Its just been my personal experience browsing, sorting by new. Generally, anything that could potentially be viewed as an ad (nonetheless a paywall) gets downvoted. For example, I used to see more art shared, and often users who included watermarks (even non-disruptive ones), or links to a patreon would be immediately downvoted. I’ve also seen YouTube creators criticized here for simply selling merch. Even just a couple days ago, I commented on the same trend, and another user quickly replied to tell me its a good thing nothing here can be monitized because money ruins everything. There are exceptions, esspecially with open source software, but these seem more the exception than the norm, in my experience.

They also often rely on commissions or supporter pages to cover costs or make a living, which Lemmy is often hostile to.

I think its probably just down to the balance of accessiblity to start but devotion required to keep playing, in combination with the very intense monitization that gets put into production and marketing. For comparison:

Something like CS is far more accessible, but has a much larger portion of casual players and has Valve’s laissez-faire development/marketing. Valorant is is like CS but even more casual. Dota breeds far more devoted players, but the game is so complex it can’t grow, and again, has neither the high production value nor the marketing because Valve. There are games like Fortnite that can compete in scale, but the nature of the game and the focus on fun content over competitve integrity mean that the tournaments are more marketing events than measures of skill.

I mean, he’s not asking for help rooting directly, or for people to feed him instructions on every one of these devices. His question is intentionally left open for any pointers people can give, from a “I rooted the Samsung and its pretty easy to do”, to links to other webpages (which are exactly the sort of resource someone would have bookmarked while also being a nightmare to find on Google), to -yes- full step by step instructions for those willing to provide. He’s asking for direction, not demanding someone do the work for him.

By that standard, whats to stop people from just getting more phone numbers? Its just an additional cost.

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I do, but I keep default settings within Ublock. I figure theres probably enough other Tor users using Ublock that it won’t stand out too much, and frankly, the internet feels unusable without an ad blocker nowdays.

Its effectively unlimited trialware, like WinRar. Its provided free and has no payment verification, but if you use it regularly, you’re expected to pay the approximately $10 price tag.