I generally agree but I think you have to acknowledge if you got rid of ads then best case scenario YouTube either limits more features like uploading or HD video behind paying or worst case scenario the platform collapses and there is nothing to replace it. For the longest time they weren’t profitable and it wasn’t until they pushed hard with ads and premium that they started to be profitable. So as much as I wish we could get rid of ads unless you wanna accept moving back technologically and losing a bunch of these online services people rely on I think ads are a needed evil for the time being. Especially when a lot of services already have ways to pay to get around ads. As at the end of the day if you don’t have ads you’re gonna have a subscription you have to pay for every major website you wanna use as they have to make money some way.

I mean I think if anything that makes it worse and easier for billionaires to control the narrative as now politicians can’t campaign for themselves which means in practice most people are gonna hear about politicians from billionaire owned media. Especially for more worker centered causes which right now tend to be championed by door knocking and more grass roots campaigning. I personally think just abolishing PACs and limiting campaign donations would be enough to make it so politicians have to actually appeal and listen to the people rather then the rich. Could also combine this with a government provider donation that you can choose whichever candidate you want to receive it to help people without the means to donate to be appealed to as well. But I feel like the moment you outlaw campaigning then how do you advocate for ballot measures you like at the state level of you can’t go out and door knock or hold rallies for it? As much as the one TV channel style thing would be an ideal idea it wouldn’t really work in reality as we already have a channel for that, C-Span, which covers government related things which no one really watches. You have to meet people where they are, and I think trying to stop that is a bad idea for getting people involved in the political process which is something we need more of.

As much as I’d be down with this I don’t see it happening considering no one wants to pay for the services they use that are ad supported. For example everyone always seems to shit on YouTube premium but that is a currently existing way to get rid of ads on the service. Every time there’s an option between ad supported and ad free but paid people tend to just pick ad free. So while I think outlawing ads would be good at least with the current state of the world it would only be a net negative, killing off a bunch of small and big websites that rely on ads.

What do you mean by campaigning? Do you mean no political ads or PACs then yeah definitely agree. But if you mean all forms of campaigning then how are politicians supposed to communicate who they are and why you should vote for them to the people? And outside of politicians if political campaigning is not allowed would that also not allow grass roots movements who door knock or hold rallys about specific issues? Political campaigning is all of those things, I definitely agree we need to get big money out of it but I don’t think it should be gotten rid of all together.

Honestly out of all those switches email is the one I’ve always struggled with. I feel like that one would take a ton of effort to switch over my accounts on various things to a new email. If anyone has any advice or ways to make that easier I’d love that as otherwise I’m still stuck with Gmail.

As someone who’s 23 and grew up with smartphones and all of that as they were starting to become popular I feel like I have some takes on a lot of the opinions I’ve seen on the different sides of issues like this. I lean in general towards giving your kid a phone once they’re old enough to want to be able to talk with friends and do things on their own afterschool but having some non-intrusive ways to keep an eye on what they’re doing with it until sometime when they’re a teenager. That just seems like the best way to not ostracize them from other kids while still making sure they’re being safe online. Even though in general things worked out fine for me with my parents letting me have my own laptop and iPod touch and eventually iPhone from a pretty young age without really watching what I did on them I definitely see a lot of times that I could have ended up being taken advantage of online if things had been slightly different. And the reason I say non-intrusive ways to keep track of what your kid is doing is because I knew kids who did have like parental restrictions on their phones and all of them knew ways to bypass them and do what they wanted to do anyways. So the only way you’re gonna successfully keep an eye on them is if they don’t know you are and you only interfere if it’s a genuine safety problem, and even then you make sure to not punish them for it as that will make them start hiding things from you actively, you treat it as a learning moment and help them understand why what they were doing wasn’t safe. I’m still very much figuring out what my exact views on this are but I think leaning too far in either direction of not letting them have social media or a smartphone at all even when they’re starting to reach middle school or letting them have unrestricted access to social media and a phone both have their problems and you have to find a good balance in the middle.

I mean the problem with your argument is then that there’s nothing we can do, as there isn’t really any pathway towards impeachment right now. As Republicans hold both houses and have pretty clearly shown their loyalty to Trump even with the fact that they’re getting so much backlash they won’t hold town halls anymore. So at this point these kinds of protests are one of the few ways to try and hurt the people in power, as well as to start building community that is needed for any kind of more direct action. It also gives Trump and Elon the opportunity to overreact against protests (like if they decide to follow through on the domestic terrorism thing) which will further galvanize people into action.

