to popular belief, the compounds can actually be relatively simple, it’s the process of finding which compound that takes the most money from R&D.

So if you have 2-3 very standard chemicals, with well known reactions and outcomes, and you have the exact blueprint of what the final result should look like, and you can chemically test it afterward to see if it combined as expected, then anyone who has enough reason to use this instead of traditional means (i.e. being priced out of lifesaving medication completely) can be reasonably confident it will work.

ArchRecord OP , 12 days ago

Technically, drug dealers are using the tech (more specifically, other people are using it, then selling the product to the drug dealers, who then sell it to their customers as a ‘service’ included with the drugs)

The thing is, they’re not doing it to make stronger drugs, or for PR purposes. They’re actually adding pre-exposure prophylactics (PrEPs) into their heroin, which then creates the side effect of preventing the contraction of HIV from the needles. (referenced about 1/3rd of the way down this article)

If people are already going to be addicted to these drugs, them not getting HIV from it is just one harm reduction measure that can reduce their risk of serious, permanent illness.

ArchRecord OP , 12 days ago

I would be at least a bit worried too, but unfortunately the only reason this exists is because corporations decided to wall off access to producing their drugs legally so they could continue to exploit vulnerable people for profit.

For a lot of the people using this tech, it’s the only way they’ll get life saving medication, and without it, they’ll die. If that’s the kind of gamble they have to make, a possible risk of impurities or negative reactions is better than the considerably less desirable option of death.

ArchRecord OP , 12 days ago

The Open Source Initiative has a giant list of licenses that anyone can use to make their works fully open-source.

Some are just for code, but I’m sure they could be adapted to things like medicine, if needed.

ArchRecord , 14 days ago

The Internet Archive is a library.

Not only are they a member of the Boston Library Consortium, but their entire operation is based around preserving not just webpages, but books, and other forms of media.

They even offer loans of various materials to and from other libraries, and digitize & archive works from the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the New York Public Library, and more.

To say the Internet Archive isn’t an “actual library,” and has “stepped out of their fucking lane” is ridiculous.

This ruling doesn’t just affect the Internet Archive, it affects every single other library out there that wants to lend ebooks, and digitize their existing physical copies of books for digital lending.

ArchRecord , 14 days ago

They removed the one copy rule temporarily, during the pandemic, it’s now in place again. But the publishers have made any digitized lending illegal, not just more than one copy, any digitized lending. It is now illegal for them to scan and distribute even one single copy of any book.

It was never a problem with the single-copy restriction, and the publishers didn’t bring up that restriction at all as the purpose of the suit, instead attacking the entirety of scanning & lending, even using Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) systems, like the Internet Archive, and other libraries use.

Even regardless of that, the First-sale Doctrine enables all existing secondary markets for copyrighted material. It’s how you can lend a book to a friend, sell a used book after you’re finished it, or swap copies of a video game on disk with somebody.

The Internet Archive is included in this. Changing the method of distribution (lending a digital copy vs a physical copy) has no functional distinction, and the publishers in the lawsuit were not able to demonstrate material harm, instead just stating that it wasn’t “fair use,” and should thus be illegal, regardless of the fact that they weren’t harmed by the supposedly non-fair use.

And on top of that, fuck the law if it’s unjust. I don’t care if it’s supposedly (even if not true) “100% not legal under current law” to do, it should be, and this ruling is unjust.

ArchRecord , 14 days ago

Any digitized lending was always illegal.

the law is well beyond clear.

I think Title 17, Chapter 108 of the U.S. Code would beg to differ.Digitized lending was always allowed, especially for libraries and archives. The only ambiguous part was the number of copies allowed to be digitized of any individual work, (many of the books the Internet Archive digitized only had one copy digitized and lent at any given time) so most of what the Internet Archive engaged in was fully legal under this code, and only a fraction of the 500 million titles that are now illegal to lend would have been affected, even though all 500 million can now not be legally lent due to this ruling.

You need new laws to apply to the digital world.

True, we can agree on that. We need new laws. Until that point, no change will happen if the boundaries are not pushed.

I guarantee you there hasn’t been anywhere near the current level of momentum for the rights of libraries to lend digitized books any time prior to this court case. If the Internet Archive hadn’t done it in the first place, we would be in the same situation we’re in after this ruling.

Them doing so pushes the issue forward.

