Does anyone else feel as if it's over when it comes to really owning your own things?
As of now:
- You don't have the option of having a phone with decent specs and replaceable parts
- You have to have really good knowledge in tech to have private services that are on par with what the big companies offer
- You have to put up with annoying compatibility issues if you install a custom ROM on your android phone
- You cannot escape apps preventing you from using them if you root your device
- Cars are becoming SaaS bullcrap
- Everything is going for a subscription model in general
And now Google is attempting to implement DRM on websites. If that goes through, Firefox is going to be relegated to privacy conscious websites (there aren't many of those). At this point, why even bother? Why do I go to great lengths at protecting my privacy if it means that I can't use most services I want?
It sucks because the obvious solution is for people to move away from these bullshit companies and show that they actually care about their privacy. Even more important is to actually PAY for services they like instead of relying on free stuff. I'm not optimistic not just because the non privacy conscious side is lazy, but because my side is greedy. I mean one of the most popular communities on lemmy is "piracy" which makes it all the more reasonable for companies not to listen to privacy conscious people.
I wouldn't say that this is the endgame but in this trajectory, privacy is gone before 2030.
No need to be down!
Fairphone exists and has just expanded business into the USA
Privacy is hard not because it's difficult, but because we like free shit (free email addresses, free cloud storage, free apps, free news, free everything!). If you pay for your stuff, privacy becomes a lot easier!
ROM quality depends on your make and model, and the volunteer work put into it. You can buy phones that fit your needs (i.e. /e/ or Pixels reported compatible with GrapheneOS) and you'll have little to no compatibility issues.
Magisk and that one magical fix module have prevented apps from breaking for me! If apps refuse to let you use them, you can always use different apps!
I don't like the SaaS bullshit in cars, but they give you a ton of hardware for free and all you need to do is read the manual and apply power to the right pins to get heated seats for free! With the right attitude, this crap is making your features cheaper!
You rarely need to pay subscriptions for everything. Subscriptions are often cheaper and easier, but media is still available in physical form, software is usually sold (for more money) with permanent options, and car shit can be bought off beforehand.
The real problem is that people want privacy but they also like getting discounts or free stuff subsidised hy their data. Everyone wants YouTube, nobody wants ads, nobody wants to pay for YouTube premium. Everyone wants music, nobody wants to buy CDs, nobody wants to buy MP3s, and all that's left is subscriptions.
There are things you can't avoid (i.e. American ISPs selling your location history to bounty hunters and partnering up with advertisers) but there are LOADS of options out there that will serve you perfectly fine if you're willing to pay the money companies would've earned off you by selling your data.
DRM in websites has already existed for years at this point, it's why Netflix is allowed to give you HD video by the copyright holders. Google take on remote attestation sucks (but I think it beats the implementation Apple has built into current versions of Safari) but in the end it'll be your own choices that determine if this becomes a problem or not. Don't visit the websites that enforce this crap and, if enough people care, things will change for the better.
Let me just spare a few dollars for privacy after paying for rent & groceries in my third world country currency.
What's the alternative? Lemmy is run by the community and pretty much a labour of love, but everything fro phones to search engines is made by companies, not charities.
You can rely on open source, volunteer products if you want affordable privacy. That'll deprive you of luxuries and it'll require you to put in more work yourself, but it's not the end of the world.
The alternative is putting pressure on companies to not succumb to greed and to go as far as enacting regulation to protect consumer interests. Paying some other companies to mitigate the harms of these companies while pretending that it's a sensible solution to everyone is not my idea of solving a problem. You're just sequestering privacy behind a paywall and pretending it's all fine. It's not; it's elitist and plays into the pay-for-privilege that toxic capitalism breeds. Because let's keep in mind that privacy--unlike the continuous stream of manufactured goods--is a choice that only needs to be made once.
As someone who has a Fairphone 3: they destroyed any trust I had in them the moment the FP4 came without headphone jack and with a different form factor. I thought that their idea would be that each module could be upgraded independently. That's what would make their offering truly innovative and eco-friendly. By departing from that, they simply became a manufacturer of overpriced phones with slightly better ethics.
I am using /e/OS since when I got the FP (what, 3 years ago?) and to this day the applications that need GPS are completely unreliable. I gave up on using bikesharing systems here because their apps simply fail all the time to get my location.
It's not free. There is no marginal cost in what they are doing. This is all a cash grab and an attempt to further segment the market.
If the lion share of music revenue went to artists, you can bet that more people would pay for it. But we know for years that this is not the case. Same for movies.
I don't know anything about Fair phone's modules and uogradeability, all I know is that you can buy replacement parts which is better than most other brands.
I know /e/ is far from perfect (they've lagged behind for years) but I don't believe that's the OS FF themselves support either. I just know it comes closest in terms of integration compared to stock Android. How well it works differs strongly per device, some work perfectly out of the box while others have nonfunctional hardware.
The cost of most car features is either upfront anyway (software stuff) or very minor (seat warmers). Sure, they sell you seat warmers for a couple grand or a major monthly fee, but resistive heaters really don't cost all that much. There's maybe $50 of hardware in a car that they will charge you ten times as much for if you buy the feature. I'm pretty sure they're actually saving money by simplifying their supply lines and factory processes to just make a single type of chair.
I don't think most people care all that much about artists. Most people I know just go to Youtube or Spotify because it's free and easy. However, if you think artists get little money for CDs, you'll be shocked to see the streaming situation. Streaming pays out MUCH less compared to physical media. If you want to support artists, go to their concerts, that's where they rack in their cash.
My point is that if these types of features are so cheap to add, then why not just make it part of the standard package?If it costs $50 to make, add $100 to the price of the car and make a standard feature. This extreme segmentation just to squeeze more money is counterproductive.
Yeah, I know. This is not a defense of streaming services.