Honestly when switching from Reddit to here that is the thing I missed the most. It was a lot better at serving you things you liked compared to here where you can only really sort by either what’s active or popular or what you’re subscribed to. I get some people really like that but a lot of people want it to be more personalized to them without having to go search for the things they want. It’s also great for discovering new things because sure I can setup my subscriptions to show what I like but then it won’t make connections and show me new things I might like. Combine that with there being less content and therefore certain areas of interest not being represented here at all makes mainstream social media better for most people.

Those small businesses you shop at still get their products from big businesses at the end of the day. Or their workers who you’re paying by shopping there will spend money at big businesses. It won’t significantly affect the engine that is the economy at the end of the day. Consumer choice only works against specific businesses you can target which if you wanted to have a campaign to for example not to shop at big chain grocery stores that could be good. If anything though that’s another mixed message I’ve seen with this event, is it no spending in general like what a lot of the original fliers for the event said or is it just no spending at big businesses? Either way if your goal is to shut down the economy to show businesses and the government that the people don’t want what Trump is doing then you’re gonna be much more effective through unions and shutting down workplaces through strikes. If your goal is instead to punish businesses that support Trump that can work depending on the business but needs to be more targeted and there are a lot of companies that even if you try to boycott you’ll still end up supporting them indirectly.

It still has to be organized though with a union, you need things like strike funds and the small amount of legal protections that come with having a union such as preventing them from just firing the workers who don’t show up. It has to be a large amount of people that are organized, otherwise the companies can just fire them and find replacements and the strike will be over.

Then there should be a stronger focus on getting people to organize and unionize in their workplace. Cause a general strike won’t work without a strong organized work force and this kind of action focuses much more on individual action that makes you feel like you’re doing something when you’re really not. I’d rather direct the energy that people have right now towards things that will actually have an impact like providing resources and pushing people to unionize to build the base needed for a general strike.

It’s different when targeting a specific business as that kind of boycott can continue indefinitely. A boycott against spending any money or going to any business can only last so long and therefore companies will see a downturn and then probably a spike in sales as people buy a bunch of stuff at once that they were planning to buy during the boycott. I agree with the other comments that organizing workplaces to eventually form the base for a real general strike would be a more effective strategy to actually hurt businesses.

My first thought was maybe they had some way to decompile games from a specific engine but the two other games mentioned are different engines, Unity and Unreal. So either they have methods for both of those two which isn’t that outlandish since they’re both popular enough for people to find a way to do that or they have some other method to port it over. But since the article mentioned they changed some things in the game my bet is on the decompiling.

I mean yeah I think the main problem is just Google having all that data about you and potentially selling it to others whether that be for advertising, robocalling, or other things. So it really just comes down to how comfortable you are allowing Google to be able to use your emails and communications from corporations to see what things you like. Only time it really matters more is if you are using email for more personal or secure communications which yeah I would always prefer using better encrypted more messaging focused apps like signal for or just talking in person when possible.

Sure the courts are doing a good job at pushing back for now but all it will take is some of these cases going to the supreme court for that to change. Both Trump and Vance have already openly said that they shouldn’t have to follow judges’ orders and seem to be building a case for openly defying the judiciary that’s justified in the eyes of their supporters. And this is all within the first month of him being in office, it’s only gonna get worse from here and by the time the next election comes around who knows what the situation will look like but I can easily see a future where he runs for election again and no one is left to stop him other than attempts by blue states.

Might just be people who are used to having an algorithm so they dislike stuff they don’t want to see more of.

Honestly with all the stuff going on right now with laws and the constitution being violated on the federal level the real question is who would enforce that he can’t run again? Sure some blue states might take him off the ballot but he probably wasn’t going to win those ones anyways. He has both the supreme Court and Congress on his side right now and if he still has that in four years I could easily see him running again with no one to really stop him.

Yeah I definitely still have problems with remembering to do it, especially if I get an idea when I’m not at a place where it’s easy to note the idea down. But even having a few things on there can be enough and sometimes help with jogging my memory about other things I wanted when it comes closer to an event.

I have the same problem when I need to come up with things on the spot. So instead I keep a list that I add ideas I get for things I want over time. That way if someone asks I can show them that and I don’t have to think on the spot about what I want.

The problem with that is there is no centralized website you go to for Lemmy. The closest thing to that would be the various apps you use for Lemmy so my question would be where would you put this quiz? I think when people talk about joining a server being hard it’s just hard for people used to a centralized social media to get used to the idea that one social media platform can be made up of a bunch of different websites and it becomes overwhelming to even figure out where to go. They’re very used to just going to reddit’s website so if they can’t just look up Lemmy and click the first link to join it’s gonna be too complex.