This ruling was a literal guarantee the minute the Internet Archive removed their (unambiguously not in any way legal) pretense of a “single copy”

As I’ll say again, this was not the premise under which the publishers won this case. They won the case under the premise that any digitized lending was not transformative, and thus not “fair use,” even though it’s legal under other statutes. The number of copies held no bearing on the ruling.

ArchRecord , 14 days ago

That law is not about digital lending and cannot be applied to digital lending.

That’s provably incorrect.

“it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives […] to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work”

Title 17, USC 101 defines a copy as “…material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device…”

Digital replication falls under the legal definition of copying in the US Code, and is directly cited in the prior section of the code I reference in my last reply.

The Internet Archive’s loans also utilize DRM, a standard kind of software used by every other library out there to restrict further replication of copies. This same technology is in use with libraries who have contracts with publishers to directly download and publish digital copies of non-printed ebooks, which would violate that contract by not using DRM. The Internet Archive, without any express contract from publishers, is still implementing the strongest measures of protection that the publishers themselves would require whether or not content was directly licensed from them instead of being scanned in from a physical copy.

It’s relevant because it forced the hands of the publishers to take action.

Nothing forced them to do anything. These publishers voluntarily decided to file a lawsuit because of mounting pressure from libraries as a collective to stop charging insanely high prices on ebook rentals from publishers, which they saw as being undermined by the fact that the Internet Archive was able to still pay for the books in question, but lend them out in the same manner that physical books are already lent, just through a screen.

As I mentioned before, if the Internet Archive had never done this in the first place, public outcry would be practically nonexistent, and the Internet Archive wouldn’t be lending out those books at all, just like they’re not legally able to now. There is no difference to if they had or had not done this, other than the fact that it is now more visible in the public sphere, and has active legal challenges instead of being quietly subverted by regulation and practices publishers have continued to mount against all libraries to re-establish what it means to own a copyrighted work.

ArchRecord , 13 days ago

you’re very conveniently ignoring the “material objects” part of that definition

I’m not, it’s just that the wording of the definition could lead to you interpreting it as such. It does not mean what you think it means.

In essence, it’s saying that if a material object is “fixed” (under copyright law, that tends to mean captured in a medium that allows it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated) it is considered a copy. Copyright law generally considers things like written texts (i.e. transcribing a book onto other sheets of paper) to be copies, but it also includes things like recordings, which are very much nontangible. (although still stored on tangible hardware) Also, note the “either directly or with the aid of a machine or device” section of that description.

DRM is entirely irrelevant. It has no bearing on anything.

The fact you consider DRM to be irrelevant in a conversation about managing legal access to digitally distributed content shows a lot about your understanding of this topic, to say the least.

DRM is highly relevant. If it were not, then all libraries would already be illegally publishing copies under the agreements they sign with publishers when they distribute books through DRM-protected applications like Overdrive or Libby. Legal consequence also does not extend past the original publisher if the intent was clearly not to deliberately allow for further copying. (i.e. if the Internet Archive stated they lent books so users could copy them and later share them with friends, that would be a violation. Instead, they have loan terms, limits, and DRM)

If anything done by a user after the lending of any material, outside of reasonable safeguards (like DRM) was to be considered illegal, then any store would be liable if someone used a kitchen knife to kill someone, and any chemical distributor would be liable if someone in a lab mixed the wrong chemicals together and made an explosion. Liability has an end point, and DRM helps signify that by placing technical restrictions on redistribution of material, while also carrying heavy legal penalties for breaking it, which would not be present if it wasn’t applied in the first place.

Publishers should not be able to sue libraries for lending their books, digital, physical, or otherwise. Especially when the publishers could not demonstrate any material harm.

You are actively defending multi-billion dollar publishing companies suing a library for lending content they legally acquired, using faulty interpretations of the law, and deference to lawsuits as a means of judging the morality of actions. You haven’t made a single point that wasn’t either verifiably untrue, or misinformed.

I would advise you to reevaluate your position.

ArchRecord , 13 days ago

DRM is relevant to the legal redistribution because that is part of the terms of their license agreement and for no other reason.

This is simply not true. If someone takes means to prevent illegal action, in a situation where they can choose to either do so, or not do so, taking those means shows they are attempting to prevent any negative legal outcomes.

