Agreed.

For instance, G Suite is now so thoroughly integrated into school workflows that, even if they collect nothing from students while under 13 (ha!), they are setting kids up to harvest their data in the future by forcing them to learn how to perform basic tasks only on their apps. It’s like advertising fruity cigarettes or vapes, but for data.

It’s not just that all of these companies harvest everyone’s data, but so many of them are specifically targeting kids from as young of an age as they can.

My issue was with that type of sarcasm, which is why I responded with a similarly dismissive sarcastic remark.

Dismissing people’s complaints by saying “you can go use something else/move someplace else” is unhelpful and used to negate their complaints without ever having to address their source.

I doubt many people see an anonymous counter as a huge problem itself, I don’t. The point is that this is a first step in a direction we don’t want to see the software go. If you don’t push back against these things from the moment they show up, they will continue to slowly inch in that direction until you end up in a nightmare like Chrome or Edge.

Seems like a good idea except for how often these states already force their own spyware and backdoors onto projects. Ideally, the state would fund it, but given their history, I’d prefer costs were covered by user donations as the interests of the users are the only interests I trust. We are the only group that is truly independent of competing interests.

Crowd funding and donations obviously have their own drawbacks. Maybe we can find a work around to avoid the privacy violations of states in the future, but I don’t have a simple answer for how to accomplish this. The way the FOSS community operates is currently the best alternative I’ve seen, but I’m sure it’s not always lucrative for developers. People need to be compensated for their labor and our current systems tend to put development interests at odds with user interests.

While we’re at it, we should add Microsoft to the antitrust case…again.

Typical. You post a reasonable response and get a bunch of ad-pilled shit takes:

“But will you eat shit if I put a little chocolate on it?”

“If you don’t eat shit, you don’t deserve to interact with the internet eat.”

“Maybe if you pay them a little money, they’ll stop trying to serve you shit?”

Advertisers contribute nothing of value to our society and contribute little of value to even the companies they serve. Let them burn. Every action they take to “serve” me ads will be met with an equal counteraction.

We deserve to live a life without being constantly bombarded with messages telling us to buy, buy, buy! This significantly decreases our quality of life and is endemic within our entire society. What the hell are all of you who defend advertisers thinking?

Give them an inch and they will take a mile. It definitely won’t be the first time.

“Why don’t you just move to another country if you don’t like it here?”

“I say this as a true patriot.”

There’s your issue.

The article is listed on ResearchGate.

For anyone looking for an alternative to Sci-Hub (the GOAT), you can make a free account on RG and send a request to the authors for a copy of their paper (about two clicks to perform).

Most researchers will send you a copy within a day, maybe two. If you copy the title or the DOI link into a search with “ResearchGate” it usually shows up in most search engines.

I think we have more pressing issues in certain airplanes at the moment, but that’s a good point.

How many countries have Russia and China, combined, bombed in the last 10 years?

How many countries has the US alone bombed in the last 10 years?

It’s a shame you don’t really wonder why people don’t describe Russia or China as part of the imperial core, because if you bothered to engage in arguments in good faith, maybe you could finally get the taste of boot off your tongue.

Tell me you’re a stupid chud without saying you’re a stupid chud.

Is it really just a simple matter of living within your means when you are constantly bombarded with the idea that you are inferior for not having that shiny new thing and banks are constantly trying to push you into predatory debt schemes like credit cards?

At that point, I don’t blame people for not having a retirement fund. This is a systemic problem, not an individual failure and we should look at changing those systemic failures rather than pointing the finger at people and saying, “you fell for our bullshit and now you are poor. Shame on you!”

People love to have something to live for, but they end up making work their personalities because they have no time or energy for anything else. Turns out if you give people time to actually build a life, they don’t want to go to work constantly.

Oof. Check out what retirement ages were in the USSR. They were very similar to China with options to retire earlier if you worked more physically demanding jobs.

Turns out retirement ages in the imperial core have always been worse and since there is no big bad red to be scared of, the capitalists don’t feel the need to make the same kind of concessions they needed to make to prevent similar uprisings in their country in the past.

Your life is being stolen from you for someone else’s profit. It will always be this way under a capitalist system.