xyguy

Wow this music player app is simple and does everything it should.

Random Commenter: why won't it play video?

MBA: Why isn't this a subscription service?

The real issue with QWACS is the idea that the EU government requires them to be added to web browsers running in the EU. It's bad enough that France and Germany can issue those certificates but imagine Erdogan's government pushing them out.

It's not like any politician knows how the Internet works and that someone who knows better couldn't rip those certificates out, but the tyranny of the default means that governments will have more control over EU citizens browsing. That's not something likely to benefit anyone.

I like the point they make which is that every social media site with profile photos and DM's will eventually turn into a dating site in some capacity. LinkedIn though shudder. I can't imagine the corporate pickup lines in a place like that....

Connected a Samsung smart TV to my network when we first got it. The thing damn-near crashed my pi-hole asking for so many ad/tracking domains. Factory reset it later that same day. I think my % of requests blocked went from 15% to 68% in just the 3 hours or so the Smart TV was connected.

All I see around is old Cisco enterprise stuff and 1000 would be a low price for that. Not to mention the potential for quite loud fan noise.

Unifi has one with 10 gig uplinks for the same price as used Cisco stuff and it has poe also. Still 1600 bucks though.

Comcast is currently working on that right now only it pees for you so you can stay and watch the commercials.

I think that's the biggest thing standing in the way personally. There are 6 or 7 Spotify-like services and 10 or 11 Netflix-like services. Some people might lump YouTube in with Netflix but it really isn't since all the content on YouTube is user generated. There's nobody else doing the same thing YouTube is doing at that scale. The closest is Facebook and TikTok but the way they deliver ads seems to be a lot different as well.

I tend to agree. Especially with midroll ads. And I also see YouTube Red/Premium/Plus as too expensive especially compared to free.

I wonder if it cost $1-$3 per month instead of $14 if they wouldn't get so many more subscribers that they would still end up making more money.

Of course they would still be incentivized to slowly raise prices over time but I could be talked into $2 a lot quicker than $15.

I guess it's harder to do this after 13 years of default "free" content. It's easier for someone like Spotify to do that because there has always been the option to pay for premium.

I remember in the earlier days of Spotify there were a lot of ways to get half priced service just by finding xyz code or paying $5 for a code on eBay that got you a year of half priced Spotify. I don't know where those came from or how those existed but it was definitely what finally convinced me to subscribe.

(I've since cancelled in favor of buying CDs again but I realize I'm the oddball in that scenario)

I agree. They do operate in bad faith. And not only do they throw ads into every possible crevice but the advertisers themselves may be bad faith actors. It's easy for a local radio station to decide not to run ads for a shady local business but YouTube doesn't really seem to have anything in place to vet advertisers or a robust system to report ads for malfeasance.

I'm interested in the framing of advertising as a threat rather than just an annoyance. I think even ads for something like laundry soap being spammed over and over for hours on end can be harmful even without being directly malicious. As someone who has been blocking ads for 10 years, every time I am on someone else's device the amount of garbage that just gets thrown into your face by default is just atrocious.

Good thing broadband providers have such a stellar track record of nothing but honorable and consumer-benefiting behavior. I see no reason that we can't just trust that they have our best interests at heart.

Now look see what you've done here, I'm down another Wikipedia rabbit hole!