The Internet Archive was explicitly, voluntarily enacting similar policy to libraries that directly license books from publishers, because they knew that it would show they were making an effort to lend responsibly. To me, it seems they carried on this set of ethics to when they opened up more copies than they originally had on hand, because that was during a time when library branches were becoming physically inaccessible, and physical resources were becoming increasingly hard to access, thus, responsible lending would include effectively making the inaccessible physical copies in other libraries accessible. That part might not be considered legal, but again, who cares? These publishers saw a substantial increase in profits during the time they were supposedly hurt by the Internet Archive, and continue to squeeze traditional libraries for every penny they can get under exploitative lending agreements. What the Internet Archive did was for the objective moral good of society.

If anything’s illegal, it’s compelling libraries to only license your content directly from you for a higher rate, while trying to discourage them from using the physical copies they can buy once like any other sane person.

Petition for changes to the law. Don’t lie and pretend the law says what you want it to.

I have not misrepresented the law by pretending it says something else. I have given you citations and quotes straight from the letter of the law, directly backing up my claims, while proving your blanket statements that all digitized lending was illegal as patently false.

Petitioning to change the law is not the only way to change it. For instance, I believe piracy from, say, streaming services, is ethical, if those same streaming services are jacking up rates, adding ads, and enshittifying their core product for the sake of making a quick buck. how else are you supposed to change things?

I’m sure you’ve seen the immense public backlash and legislative attempts to fix the rapidly enshittifying entertainment industry. They haven’t worked.

Look, even regardless of all my arguments for how I believe the vast majority of what the Internet Archive did was legal, I don’t care if it was. Because, in the end, If you own a book, you should be allowed to let other people read it. If people are losing access to literature, you should be able to make it available to as many people as possible. If companies are rapidly exploiting the public library system and looting it for everything it has, you should be able to offer an alternative.

These publishers do not deserve my, nor your sympathy.

ArchRecord , 15 days ago

TLDR; “weak people have to conform to social consensus otherwise they get hurt I guess?”

I, on the other hand, am a big, strong, high T alpha male, that isn’t worried about what anyone thinks! I am a free thinker, and I know my opinions are correct because I instantly based this entire opinion on a subjective, anecdotal view of the world that I then extrapolated meaning out of, the best evidence! /s

ArchRecord , 16 days ago

I have never once found an “AI” feature integrated by a corporation useful.

I have only ever found “AI” useful when it’s unobtrusive, and something I chose to use manually. Sometimes an LLM is useful to use, but I don’t need it shilled to me inside a search bar or in a support chat that won’t solve my problem until I bypass the LLM.

ArchRecord , 15 days ago

I primarily end up using LLMs through DuckDuckGo’s private frontend alongside a search, so if my current search doesn’t yield the correct answer to my question (i.e. I ask for something but those keywords only ever turn up search results on a different, but similar topic) then I go to the LLM and ask a more refined question, that otherwise doesn’t produce any relevant results in a traditional keyword search.

I also use integrated LLMs to format and distill my offhand notes, (and reformat arbitrary text based on specific criteria repeatedly for structured notes,) learn programming syntax more at my own pace and in my own way, and just generally get answers on more well-known topics a lot faster than I would scrolling past 5 pages of SEO-“optimized” garbage just designed to fill time for the ads to load before actually giving me a good answer.

ArchRecord , 15 days ago

Oh yeah, it’s definitely useful for that!

Since LLMs are essentially just very complicated probabilistic links between words, it seems to be extremely good at picking the exact word or phrase that even a thesaurus couldn’t get me.

ArchRecord , 15 days ago

I find those kinds of chatbots useful, but those aren’t the ones I encounter 90% of the time. Most of the time, it’s a chatbot that summarizes the help articles I just read, giving faulty interpretations of the source material, that then goes on to never direct me to a real person unless I tell it multiple times that the articles it’s paraphrasing aren’t helping. (and sometimes, they have no live support at all, and only an LLM + support articles)

ArchRecord , 17 days ago

I love this and I haven’t even used it yet! 😅

A few things:

• I love the idea of paying one-time to play offline, but it’s not currently very possible to do in-app purchases on a ROM like GrapheneOS, which you mentioned in the post as being something users (myself included) have. Will there be a way to pay outside of the in-app purchase dialogue to get access? (i.e. donate through bmac, then link account to app temporarily to confirm) I’d definitely like more of my money to go to you, rather than a play store fee.

