Absolutely. Between Ticketmaster and LiveNation, almost every performing venue in the United States is completely dominated.

We desperately, desperately need legitimate anti-trust actions in the United States; we need something that will reintroduce some actual competition into the market.

The first failure of the federal government that led to this path was in the 1990s and the Microsoft Antitrust Trials. That was the point at which there really could have been another way–but the billionaires, at that point, had all the inroads to government that the Reagan Administration made possible. Because Microsoft could buy politicians, the vast majority of people on the planet have never used any operating system other than Windows, and the Microsoft company gets billions upon billions of dollars from state/federal/municipal contracts.

Google and Apple, then, just followed the path that Microsoft bought and paved through government regulations. And that made it easy for other billion dollar companies like Ticketmaster and LiveNation to do the same thing in other realms–simply buy the laws, buy the politicians, buy the system that’s supposed to regulate them, and then use that system to remove all competition.

Thanks!

I’m thinking of an app for musicians to upload their music too. Bandcamp was good, but it’s been taken over by corporate power now.

Bandcamp does some pretty cool things even though it’s now owned by a Business-2-Business music licensing company. Makes me wonder how many Bandcamp artists have had their songs ‘licensed’ by Songtrder (the ‘biggest music licensing platform in the world’) to other companies without the artists’ consent.

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/is-bandcamp-as-we-know-it-over/

p.s. if anyone knows any good alternatives to Bandcamp, please let me know!

All the apps that collect user data that has nothing to do with the actual function or purpose of the app.

Like–why does this solo word puzzle game need access to my contact list, camera, and location?

Article littered with affiliate links.

And it also doesn’t make sense.

Maybe they’re trying to get potential players of Elder Scrolls VI so hyped that they’ll still play the new game even if it’s sold ‘games as a service’ style

in which case, fuck that

Investigators were alerted to his accounts after finding an unusually high number of log-ins and failed log-ins from an unfamiliar devices, locations, or networks. That information is tracked by Google, per the affidavit. Other unusual activity was traced through Payne’s VPN or network provider.

So, Google stopped him, and his VPN provider. I’d like to know who his VPN provider was.

This is so good.

1990s TNG had a good heart.

Yeah? I’ll do this if I’m forced to use Outlook for work again.

I’m interested in knowing this too as I’d like to migrate everything I do to a non-invasive platform.

That was a great feeling–taking something locked in, programmed, something that used intentionally deceptive description and design, and finding a way to make it your own. To, basically, break the deceptive design and make the device better by “breaking” it.

When I rooted my first Android phone I felt that way. It’s a shame how much of the computing power in phones is used for nothing but harvesting our data and profiting from our use of the computer.

There’s so much more we need to break now.

Also making giant rebar craps all over

I’d love to see a user-friendly, easily-implemented FOSS alternative to the entire Android system.

The options that exist now often can’t get past all the defenses that Android and phone manufacturers put into systems to secure their own data collection/revenue. I have an older Motorola phone that I literally can’t install another operating system on.

We desperately need a stable, user-friendly, and hardware-adaptive replacement for Android. I don’t want that shit on my phones any longer.

I don’t think things like greed are endemic to our species, and particularly not like the greed that is so all-consuming that you take necessary things for life from less powerful people.

I do think, however, that without a massive change in mindset, that this capitalist viewpoint, the viewpoint that says I can take whatever I want from whomever I want, will persist. We might not be hardwired for greed, but we are hardwired for hierarchy.

And, if that hierarchy is one that valorizes this poisonous type of greed, that the lower primates will mimic it to rise in the hierarchy.

But, we have so many other available hierarchies. The capitalist one is dominant now, but we can change that.

Yep. A Linux build + Firefox (with Privacy Badger and ublock origin plugins)

Now I’m imagining this too.

Anything that gets you to target people with less power than you is a psy-op.

There is only one group of people to oppose. It’s a small group of extremely wealthy people. All their mouthpieces on the internet are irrelevant (and likely bots) and are best ignored/blocked.

There is one small, powerful group who are the only justifiable targets. Everything else is a distraction and likely a divide-and-weaken tactic.

One small group of powerful, wealthy people. That is the enemy. No one with less power than you is worth focusing on.

This game is so good. I hope Larian builds something even better for their next go.

Right there with you.

Fuck Android.

I hope a consistent, user-friendly alternative that works on all Android phones arrives soon. I’ve tried so many with an old phone and they’re always a pain to install and then don’t work quite right. I also don’t want to spend $500USD for a phone designed specifically to sidestep Android.

It would help if Android/Google didn’t consistently try to block every single thing that would allow you to get rid of Android, but they’re never going to allow that.

I hope that something user-friendly and consistent arrives soon. I will ditch Android in a second when that happens.