I agree, it seems like they’re doing everything they can to force users into the mindset of “you’re going to have to spend money here.”

However… I don’t think that’s going to work. It’s a tactic that relies solely on Apple not allowing the user to customize their icons, which combines into a double whammy of “give me money to fix the thing that I broke.”

Why do I have to pay when Android users don’t?

Why is Reddit being greedy?

This other site is free and doesn’t make me feel like I’m being taken advantage of every turn.

Reddit is trying to capitalize on goodwill they already spent months ago. And the quality of the site is just going to get worse from here.

Ryobi is just so cheap that it doesn’t make sense for me to buy any other cordless brand with the number of batteries I have.

But for hand tools and corded stuff I get the cheapest I can find, until something slows me down too much, then I’ll upgrade.

That’s how I’ve built a small empire of tools.

If you’re in the US, the Affordable Connectivity Program is available to low income families and it covers $30 a month off your existing internet bill.

PCsForPeople (not sure if I can provide links on Lemmy) offers a free mobile hotspot plan with unlimited data that you can use as home internet, if you qualify for the ACP.

Just an FYI, since there are programs that help, but not everyone is aware of them.

Could you even tell?

After all, we are in the era of advanced LLMs.

I’m all for improving the user experience here on Lemmy.

But what I find not so appealing, is targeting mass adoption in a way that dumbs down the community we’re building here.

As long as we just make Lemmy a great place to be, the right kind of people will keep joining.

Meta knows exactly what to do to bring a billion new users to a new social media site, and all you have to do is look at Threads to see the kind of community they are cultivating.

Lemmy does not, and never will, have the moderation power to contend with that many bad actors. I’m perfectly fine with Lemmy having a tiny learning curve to keep out the dregs.

It would be nice to interact with my own family and friends

That’s a straight no from me.

We can already interact with our friends and family anywhere we choose, but Lemmy is one of the only general discussion areas left on the internet that isn’t full of the stupidest people on the planet.

Bringing our family here will just result in real identities taking over and limiting discussion to what’s acceptable in all our little social bubbles.

Even in relatively corruption-free countries, there are often shadow mechanisms the governments uses to decide who they charge with a crime.

Prosecutors can just say they don’t have a case, or they can fumble the case purposefully in the initial stages to give credence to the “no case” idea.

We don’t have to look any further than how police charge themselves to see how the laws don’t fairly apply to everyone. And a simple google search will reveal that Sweden is not immune to police corruption, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

“Disobeying police orders”, which is what Thunberg was charged with, is one of those catch-all laws that are purposefully vague in a way that allows police total discretion over how to enforce it.

I guarantee in this case that calls were made all the way up the top of the Swedish government before police decided what to do here.

Basically, my point is that there are so many strings to pull, even in developed countries, that it’s often possible to suss out the motivations of the administration just by examining how charges proceed.

What this says about Thunberg getting charged for her actions? Probably nothing significant. Sweden cannot allow activists to freely disrupt their economic infrastructure, especially those involving energy. So they charge her as “normal” regardless of her celebrity status. Though they will be very careful to do everything by the book with so many eyes on the case.

I don’t think anyone would even notice next to the garbage that’s already served by default on Reddit.

Diablo 4 looks interesting, but $70 and microtransactions just rubs me the wrong way.

Motherland if I’m not mistaken.