as a person coming from a totalitarian country, I would still prefer dealing with a single gang which also has its own welfare obligations can be corrected or overthrown when needed, than several mafia-like cartels which only care about extorting money from me providing nothing to both me and the society as a whole.
governments have responsibility, too, it’s just some don’t accept it
tbh, in this interpretation, it sounds like extortion, sort of what gangs usually do to minor business owners
tax is tax, it’s a mandatory contribution to society you morally and legally obliged to do, not a payment for not being killed
Which carries a spoon and looks French
After a long-running blogpost holywar between Telegram and Signal, I perceive these “security experts” as Signal/Telegram shills depending on their stance
draw a Hatsune Miku
I understand what you mean! What I (and probably most of us) want is the balance between “treat me like a normal person” (as in, with the same dignity and less condescension) and “don’t set expectations too high”. I believe portraying persons on the spectre as savant geniuses as in “Rain Man” or ADHD as a “superpower” skews the balance to one side and we just need some disclaimers to even it out.
Even ADHD-oriented media is often being dishonest with people who suspect themselves to have this condition, being toxicly positive and showing ADHD as a “superpower” as if you can hyperfocus your way to success. It is neither a gift nor even an equal exchange between advantages and drawbacks like “you’ll be always late but also always creative!” It’s a crippling thing that may ruin career or end a relationship. There is nothing good with ADHD.
To be serious, nobody would use that platform even there hadn’t been any ads, because competing with YouTube is not an easy feat.
I should probably be happy that Rutube and VK Video gain popularity as the regional alternatives to the monopolist which gets more aggressive each day… if not that popularity has just been inflated by bought-out bloggers and comics from Putin’s oligarch owned channels like TNT being directed to cease their YouTube presence, just so the government could have their own “YouTube without team Navalny”.
but yeah, being more shitty than YouTube at delivering ads is not an easy feat, too!
A Russian video hosting Rutube (which was totally dead until the govt decided to detract Russians from using YouTube, which made the platform semi-dead) actually tried to do that, having a quiz after each ad break, asking questions such as “what TV channel has been advertised in this ad?” and repeating the ad video if answered wrong
This may be a “loanword” from the student’s native language. In Swedish, they use “1900-talet” (1900s) instead of “twentieth century”