araquen

According to the developer of Wipr, from what I understand Youtube is using A/B testing for their "ad blocker blocker” and that the dev is working on adapting the app for Youtube latest efforts.

In the meantime, I just stopped going to Youtube. I find I now have a lot of time to read.

I wouldn’t mind if Youtube placed and ad. But when a video has 4-5 ads that awkwardly break up the flow of the video I just don’t have the patience.

Oddly, this happened to my mother, with her cat (always indoors). He “love bit” and “cromched” hard. My mother didn’t think much of it. She’s had cats for decades and had been bitten and scratched without incident. Cats are furry murder machines, and being lovingly lacerated is just what you sign up for as a cat parent.

Well, her hand swelled up something fierce, and she almost lost her hand. She had never gone through anything like that, but her cat never bit her again. It was just a weird, one-off.

The takeaway is: whenever your skin is cut deeper than a scratch, have it checked out. The cat is not the problem, any more than a rusty nail is. Rather your skin is a barrier, and when it is breeched, you risk infection. This is why such care is taken to minimize exposure in advance of surgery (and why you follow surgery prep to the letter).

There are a lot of answers running the gamut.

The bottom line is, as it has always been: you use the technology that works for you. iOS isn’t better or worse than Android, and vice versa. Both OSes are valid, and it’s the individual’s choice as to what works best for them. I would be miserable with an Android device. I happen to get great value from my Apple devices - especially when there is trade-in value and the devices get recycled.

I personally don’t think it’s productive to “tribalize" the two OSes. They are developed to completely different designs and strategies. Android is basically designed for a wide range of manufacturers, each having their own needs and wants, which includes frequent sales cycles. Apple has always, ALWAYS, been a hardware manufacturer first, and any software they develop is intended to enhance the user’s experience of the hardware in a very measured and structured way. Android (and PC) is aimed for mass market distribution. Apple has always been premium boutique. Hell, one big reason the iPhone was originally released by Apple because the existing cell phone market refused to support the Mac platform: essentially the iPhone was the “premium add-on” to the Mac experience. But Apple also has a slower sales cycle - releasing yearly, sure, but with the understanding that every year someone will want an upgrade, not every year everyone will want an upgrade. My last iPhone went 5 hardware versions before I upgraded, or about 3 years, and I average 3-5 years on small devices, and 5-7 years on desktop).

Every user’s experience is personal, and anecdotal, even mine. So I ask: what do YOU want in a phone? What you YOU want your phone’s OS to do? Make a decision matrix and list all the pros and cons of each phone. Which ends up with the most pros? How many of the cons are show stoppers? If Android matches best, by an Android phone. It’s fine.

All this pearl-clutching makes me want to punch a wall.

I initially rejected Mastodon, being overwhelmed by its decentralization. I even proclaimed it “too complicated.”

Not even 8 months later and I’m fine. It’s all fine. My hysteria was sound and fury, signifying nothing. This hysteria is also pointless.

Is the fediverse the exact same experience Twitter and Reddit were? No. Do they need to be? No.

No one pearl-clutched when Facebook wasn’t exactly like LiveJournal or MySpace. No one pitched a fit when texting replaced IM. Folks organically flowed from one platform to the next as need and want allowed.

Technology solutions change and evolve. No platform rules forever.

The conspiracy theorist in me leans towards this being manufactured “concern” because the monetization solution to decentralized architecture isn’t ready for prime time, and “Late Stage Capitalism” is trying to herd the sheep into a temporary enclosure of fear until their new “farm” is ready. This explains why all the financial and corporate entities are singing the praises for Bluesky, and casting doubt on Mastodon. Last I saw, there is no word on how Bluesky is going to be supported, but it has a Board of Directors, which tells me it will be ad and subscription based, which means it needs a lot of people.

Having a Board also means that Bluesky can go public and can be sold to yet another nitwit.

So if long term stability means I am going to have to wake up and do a bit more to shape a fediverse solution to my needs, it’s worth more to me to do that than to go all in on a platform that is going to force ads on me and wind up being sold to the next billionaire imbecile.

I’ve seen “communities,” and my personal conceit is that “like” communities (communities with the same, similar, or synergistic subject matter) are “cohorts” so you don’t have to type “multi-communities”