Must be nice to have the means to travel to Europe every year lol

Mocking the minority of people who hold these opinions just gives them more attention than they deserve. No one relevant actually cares that the character is being played by a black actor. As always, the majority of complaining is coming from conservative trolls who take their anti-woke brigade to literally any film or TV series that has cast minorities in leading roles. It’s just the same people doing it every time, they are not actually fans of any of these things and were never going to watch them anyway.

I think you sort of missed the point I was making in the second paragraph there. A physical map does not offer real-time navigation or encourage to you continue on your current course in the way that map applications do. Most people who use physical maps do not read the map as they are driving, they read it before they start driving and then refer to it intermittently. As a result, people are more likely to refer to the map if something seems unusual because they might think they’ve misremembered the route and taken a wrong turn. In the same scenario, a navigation app reliant user has fewer barriers to continue on that route because the map is constantly reassuring them that they’re going in the right direction. You say it’s the navigator’s fault, but that’s just the way navigation apps are designed to be used. The entire point of them is that you don’t have to pull over and consult the map because it’s supposed to be constantly updating and correcting itself in real-time. That’s why people are so trusting in them.

If it is free to download, free to use and has no pay nagging or restrictions then it is effectively free to any user. As I said, you can buy a license to support its development and this is clearly what they would like you to do, but there is nothing forcing you to pay.

You’re technically correct, if I recall they decided to release it under an alternative license after seeing other FOSS YouTube clients like NewPipe being forked, loaded with ads and then put on the Play Store. This gives FUTO the option of pursuing legal action if bad actors attempt to do the same with their app. However, it is free and the source code is viewable.

Try Grayjay. It’s free (though you can buy a license to support its development) and open source has fully viewable source code. You can login through the YouTube plugin’s settings and either stay logged in or import all your subscriptions and then logout to avoid any further Google tracking. It’s pretty stable compared to other FOSS YouTube apps and also has plugins for Twitch, Nebula and other video/audio content platforms. The YouTube plugin supports SponsorBlock and dislikes. Grayjay is being actively developed by the FUTO organisation, so is unlikely to randomly die like can sometimes happen with other FOSS projects.

Depending on how you use YouTube, the one significant downside may be the complete lack of support for Shorts. Not only can you not access Shorts from inside Grayjay, but if you open a Shorts link inside the application you cannot play it in full screen vertical. I am not a Shorts viewer (I used to disable it in ReVanced) but other FOSS apps like LibreTube support Shorts so this is one notable point of difference with Grayjay.

@unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de

Although interestingly the price of the 10 series continues to fall quite significantly. I’m not quite sure what Sony’s strategy is but it seems they are trying something at the moment.

Also I wasn’t going to say this before, but the extremely aggressive and toxic nature of the indoor cat crowd usually doesn’t help sway neutrals to their side, either. Like in this thread you have someone sharing a link to a study and trying to expand on their counterargument and the OP just called them a “selfish piece of shit” and didn’t attempt to engage in a discussion at all. If you think the study is being misrepresented or has flaws, you have the option of explaining that in more detail. Alternatively, if you think the argument is being put forward in bad faith you can just ignore it. Instead people always seem to get mad and start calling each other names, regardless of the social media platform. It feels like a lot of conversations online these days are just one misunderstanding or disagreement away from devolving into full monkey brain tribal warfare.

The internet loves cats. People also only care about the environment for as long as it has nothing to do with their personal life. That’s why everyone gets very upset when it’s suggested that they need to drive less or reduce their meat consumption. I have frequently seen fatalist comments here suggesting we shouldn’t change our lifestyles at all because anthropogenic global warming is primarily being driven by big companies and we are therefore freed of any responsibility as individuals.

Wow, that’s definitely one of the more extreme ones I’ve heard. His employer even had a recommended route that he ignored because the Google Maps route was supposedly quicker. Crazy.

I wonder how much of this is social media and how much is desperation. Like if social media just didn’t exist, would these same people be taking such risks out of pure desperation like refugees in earlier decades have done? Or are they being heavily manipulated by social media and thus making decisions that could be described as bad for their circumstances?

If the road isnt marked as 4wd only on the paper map you’d be in just as much trouble.