  Additionally, will there be a direct APK download at all, or will it only be available through the Play Store? (obviously privacy-preserving frontends like the Aurora Store exist, but it’s nice to have an APK download too 😊)

• Thank you for making privacy the default setting, while still letting users share more if they want to. This is something I always love to see!

I’d 100% sign up for the beta right now, but since my GrapheneOS phone doesn’t have the ability to use the Play Store beta features, I’ll hold off on that so I don’t take someone’s spot :)

ArchRecord , 17 days ago

I’m not an expert on what automation options they might offer, but I know Aurora Store will essentially just pass through anything you do on the Play Store since it’s just a frontend, and for F-Droid you can host a repo where you place any updated APK to automatically make it available to anyone linked to your repo.

I know alternative payment options are probably a nightmare to properly set up and integrate, so it may not be worth the increased cut of revenue you’d get, but I’m really glad you’re considering it!

I look forward to trying the game when it comes out :)

ArchRecord , 16 days ago

I’m not an expert on the process, but anyone making a custom repo should be able to store the F-Droid repo on GitHub.

It looks like you wouldn’t need to make the app open-source either, as it should be capable of just accepting an apk file. (and possibly auto update from any GitHub releases page, not sure on that though)

Again, not an expert, I haven’t made an F-Droid repo yet myself, so I may have understood something wrong, but it looks relatively straightforward according to their guide

This wouldn’t make it available to users through the default preinstalled repo in F-Droid (which is heavily privacy-focused and limited in scale) but it would allow any user to just click a link or scan a QR code to add your repo to their F-Droid app.

ArchRecord , 21 days ago

For those who don’t care to read the full article:

This basically just confines any cookies generated on a page, to just that page.

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/c89d41f1-fec9-4f35-8695-fa6d75d047b8.jpeg

So, instead of a cookie from, say, Facebook, being stored on site A, then requested for tracking purposes on site B, each individual site would be sent its own separate Facebook cookie, that only gets used on that site, preventing it from tracking you anywhere outside of the specific site you got it from in the first place.

ArchRecord , 21 days ago

Total Cookie Protection was already a feature, (introduced on Feb 23st 2021) but it was only for people using Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) on strict mode.

They had a less powerful third-party cookie blocking feature for users that didn’t have ETP on strict mode, that blocked third party cookies on specific block lists. (i.e. known tracking companies)

This just expanded that original functionality, by making it happen on any domain, and have it be the default for all users, rather than an opt-in feature of Enhanced Tracking Protection.

ArchRecord , 20 days ago

Disabling cross site cookies and allowing them to exist while siloed within the specific sites that need them are two different things.

Previous methods of disabling cross site cookies would often break functionality, or prevent a site from using their own analytics software that they contracted out from a third party.

ArchRecord , 25 days ago

I, too have seen the ability of Sci-Hub to give me free access to research papers.

It’s terrifying how easy it is to get access to scientific literature for free! Wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

ArchRecord , 25 days ago

There are people who think that “positive” or “negative” words have a magic-like effect on natural processes.

From what I’ve seen, this was originally popularized in 2004 by Masaru Emoto’s book “The Hidden Messages in Water,” where part of his claims were that snowflakes would develop differently in containers labeled with negative or positive emotions. https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/ab351ef1-65bc-4496-8bf3-4e5f7e29f233.jpeg

Naturally, this turned out to be a complete lie, but many people, such as those in the original post, still believe that words can somehow influence things like mold development on food.

ArchRecord , 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago)

Good fucking riddance.

The sooner they realize the enshittification isn’t working, and is only increasing the amount of people participating in the largest global consumer boycott ever, the sooner they’ll actually try to improve the platform, or die resisting.

YouTube has continuously made the experience worse, adding more and more ads to users not using ad blockers, to compensate for those using them. Guess what, genius? People block ads because they suck. Adding more won’t stop people from using ad blockers!

And they have the audacity to try selling YouTube Premium for a whopping $14/mo (nowhere near the actual revenue generated from a user watching ads,) then don’t even provide any real benefit past ad blocking, after they deliberately killed YouTube Originals because it didn’t instantaneously bring in immense profits.

And the content creators I personally know have shown me the amount of money they get from Premium users, and it’s sometimes less than the value of an ad-supported user, even though the Premium user generates more revenue than an ad-supported one.

