Where ever you listen to your music, in most cases you can hook it up with ListenBrainz, to save your listening data on a FOSS alternative for Last.fm. And to get all sorts of beneficial features, like for instance recommendations that are truly independent, and getting updates on new releases.

Direct payment to creators seems like the most simple and efficient method.

That’s a fair point. There’s a million things you could do, and watching videos on YT is just one of them. Watching videos online has become a large part of peoples lives. Surely it has a lot to offer, but we should probably not forget it also replaces a lot of things, things we would spent are time on otherwise, if we didn’t have YT as an easy time-drain, and those other things are presumably equally rewarding or more so.

Ah, yeah that does make a big difference, and it also makes a lot more sense.

And here’s another beauty

“That’s what I mean. There— it’s— you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” – George W. Bush

“The decision of one man, to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway…[I’m] 75.” – George W. Bush

Source: Wikipedia page on “Bushism”

it’s a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it’s not hard at all

Could someone expand upon this? I’m don’t know much about tech, but the idea that FOSS decentralized platforms can’t be banned does seem to make sense right? Ban one, another one will pop up, etc. What am I not getting here?

Can someone explain to me the difference between bluesky and twitter?

I would love for this to become successful! I am assuming it’s not in any great state yet, but the decentralized future is waiting for us !

What people think when they haven’t heard of the Fediverse.

I agree, sort of. People may be right to point out that it’s not only about a dominant position but also about abusing that market power to lock people in. Still I think our entire platform-economy is a little problematic. People want one-stop-shopping because it’s really convenient, and people tend to go to platforms where others already are. So most people stick with Steam, Spotify, Uber, Whatsapp, etc. I don’t think this has to be a problem, if indeed these platform are in a way neutral, free, not abusing their power. Sometimes these platforms already behave in responsible manner, but there really is no guarantee that this will stay that way. Everything with a dominant position can be enshittified, including Steam. What we need are FOSS decentralized platforms! Platforms where everyone comes together are so important, that they shouldn’t be left to for-profit companies, people should come together in public squares.

There’s a system in place for that. It’s called ‘verklaring omtrent gedrag’. For many jobs and positions you need this certificate of conduct in order to apply. The ministry of justice will not hand out the certificate if your crime is related to the position you apply for. This means he would probably never be allowed to work at a school for instance.

Formication is the sensation resembling that of small insects crawling on the skin, in the absence of actual insects.

Slowly across the globe we move towards surveillance states, one country is further down the path than the other, but we all makes steps in the same directions. If public awareness won’t rise I don’t see us escaping this dystopian future. Still today many people argue ‘I have nothing to hide’ and don’t have any critical thought beyond this point. Are we doomed or am I being to negative?

Wikipedia is such a beauty and I’m so glad and grateful it exists. Surely it’s not perfect, but it’s so inspiring and hopeful to see a collective effort be so successful. I sometimes wonder, what new projects we’ve seen since that are equally inspiring. The Fediverse certainly is beautiful but it’s also still a little bit fringe. I personally really like MusicBrainz, but that started 24 years ago What new collective projects has the internet brought us in recent years? And what collective projects could the future bring us?

Off topic: I’d argue Love Exposure by Sion Sono is the best movie ever made.

How the hell am I supposed to know which parts of that picture contain bicycles?

We don’t want your shitty products :)

Most people who make art don’t make any money from it. Some make a little bit of money. A small number of people can afford a living just by making art, and just a fraction of that actually get most of the money that’s being earned by artists, and then of course there is a lot of money that’s being paid for art that never reaches the artist. The business as it is is not working very well for anyone except for some big media companies. The complete lack of commercial success hasn’t stopped a lot of artists, it won’t stop them in the future. Thank god, because it wouldn’t be the first time that after decades of no commercial success whatsoever such an outsider is discovered by the masses. Sure, lack of commercial success has stopped others, but that’s happening now just as it will happen without copyright laws. If donating to artists out of free will would be the norm, and people knew that that’s the main source of income for certain types of artists, then I’m sure a lot of people would do so. And aside from private donations there could be governments and all sorts of institutions financing art. And if someone still can’t make a living, then still none of that could legitimize copyright in my view. We should strive for a world where everyone that wants to follow up on their creative impulses has time and opportunity to do so, irrespective of their commercial success. But there should also be unrestricted access to knowledge, ideas, art, etc. Brilliant research, photography or music shouldn’t be reserved for those who can afford access. The public domain should be the norm so that our shared project of human creativity can reach maximum potential. Copyright seems to me to be a rather bizarre level of control over the freedom of others. It’s making something public for others to see, but then telling these people you’re not allowed to be inspired by it, you can’t take a free copy to show others, you can’t take the idea and do with it as you please. It’s severely limiting us culturally, it’s harming human creativity. And at the same time it’s hypocritical. Artistic ideas are often completely based of the ideas of others, everyone can see that the output is the result of a collective effort. The Beatles didn’t invent pop music, they just made some songs, precisely copying all that came before them, and then added a tiny bit of their own. And that’s not a criticism, that’s how human creativity functions. That’s what people should strive for. To limit copying, is to limit humanity in it’s core. Again, human creativity is very clearly a collective effort. But despite this fact, when someone gets successful suddenly it’s a personal achievement and they are allowed to ask for a lot of money for it. Well my answer is, yes they are allowed to ask, and I am very willing to pay, but they shouldn’t be allowed to go beyond asking, they shouldn’t be allowed to restrict access of something that has been published.

No matter whose fault it is. It’s a monstrosity. Living in the Netherlands, I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a big parking space. It’s incredible it’s not structured the other way around: there should be a limit to how much parking space you’re allowed to have. You can assume there will be a lot of traffic going to such a park, just put up some public transport infrastructure.