This was the majority of my experience as well. As a newer programmer, I’m more than happy to always know a better option. But if the way I’m looking to solve my problem is wrong, don’t just give me Y, explain to me why it may not work how I think it will. Tell me about X and some pitfalls or reasoning for it not going to work, then recommend Y. Because if others only see the Y answer to my question about X, they’ll probably just keep searching for a solution to X not knowing it may not work like I didn’t know.

Regardless of current politics, this is great advice anyways for a lot of people. These alternatives are very user friendly now a days, including many Linux distros. They will do almost if not all what a user needs. Few exceptions.

I recently bought a Garmin to get rid of a $30 Whoop subscription and to get better battery than a smart watch with a Fitbit subscription. Garmin seems to give me everything I needed that the whoop does for only the cost of the watch.

It does mention all health data will be free still so for the time being I’m not opposed to them locking AI behind a paywall. I understand AI cost resources and is expemsive. I however, will not be using that shit. I think the default health insights are plenty for what i do. Granted I’m not a full on athlete like some Garmin users.

As long as they don’t lock what’s available now beyond a paywall I’m okay with this. But overall, I’m sick and tired of subscriptions in general.

Came to the comments to find this question lol

Can anyone with knowledge on business explain why these companies keep going public other than the simple fact of money?

I feel like everytime a company does they go full throttle into making shareholders money and lose sight of their original company. Honestly I assumed discord was already public based on some of their monetary features that are overpriced lol.

I used to use Plex as well but similar to your remarks, they started doing a lot more updates that added a “corporate” feel to it such as adding their own movies/tv. Nothing inherently wrong with that but in my opinion, when a platform has the option to add features such as that, that costs money. And they’re gonna want to get that money back somehow. Yeah they offer subscriptions but to me this all was a redflag that I could see them taking further in the future. Where as Jellyfin is completely free at the cost of a little extra work to setup.

Awesome. I’ll give this a try later and get back to you. Thanks!

Thanks for adding! Could you clarify a bit on the points so I can better understand where I was wrong at?

Yeah maybe Tor Browser was the better example. Just trying to get the point out lol.

I personally have never used them. I use Proton myself (despite some news) and haven’t had any issues. I’ve heard Tuta is also great but I think one of the cons of privacy mail is that they’re not going to be nearly as polished as the big players like Gmail or outlook.

Great read from Tuta on thia topic. It’s been an issue for a while but Google going full force publicly on it causes this issue to grow greater.

I left a comment replying to someone further down about how this can be at least a little combatted and how it is with browsers. (At least to my minimal knowledge of it)

So from what I understand, theres 2 common ways that browsers combat this. Someone add to or correct me if I’m wrong.

1. Browsers such as Mull combat this by looking the same as every other browser. If you all look the same, it’s hard to tell you apart. I believe this is why people recommend using default window size when using Tor.

Ex: Everyone wearing black pants and hoodies with the facemasks. Extremely hard to tell who is who.

2. Browsers such as Brave randomize metadata that fingerprinting collects so that it’s more difficult to piece it all together and build a trend/profile on someone.

Ex: look like a dog in one place, a cat in another place. They get data for a dog but that doesn’t help build anything if the rest of the data is a cat, hamster, whatever. No way to piece it together to be useful.

In both my examples, there are caveats. Just because everyone dressed the same doesn’t mean someone isn’t taller or shorter, or skinnier or fatter. There can still be tells to help narrow down. Or a cat that barks like a dog suddenly is more linkable to a dog if that makes sense lol.

In other words it still depends user behavior that can contribute to the effectiveness of these tools.

EDIT: got distracted. To answer your question I don’t think so. I think it’s more about user behavior blending in or being randomized. I think the only thing an extension would be able to do is possibly randomize the data but I’m unsure of such an extension yet. These aren’t the only options, these are just ones I’ve read about recently. Online behavior, browswr window size, and I’m sure so much more also goes into it. But every little bit helps and is better than nothing.

EDIT2: Added examples for each for clarity.

I whole heartily agree to a good ole “fuck you”; But I also think that money shouldn’t be a requirement but highly encouraged. I’m a hypocrite for this because I don’t monetarily support every open source I use. However, for the critical open source I use like 3rd party Android OS, clients for apps like Lemmy, etc. I’m more than happy to donate what I can. Hell, I’d donate to all if I had to resources to. I don’t have a good solution but I do think donating (when it can be afforded) should be highly encouraged and something not a lot of people think about/know about/or consider since they may be using it because it’s free to begin with.

I disagree. I hate the decisions they make and personally, along with you, I think it’s idiotic.

But while I hate on them, they will get away with it. Theyre not stupid. The decisions don’t align with its users but it will still work.

Look at netflix raising prices for arguably worse content. Working for them.

Reddit; Charging for the API essentially killing almost all 3rd party apps. Not sure the effect but reddit doesn’t seem to really be hurting. Users want to move but reddit is just too good. I even still use it because the user content on there is amazing. I try to ask all my questions/have discussions on lemmy, but I’m one person. Reddit has infinity more always contributing. I think the management sucks, but the platform just isn’t fully rivaled yet so they can keep milking their audience.

Oh for sure. Fuck these big companies. Unfortunately some offer services that just can’t be beat yet by open source/privacy companies.

Been there lol. I think it’s a common thing for privacy newcomers. Not focusing on threat level and instead trying to optimize every bit. It got me too.

A better way to word this is “Next will be your privacy journey which will send you down an inifinte rabbit hole that you consumes you”.

Lol no but seriously, it’s a fun rabbit hole, but can get out of control if you’re not careful.

Thanks for you detailed and cited response. Very clear!

I would argue all streaming services have gone to shit. I’m not saying I encourage anyone to pirate that doesn’t want to. But I am saying i don’t blame a single soul that does.

As far as I’m concerned all those companies can go fuck themselves. They know that the less technical people will willingly keep paying so the ones they lose won’t matter.

I’m not familiar with Blue sky, do they advertise as federated or how exactly do they claim to differ from a regular platform like original Twitter?