I would pay for YouTube Premium if it was a reasonable rate, and actually came with exclusive content, similar to Nebula, but it doesn’t.

Instead, YouTube has continued to make the interface more and more bloated, slow, and inefficient, and increased the incentives for low-quality, mass-produced content, all while not paying creators enough to support themselves on YouTube’s own platform.

YouTube can’t see itself as being the cause of its own issues, because it’s blinded by bad ad-driven fiscal policy that has only been a proven failure.

ArchRecord , 28 days ago

I’m not entirely sure myself, but the people I’m talking to have much smaller channels than the ones I often see talking about their Premium earnings, so that may have something to do with it.

I’m not sure if this has an impact as well, but I do know there has also been a lot of users spoofing their locations to regions where the cost of Premium is cheaper (and thus generates less revenue for everyone involved) the vast majority of their viewer numbers are from the US though, so that doesn’t seem to make much sense.

I do believe it can simply vary in terms of revenue-per-view depending on the creator, though.

Regardless, I think that, overall, YouTube and YouTubers would make more money if YouTube didn’t price Premium so high, and actually invested a portion of their profits into original content for subscribers. I have a hard time believing that YouTube is generating anywhere near $168/yr from ad supported users, compared to the monthly Premium subscriber cost.

YouTube’s share of Google’s global revenue is around 10%, but it would need to account for nearly half of Google’s yearly revenue to be earning the same rate as Premium costs, and that’s already including current higher-paying Premium subscribers.

Obviously, not every user is going to be buying Premium if it becomes cheaper, but YouTube isn’t incentivizing Premium users past just “please don’t use an adblocker, pay us instead.” which I think will inevitably lead to them just not converting enough new subscribers.

ArchRecord , 27 days ago

I love this approach, balances user freedom & privacy with moderation & voting pattern analysis by the public.

ActivityPub might mean some data is slightly less private, but that doesn’t mean it has to be.

ArchRecord , 1 month ago

You get what you pay for.

ArchRecord , 1 month ago

The email was more of a summary of past changes.

The actual donation of shares to the Proton Foundation was a little while ago, and anyone directly subscribed to the Proton Blog probably already saw it (myself included), so seeing it show up again as if it was new news probably just felt a bit jarring to some people.

ArchRecord , 1 month ago

How have I never heard of this before!? I’ve been looking for exactly this for ages now.

Already spinning up a docker container!

ArchRecord , 1 month ago

I feel like this says more about these students’ schools, rather than the students themselves.

ArchRecord OP , 1 month ago

I appreciate that take.

I just don’t want to be yet another contributor of many to a problem, y’know? Like how even though corporations are by far the largest contributors to climate change, I still try to reduce the excess emissions I possibly produce whenever I can just to help a tiny bit more.

I’m still investing in the stock market regardless, I just want to make sure that diversifying my portfolio won’t have an outsized negative impact on others since, well, that would suck. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

ArchRecord OP , 1 month ago

TLDR; I want to protect against systemic risk factors, as most of my net worth will be in the market, unable to support me during a financial emergency. It could also carry possible tax benefits, and make it easier to sustain mortgage payments on a home.

I’m mostly trying to ensure that if, for instance, my entire emergency fund is drained from a major medical emergency (or something similar) during that time, I have something I can rely on that is generally more stable to sell during that time, which will overall carry lower tax implications on sale than stocks that have already appreciated significantly more.

Plus, once I get to the point of being close to owning a home, I want to ensure no major financial event could potentially significantly impact my ability to afford mortgage payments.

I plan on investing as much of my income as I can to retire as early as possible, which means the majority of my liquid cash net worth will just be in my emergency fund, with a smaller additional amount in savings. I would prefer some level of extended, more stable assets, that will still grow at least a bit over time to meet my financial goals, but won’t be subject to as large drops as the whole market.

I don’t plan on investing much of my portfolio into real estate if I do decide to go that route, only 5-10% total, more as a hedge than as a primary strategy. Most of my investing is still in comparatively high-growth index funds.

ArchRecord OP , 1 month ago

I completely get that.

I mostly have just thought of housing as a different kind of beast, since unlike working a job, I don’t have to invest in real estate to save for a house or retirement, but doing so might make it easier to accomplish that.

The biggest problem is definitely going to be full on landlords and private corporate investors, but I don’t want to add any more to that problem, no matter how small my impact might be.