It's not a just "you've made it" though.

It's a "You push and shove it HARD down people's throat to the point it's almost the only thing they see now apart from ads".

I remember accidentally searching through google once. The AI summary took half the page and there were a whopping 6 ads. Which is almost two pages of scrolling.

So I don't blame users for taking the easy way out and just using the summary. Especially if they haven't heard of uBO + Firefox on mobile. Rawdogging the modern internet is terrible UX. Popups, autoplay, consent forms with a bajillion data "partners". And ads, ads and even more ads.

how transparent, yet unrecognizable

Well, that's the point of transparency. It's so see-through that you don't see it. You only see through it.

Not his money, OUR money.

Is US tax money really ours, or is it basically Trump's near-infinite gift fund?

Evem then, hardware revisions were always a thing. Doing something they're forced to rather than what they'd themselves want is surely a bigger pain in the ass, but clearly a hardware revision in and of itself isn't that big of a pain to be a shit hits the fan-only move.

It's a regular part of manufacturing.

Because in some (most) parts of this world, the concept is

Privatize profit, socialize losses.

So the company gets to keep all profit during good times, but employees "solidarily pay" for the losses.

They are. It's a step in the right direction and I absolutely welcome it.

However, it's way overdue in my book, and the harm is im the waiting. It's much better to strike while the iron's still hot and avoid these issues. As is not waiting on improving accessibility.

I'm also intrigued by the fact Google makes such custom devices for the market. I think I came across some explanations lurking (and sometimes popping my head out and commenting) here on Lemmy (and on Reddit before the API apocalypse), but I don't really have anywhere to point you in your search other than Libredirect+Reddit since searching Lemmy has always proven an uncatchable golden goose to me.

Sure.

Using community-vetted software doesn't have any security or privacy benefits over proprietary.

Neither will proprietary software arbitrarily be able to remove features, lock out certain users or raise prices dramatically.

Would you rather buy vetted cruelty-free foods or not?

There's surely no benefits in doing so.

What about clothing?

Would you rather buy a shirt that has some guarantee of not using underpaid or child labor?

What about energy?

Would you rather your electricity comes from a local coal plant poisoning you and others with its toxic fumes, or from a solar+hydro mix?

What about furniture?

Woukd you rather get an item made from recycled materials and with well-paid labour, made locally and to high quality or get the not-so-cheap alternative from IKEA?

---

All the options above are morally superior. And so is FOSS software.

And there is a multitude of reasons.

But there's two things I'd like to point out right away, regardless of FOSS specificalky

1. sometimes, these pros from above don't even come at a higher price.

Hell, oftentimes they're cheaper (for example, storebrand is vastly more moral than Nestle and it's cheaper).

2. There's a positive-feedback loop regarding standards.

First standards don't exist formally and any "standard" (quality or otherwise) is pure coincidence. Pay is high because the market said so. Quality is high because machines are good enough. Privacy of our maiking list is high because our director chose to use a free (FOSS) local app instead of a paid cloud service.

Then ad-hoc (informal) standards form. Companies voluntarily do things in order to stay competitive. For example most every site uses hashing and salting, meaning your passwords are pretty safe.

Then real standards form. Still voluntary, but formal. They're still voluntary, but you can't half-ass things anymore abd say you did them. You've gotta meet real demands.

Then these standards get made a requirement by the legislature, so Nestle actually has to do some ethics now.

This exact same progression is present in multiple otherwise disjunct domains. Labor rights, pollution, quality standards. And yes, software freedom is one of them.

But what even is software freedom?

It's the ability to vett code. The ability to switch providers. The ability to play a game after servers shut down. The ability to export data. The ability to not pay an hourly rate of $15 for your dial-up use. Interoperability. And a lot of other things.

Free as in freedom is much more than gratis (free as in no need for money).

Free software is the one that pushes this feedback loop forward the most.

And that's why it's a moral imperative.

Ironically, it's free software that often times creates competition (and therefore lowers the price of) proprietary software.

It sets quality standards. Proprietary can't be that worse than free - people'd find out soon enough.

It acts as competition (albeit oftebtimes unequal).

It expands accessibility by giving a gratis alterbative.

It drives change. Much more so than proprietary bullshit.

Using FOSS software isn't easy in this day and age. But without it, using proprietary software would be way, way harder than the FOSS from decades ago.

No Internet/WorldWideWeb. No networking. No encryption.

Most of the infrastructure is FOSS. It's too expensive to make well even for the big players - some 25% of Windows (as in the bloated mess) is made up of free software. 90% of Edge is.

You're using free software even if you're not trying to much more than you realize.

And that's the result of small victories from ages ago. Victories which set standards and expectations.

Maximizing your use of FOSS software maximizes the amount of these victories. It speeds them up.

And it makes a difference way bigger than you may realize.

There are a few issues with there being... a single ideal privacy option line of devices (the Pixels):

• the pixel isn't available for sale in all regions
• there are only so much Pixels out there.. Meaning less options to choose from and potentially higher prices
• people using them stand out... So much so some agencies treat Pixel users like criminals even if they don't have Graphene on it
• Google may choose to end the Pixel line, drastically limit production or remove some feature Graphene relies upon any time they feel like

Having more vendor choice drastically lowers these negatives. And I can't really think of any negatives for the other side than increased dev time and operating costs.

Having the privacy features trickle down to other devices is great since some already landed in AOSP.

However, the trickle down is slow (and often a myth). And some protection is better than no protection.

Why are a multitude of poor options better than a few good options?

Is anything other than a Pixel a poor option?

They may be suboptimal but... Some hardening is definitely better than no hardening any day of the week.

What actively blocking "okay" or even "good" options when "the perfect" one exists should be plainly obvious.

Privacy-consciousness will never spread. Which also has negative effects on the privacy-conscious. Namely point 3 of my little list.

I hope Italian dockworkers are determined enough to dock imports for a while. Hopefully without armed intervention from the state.

Threats of physical violence are the only tool they have in their toolbox. THE ONLY tool.

And actual gun violence. They're the sniwflakiest and wimpiest of the all, bringing an AK-47 to a civilised discussion and feeling "threatened".

It's not even the highest bidder that gets the data, it's all 1278 data partners. Talk about data prostitution!