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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 16th, 2023

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  • It’s fine to feel that way. It’s also fine to have that discussion with folks who may not know what the current state of is. But the bottom line is people don’t enjoy being told what they’re familiar with isn’t good or useful, because to them, it is. If it fulfills their day to day needs and wants, there’s very little argument to be had.

    Microsoft’s business practices are scummy, and Apple’s closed ecosystem leads them to punish their customers. But not everyone uses their computer for more than what they absolutely require. Many do not have home computers, and may only interact with them for work. I’m a geek, nerd, whatever. I like to tinker, I like to customize, and I like that I have the freedom to do so. But most people just want something they’re familiar with, something that works as they expect it to. They don’t want to learn to use something at home that isn’t the same as work or school. And honestly I think that’s fair. There’s more going on in their lives, and these days almost everything they need to do is on the internet anyways.



  • It is also worth considering that yes, MS and Google have definitely dominated the market through superior products, but the standards they’ve pushed for and established have also made it difficult for other players to enter. If we wanted to say that the federated nature of email is dead, I think that’s a fair argument still.

    Hosting your own email server is quite difficult. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to land in anyone’s mailbox without assistance. If you want to make a mailing list, you basically need to use a mailing service, lest you get blacklisted by major systems owned by MS and Google. Much of this is a byproduct of spam, by which I don’t blame Google and MS for doing their best to protect against, but at the same time they have more or less neutered some core aspects of what made email accessible.










  • Soulseek is a P2P file sharing system centered around music in particular. It’s pretty direct. Unlike a torrent where you’ll have multiple seeds for a single source, you’re connecting directly to other individuals for the content. It generally operates under the expectation that you’re also sharing something, and some users may opt not to allow downloads to people who do not also allow downloads from themselves. The downside to this system is you may need to wait for that person to come online before you can start a download, while with a torrent, other seeders can fill that gap.

    It’s survived as a pretty big platform for music hoarders to source hard to find material, but it’s so dead simple to use and it has a quick and reliable search. Nothing secretive about it, it’s basically just another P2P network that has more in common with Napster than the Pirate Bay