I miss the days of VHS and DVD shelfs in homes, for example. If you bought the tapes and had them in your home, no corporate entity could alter those tapes without your consent, monitor how many times you watch them, sell your data to whomever they please without your knowledge, roll out new mandatory conditions to a ‘user agreement,’ or remove them from your library if/when they like.
I noticed some dumb change in how Dictionary definitions are shown in the Spotlight (ie, overall search my computer function) in MacOS this week. I’ve turned off all auto-updates, and I didn’t make that change or consent to it. But despite paying the full price all by myself for this machine, I clearly don’t have 100% control over it. It seems very clearly to me that consumers having control and privacy over their Internet-connected devices is a bygone era.
After Blizzard, the video game company, replaced copies of Warcraft 3 that I and others had paid for in full and installed on our computers that we could play without connecting to the Internet with a lower-quality copy that prohibited offline play - I swore I’d never pay for a video game again*, and 3 years later I haven’t backslid on that. I felt so angry, cheated, and robbed by that. (*Edit: my criticism and frustration is really more with larger developers/companies/creators - I appreciate and am happy to support smaller, more independent and libre ones.)
Many people probably won’t be bothered by these things, but I am. I don’t want to pay full price for something that I don’t truly own. I miss the familiarity. I miss the reliability. I miss feeling like it’s mine. Dependable. Trustworthy.
Picking my old guitar up again has never looked so appealing. I think I want to go back to investing more time, money, and energy into things that aren’t connected to the internet
Hey Choom, privacy, security and the ability to be in control is worth fighting for.
I hate how short term profits ruin good things for everyone but stakeholders. But there are independent developers, musicians, creator in generel or those who sell their stuff DRM free. Those actual humans are worth supporting and following.
Also having a hobby, like learning and or playing guitar, besides computing seems like a really good ide.
Everyone basically rents all their stuff until they die anyway.
Another problem caused by greedflation: companies want to collect both money and data for every usage
A new linux user will be born soon
This is the way
Jesus, you people are everywhere
(and I love it, lol)
Pirated content is yours forever
So true. As others have remarked on here, entshittification really changes the calculus of “is piracy worth it?”
Feelling the same nere. I’m investing only in indie games nowadays (Indika and The Invincible lately on gog), but I ask to the pirate ship for AAA. Switching to Linux then provided a reliable, immutable environment. I work in the VFX industry and every software I use support Linux and runs incredibly smoothy.
I appreciate you sharing that! Sounds like you got a good thing going
I understand and relate to how you feel and I hope these changes feel positive to you and not forced. Please remember that these values do not have to be absolutist in their implementation and that there is a place for “hypocrisy”. No human is perfect and it’s okay to make concessions if you are struggling with a complete lifestyle transformation. Too often I see people start down this path of full on zealotry only to rubber-band weeks or months later because it was just too difficult for them to maintain that level of commitment to whatever their cause was. Instead of readjusting to find a better balance, they give up entirely and then feel really miserable about the experience because it seems like the things they valued in life were completely unattainable. This is all just a long way of saying take care of yourself on the journey.
Great advice, thank you!! What you said applies to me quite a bit
This probably factors into the resurgence of vinyl.
Buy CD’s and DvDs. Check if a game has DRM before buying it (or just buy from GoG where DRM is banned). Run some flavor of Linux.
But if you buy from GOG, make sure it doesn’t have DRM, because GOG has been selling a few games that have DRM for a few years now
Oof I haven’t heard of this. That’s like the whole selling point of GoG. What games have DRM?
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1
This is a pretty maintained list, and even if I disagree with the inclusion of some things because all you’re missing is cosmetics, it is pretty easy to argue that “complete game offline” should include all content of that game, so I’m not gonna start a fight about it
DEFCON - Linux: Game contacts a key verification server as described here. Win and Mac have offline executables that skip the verification. But under Linux there is no DRM-free offline executable.
I find this sort of funny.
Thanks for sharing. I (wrongly) assumed all games were entirely 100% DRM free.
Yeah I see the argument that any content behind an internet connection is DRM, but I think that stance is a bit extreme.
There are a handful of real problems on that list, but it’s like 3/20.
It’s important to maintain this list and call them out though. If I can’t expect GoG games to be DRM free I might as well just use Steam where plenty of games are still DRM free but other features of the platform are a bit better.
They’re not gone, you just have to be more selective.
First, many of us have turned to piracy for this reason. I don’t like piracy. I don’t want to steal. But I will if they don’t provide me with a legitimate and respectful purchase process.
I miss the days of VHS and DVD
You can still buy whatever you want on Blu-Ray.
I’ve turned off all auto-updates, and I didn’t make that change or consent to it.
Bit of a double-edged sword there. Mac can make improvements and they can make things worse. The difference is often a matter of personal preference.
I have much bigger axes to grind with Apple, but I digress. Yes the overarching theme is “control” that Apple wants to maintain.
I clearly don’t have 100% control over it.
