heygooberman

This is awesome! I recently switched over to Kagi because of several Lemmy posts mentioning it as an alternative. However, I really appreciate you sharing your preferred SearXNG instance. I have it added to my browser's list of search engines and may switch to it from time-to-time to see how different it is from Kagi. If there really isn't much of a difference, then I may switch to it after my Kagi membership ends.

For a company that has a reputation of announcing and releasing ambitious projects only to cancel or send them into a "graveyard", this does not surprise me. I do not discount the current housing market as a factor leading into this decision, but regardless, I wasn't expecting much to happen.

Also, I do find the following a bit suspect:

What's more, the pandemic reshaped ideas about work and opened the door to work-from-home opportunities. Companies are slowly getting people back into the office, but working from a central location isn't the necessity it once was for many. This means folks taking jobs in Silicon Valley don't necessarily have to move as deep into the city as they once did, allowing them to live a bit further out from town and avoid the premium real estate market.

Wasn't Google one of the numerous tech companies that demanded their employees to return back to office?

It's the ActivityPub integration that I would like to see. Once that happens, I'll be able to use my Mastodon account to communicate with my Insta friends.

I'm guessing this isn't what YouTube had in mind when they started this campaign.

To quote The Joker, "It'll be funny if it weren't so pathetic...oh, what the heck, I'll laugh anyways!" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Regardless of what the platform is called, I don't think it's worth staying on it, because the problem remains.

Ah, I see. In that case, then yes, I would agree that the perception you just described would indeed raise the question of the Premium price, especially when compared to Disney and Amazon.

Perhaps not, but I am not certain if "amateur" is the right word in describing the creator contents on YouTube. Certainly, we're not talking Disney-level video quality, but most of the creators I follow appear to have some skill in AV recording and video editing. Plus, they do present some things that are of interest to a wide variety of audiences. Therefore, I don't necessarily see such content as "amateur-created". Now, that's not to say there are no amateur-level content on YouTube. I'm sure there are plenty of contents that really are of poor quality and not worth your time and money.

Please be aware that I am not trying to convince you to jump onboard YouTube Premium. That's your decision.

Hmmm...well, their fight against the adblockers is quite concerning, especially if the ads are so intrusive that they disrupt the user experience in viewing content, thus pushing more users to get Premium or go to another platform. It's not uncommon these days to find people migrating away from Big Tech platforms and going to other platforms that have more reasonable and sustainable services that benefit both the client and the vendor. The challenge is the content, which may not be as numerous as what you would find on YouTube, and along with that, there's the challenge of convincing creators to go onto those other platforms.

But, I am doubtful that Alphabet will be financially impacted. They might see a loss around YouTube, but that loss could be offset by profits from other products in their portfolio. Furthermore, because they have a paid option, it wouldn't be surprising to see people going for that option, especially if the cost is reasonable, and they are getting premium services not just for themselves but also their friends and family.

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

I'd like to add onto this and mention this app that I found while trying out the Android apps you listed. It's called PipePipe

https://github.com/InfinityLoop1308/PipePipe

Well, if Firefox does become unusable for you, then I don't think you would be at fault for switching to a Chromium-based browser, like Vivaldi. Usability is an important aspect to consider.

Have you considered using a Firefox fork, like LibreWolf?

It isn't the default search engine on my browser. I'm using Kagi at the moment.

Yeah...I don't know how you all feel about this, but I'd much rather talk to an actual person than to a sophisticated chat bot. That's not to discredit the actual (and potential) benefits of something like ChatGPT, but I doubt we will solve loneliness through the use of such technology.