That’s not really true. If you are navigating via a physical map and you encounter something unusual, you refer back to the map. At that point you know a) where you are in relation to where you are going and b) that the map has an inaccuracy. Then you make an active decision to either continue on the same route or to find an alternate route. You can still get into trouble, but it will be because you made the choice to risk continuing on your current route instead of taking a different one.

The problem time and time again in these “misled by map app” stories is that the driver never pulls over and looks at the map in detail. They never search for an alternate route or even question whether they are on the best one. They have complete and total faith that their map application knows best and the constant audio prompts reinforce that, so they just keep driving and get themselves into a bad situation without failing any of the skill checks (for lack of a better term) that a physical map user would need to fail to reach the same point.

It’s always a controversial topic and rarely has any level of insightful or genuine discussion. Best to avoid unless your idea of living is engaging in meaningless social media pile-ons or rage-baiting.

I’m glad you got out of it unscathed. This has been an issue in Australia for a long time (I recall a news article about a farmer who constantly had tourists turning up unannounced on his property because they were blindly following Google or Apple Maps). Without wanting to make you feel too guilty, every time I read one of these stories I’m just astounded that a) people aren’t consulting maps before travelling rurally to get a rough idea of where they need to go and b) that people don’t pull over and do this the moment something seems off.

Maybe it’s because I’m a bit older (not actually old, just not raised by smartphones age) or because I went on many camping trips pre-smartphone as a kid and watched the adults in my family navigate using physical maps (which they also taught me how to read) but I would never in a million years rely solely on GPS navigation if I was driving somewhere for the first time - particularly if it was a rural area. Even in metropolitan areas, I will always do a quick scan of main roads and landmarks first to get a rough imprint of where I need to go so I can focus on driving and only rely on the GPS at the very end.

Pirating is even more woke than watching Netflix or Disney+! Take that Ron DeSantis!

I think the Wikipedia article needs to be updated to be honest. Continuing to describe it as a “conspiracy theory” is quite misleading given the phenomenon is already underway and only picking up pace.

That was an excellent read. I have often wondered myself how other people are going when I see them so adamant that they’ll never use a mainstream social media/messaging service ever again and now refuse to be friends with anyone who does. I’ve heard “if my friends won’t value my privacy, they’re not real friends”, or variations of it, so many times in privacy communities.

Wonder if ads actually makes up for the difference or if it’s just under priced to push people towards it.

The ads are almost certainly making up the difference and then some, otherwise I don’t see why Netflix would pursue that strategy at all. The only other theory I can think of is that people are less likely to initially cancel an $8 monthly subscription than a $19 subscription, and are therefore more likely to forget to cancel it in the future.

Like the rest of the tech industry, Netflix is way past the point of making a loss just to drive growth and is now obsessed with driving maximum profits because their shareholders are demanding (or are owed) returns on the big investments they made in a different financial climate years ago. That’s why Netflix is introducing ads, pushing up prices and cracking down on shared subscriptions (and now even a one-off payment to “add” an account member from outside of your household) and cancelling projects with real artistic merit at short notice when they don’t show immediate signs of becoming the next massive hit. It’s all about making as much money as possible now. We are no longer in the age of focusing on providing a reasonably priced and objectively good service and that will drive people back to piracy, just as it has done previously.

How is the standard plan a bad value?

Because of how it is priced relative to the other tiers. It is significantly closer in price to the highest tier ($7 gap) despite being almost identical to the lowest tier in terms of features ($11 gap). The only meaningful difference is ads. It’s very clear that Netflix is trying to price out customers who are unwilling or uninterested in paying for all the features limited to the highest tier (4K, double the simultaneous streams, better audio, etc) and force them on to the cheaper, ad-supported plan instead because they believe they can make more money this way.

Additionally, the middle tier is priced closer to the highest tier to imply that the highest tier is great value (because it has so many extra features for a smaller price increase than between the lowest tier and the middle tier). This is a classic retail strategy designed to trick consumers into spending more money than they originally needed or wanted to because “it’s better value”. Consumers often conflate “better value” with “saving money”, even though they are doing the complete opposite when they pay $7 more for features they didn’t initially care about at all.

PTSD flashbacks to Willy’s Chocolate Experience…