Linux gives you all the control you could ever want.
replaced copies of Warcraft 3 that I and others had paid for in full and installed on our computers that we could play without connecting to the Internet
Pirate it. You have every right, far as I’m concerned.
I think I want to go back to investing more time, money, and energy into things that aren’t connected to the internet
WHY DON’T YOU WANT PERSONALIZED ADVERTISEMENTS?
Piracy isn’t stealing, that’s just internalized corporate propaganda. No one should feel guilty about piracy, if anything be proud! Not only are you contributing to the preservation of media in an increasingly disposable age, but it also frees up your disposable income so you can actually donate it directly to independent content creators instead of sending it into the coffers of a faceless multinational.
The only things I’d feel guilty pirating are small indie pieces of media.
Even then, if you don’t have the desire or means to pay for it, it’s not a “lost sale”. If you’re well off, yes, please support indie creators, but even a pirated indie title can lead to more sales of that title through word of mouth.
Everything you just said is bullshit entitlement
Please, explain to me why piracy is in any way morally or ethically wrong?
If you really need me to explain it, there’s no hope for you. Even a child understands why stealing is bad.
Oh, sorry, I meant software or media piracy, not, like, actual piracy.
If you pirate from a company worth billions, it’s stealing and you should be ashamed of yourself you greedy thief degenerate leech.
If a company steals from you, well… uh, I guess you deserved it. Why are you so entitled, that thing you bought you should be grateful for what little time you had with it. Even though you paid for it, it’s not yours it’s theirs. What’s wrong with you?
LOL why do you people fabricate these stories and then act like they have absolutely anything to do with what I’ve said?
Oh right, because you don’t have any legitimate arguments.
What would a child say if they were asked whether they would steal a loaf of bread to feed their starving family if they had no other way of saving them? What would you say? Does context matter in moral judgements?
LOL WTF dude? You are not stealing food, you’re stealing entertainment.
I actually think the ethics of media piracy are even less debatable than those of stealing food. If you’re stealing food, you are depriving someone of it. If you copy a song or a movie or a game, literally no one loses anything.
To be clear, I absolutely support people stealing food to survive, especially from stores and double especially from large corporations.
I think I’m more or less with @verdigris. I’d get behind the position that most large corporations have bent the rules of society so much to their favour and accrued so much wealth at the expense of ordinary people that we don’t owe them anything at this point. I got mad respect for the independent creators. But I feel there’s no moral transgression with streaming a pirated show vis-a-vis the corporations missing out on making a few bucks from that, to use a example. It’s not black and white; actors and others salaries are important and related. But those “you wouldn’t steal a car, so why are you trying to a CD/DVD?” ads were clearly corporate propaganda, as another example
For the Spotlight issue, was this certainly a local change without consent, or was it a change in the way the query is processed on Apple’s servers?
There is functionally no difference but it’s a big philosphical difference.
It’s a little beyond me, but I was under the impression that the dictionary lookup feature is purely local. Saying that out loud I’m now not so sure lol
It’s fine. Connectivity allows subscription services, but doesn’t necessitate them. It’s a power to connect your machine to those of other people in many parts of the world.
It’s like starting to do your dishes in time because of the cockroach problem. Perfectly normal going “underground” when the cockroaches have occupied the kitchen and make laws there.
Just looked up some of the latest Movies. You can still get DVDs of that’s what you want. Even in a store with cash.
Is that what you want?
How are you leaning guitar? YouTube, apps, enshitification sites full of ads? Or buying a book?
Thanks for the info! I general sail the seven seas for that suff but thought it was a pretty good example of the larger trend.
I played guitar for 5+ years, never really learning properly, but being able to jam okay. I can’t do that any more, but I have a pretty good knowledge base to start from. It’s probably a matter of I should just do whatever’s fun until I’m picking up the guitar a few times a week regularly - then I can get more focused. For easy-starting fun, that’s probably strumming and singing through songs on a less ad and malware-bloated website. To get serious, I’d like to work with a metronome, maybe finally feel confident with a 12-bar blues, transcribe some solos perhaps. Very old school 😎. Do you play or want to learn?
I have shelves of dvds but I am getting rid of them.
Because you have a server where you stored the movies on?
nope. in most cases streaming works well enough but we do have many on a hard drive from the included itunes.
But why would you get rid of your actually owned stuff? Streaming is low quality bullshit. Back your physical media onto a NAS and you can stream or access your good stuff from there.
Many people probably won’t be bothered by these things, but I am. I don’t want to pay full price for something that I don’t truly own. I miss the familiarity. I miss the reliability. I miss feeling like it’s mine. Dependable. Trustworthy.
Picking my old guitar up again has never looked so appealing. I think I want to go back to investing more time, money, and energy into things that aren’t connected to the internet
Upvoted.
The masters that be are conditioning us for the vision of WEF. Own nothing, be happy.
Ah yes, neo-feudalism, I think
That first part is mandatory, but the second is optional and very much not guaranteed.
