“Things that really should not be run for profit” and “running them for profit anyway because socialism bad”

Yes, and it’s glorious that you can do that (just like with a normal PC, just with less portability. People keep forgetting that couch play with a controller is totally a thing on PC too)

Comments like yours make me glad I can block ads easily on my phone haha… Sometimes I forget what the “normal” experience looks like

The chad Windows equivalent:

winget install Mozilla.Firefox

(Or something like that. If in doubt, winget search firefox and use the ID. Use Ctrl+Insert and Shift+Insert to copy and paste it in cmd or a different terminal)

How silly of us to assume.

Yeah, the ingrained illusion that Republicans are better for the economy is a very unfortunate one

Both parties would still support the Israeli government.

Exactly, and Trump is so much worse in everything else, not to mention that he’d also be worse in the very Palestinian issue you’re concerned about! Even with this issue in the equation I still don’t understand it

Resistance is futile. Becoming a vtuber is as inevitable as evolving into a crab.

Sounds like fetch with extra steps

Okay, I see your point, but I’d still say it’s a better license than Steam’s/Epic’s, because the games are DRM free (unless they’ve changed that and I’m not aware of it) and so once I’ve downloaded them, I can then play them whether or not GOG still exists or my “license to use GOG services” was revoked.

you can run most Steam or EGS games without having their respective clients installed

This is not consistent with my personal experience (though admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve tried – maybe a lot of games on Steam are now DRM free).

I’m using Aegis Authenticator and I regularly back up my list to an external file uploaded to my NAS. If my phone dies (which has happened before), I can then just restore the list from the backup ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are they insane? I already have a free tester – the device I want to use the cable on. I would pay maybe $15 for this, but perhaps I am not part of the target market

As a clueless gog-game-buying normie, can you elaborate?

do a barrel roll

Not sure who is “mega”

Gosh, I feel so old now

Mine would be “no”

Picard: My wife asked me if I could stop singing Wonderwall all the time.
Riker: What did you say?
Picard: I said maybe…

The joke does not specify the number of threads the programmer used, only the number of problems he now has

perfect

Thanks for your comprehensive reply.

First off, I am not an Apple hater. I see merit in their products, especially for non-techie users. But I don’t see myself using any of them.

Yes, customizability is a trade-off, one which I am not willing to make :) For me personally it justifies the choice of a different product. I’m not only including launchers and icon packs in this, it’s for example much easier to install e.g. an alternative YouTube frontend on an Android than on iOS, or to use an alternative app store (I’m assuming Android doesn’t have anything like F-Droid or Obtainium, both of which I use to get free and mostly open-source Android apps). You could say that’s a trade-off again, which it is, but I believe I should have the freedom to make that choice. It’s not like I couldn’t stay in the confines of Google’s ecosystem and have a largely similar experience to a closed off Apple-like system, it’s just that I don’t want to. But perhaps I’ve strayed from customizability back into the openness territory with this argument.

If I understood your example about fine-grained and extensive customization, I think you’ve identified these possible challenges:

• ease of access to needed settings
• consistency of application

I think both of these can be solved by the manufacturer of the OS. Google has been streamlining their settings menu with every new version of Android and extensive developer guidelines about how to make 3rd party applications consistent with the rest of the system are now the standard. In other words, I believe ease of use and consistency don’t have to be at odds with customizability, in fact they can reinforce and improve each other (example: setting a system-wide color tint that is then applied in all supported applications).

Slight tangent here, talking about consistency makes me think of another thing. I don’t know how it is today, but when I last tried using an iPhone, there was no consistent way in apps to go “Back” from an activity. Most of them had a top-left arrow that took you back, but definitely not all, and the experience was all over the place. Sometimes you had to swipe right, sometimes press an arrow in the bottom left for some reason… For all the talk about iOS’s consistency, it was not a consistent experience at all, and I believe Android had it figured out much better (not to mention that having a Back button on the bottom makes much more sense, esp. with larger screens).

And lastly to the marketing point. Look, I know the reality of selling a product is paying a lot for marketing so that you can actually sell it. I understand that. I am just psychologically resistant to ads (I am less likely to buy something I see an ad for), and I hate giving into trends. I think it’s part of my particular flavor of neurodivergence. And since having an iPhone is promoted as trendy and a status symbol or whatever, and seeing people give into that hype, that just makes me unlikely to ever buy one, and psychologically resistant to supporting these marketing practices with my money. Plus, the larger the corporation in general, the less likely it is to get a lot of my money if I have other choices.