virtualbriefcase

I do find it a bit funny that their adblock-block is to my knowledge just client side JavaScript. Ya' know, the kinda stuff adblock is built to cutout.

Unless they're going to be splicing up videos to put the ads into the same file (which would be astronomically resource intensive) or only allow YouTube in app and in seriously locked down Web-Environtment-Integrity browsers it'll be impossible prevent a device from running or not running code as the user see's fit.

YT isn't going to drop premium any time soon. Subscriptions are astronomically more revenue generating then ads, and given YT was always operating at a loss until they stopped reporting revenue altogether premium will probably be the only route to scrape by.

Not to say they can't enshittify it by raising prices and adding restrictions, but I can't see them doing anything but trying to force more people to it.

I paid for it for a bit a while back, and it was decent. Of course free tools give considerably better features (adblock, sponsor block, DRM free downloads, better privacy). That and personally not wanting to financially support YT for a variety of reasons has kept me away from it for a long time.

They usually drop in price. They were just selling the 6a for $200 like a month ago, so given a bit of time you can get a good deal on the second-to-latest generation.

We're seeing this all over the tech and tech adjacent space. Can't grow forever at a loss, especially not with increased interest rates and a potential economic downturn.

My guess, if you want to have decent services we're going to end up needing to pick few (or a suite of the basics) to pay for on a monthly basic and cut out all the "free" stuff that is/will get enshittified.

Pixel devices, devices with custom roms, and devices that you used ADB bridge to disable or uninstall "system" apps.

Only in the most remote deserts, wilderness areas and oceans can you find a sky as dark as our ancestors knew them.

It varies depending on what country your in, but I don't think people realize how little of a percentage densly populated areas make up of the world. If you're in the US unless you're in a place like NY City a 20-45 min drive can get you to a place zero light minus occasional blinks from cell towers/planes/sattalites - and there will also probably be public land there you can go on for free.

And hey, look, the fact stuff like sattalites are interfering with observing the sky isn't great, but if that sattalite is used for powering agricultural equipment and gathering agricultural data that keeps a billion people from starving to death I'd say that's a worthy trade off.

Like a life saving drug with side effects, there's always trade offs as technology and society advance. And mitigating side effects when possible are great, but I thinks it's important we don't act like the side effects are occurring in a vacuum, and I would rather live now than in the past without the tech we have now.

You can usually override zoom controls in the accessibility settings of most browsers. Comes in real handy for me

My guess is it would be considered a general purpose computer, assuming it runs standard Win/Linux and can run any software even if it's specs and shape are geared towards games.

Not a lawyer though, just guessing

By the way, the US prison population today is higher than the Gulag population of the entire Soviet Union at its peak.

Well being worked to death and/or being strait up shot tends to keep those numbers down. And how many of those "hoarders" were quite literally starving but they had a tiny bit on hand? And how many more were in there for "anti-soviet behavior" instead of anything related to hoarding or destroying food.

"Gulags" is not a gotcha

Gulags, concentration camps and the like are definitely a "gotcha" as much as a "gatcha" can exist.

The Australian Retailers Association said one in every four of these shoplifting incidents involved "abuse or assault" against workers.

In an ongoing trial, staff at 30 Coles stores across Australia are being fitted with cameras to only be turned on in "threatening situations".

The title sounds misleading, from the text of the article it's more of a panic button to alert emergency services than it is passive monitoring of employees or customers.

"Or some other other solution to be determined by the state in question"

Gulags, generally speaking