Oh, absolutely! If you find that a particular FOSS project deserves your money, you really should donate.

I’ve found that LLMs can help you with refining incoherent ramblings into understandable questions. Even if you don’t know what words to use or how to ask something, it still somehow works anyway.

Just try dumping a wall of text on an LLM of your choice, and see what happens. You may need to have a proper conversation with the LLM to get what you’re really after, so don’t expect the first answer to be the final one.

Ad-blocking. Install uBlock Origin on your Firefox and enjoy the internet.

Hmm. I guess there is a category that isn’t entirely premeditated and intentional, nor is it a freak accident either. It’s sort of like an accident, but it’s caused be reckless stupidity, as opposed to something beyond your control.

As people have noticed, there are lots of reckless decisions that can ruin your life. I guess that fits the description of what OP was looking for.

But doesn’t that count as an accident? Kids who play with fireworks don’t cram a steel can full of black powder imagining how cool it would be to loose your fingers and eyes.

Oh, that’s interesting. Lucky you, I guess. The algorithms have been tuned to be as engaging as possible, and that seems to be working for most people. Obviously, it’s impossible to make it work for literally everyone, and you seem to be one of the few who can escape the algorithm.

The lack of an algorithm is a solution. Social media tends to be too addictive to the point it can be harmful to humans, so Mastodon was intentionally designed to be less addictive.

Facebook: “Hold my beer. I’ll show you who’s the real cancer of the internet.”

This is the way.

Thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful answer. Especially that historical perspective was interesting.

I just thought that AI music is going to be like the ways clothes are manufactured today. Sure, you could get your clothes from a big factory, and many people do. At the same time, there are still many people who make clothes by hand just for fun. There are also some who make clothes the old way and sell them to millionaires who can afford to appreciate that production method and the quality that comes with it.

My guess is, the same will happen to music industry. Most people who wear cheap t-shirts, will also listen to cheap AI pop. Some other people with the money to hire musicians will do so, just like they’ve done so far. At the same time, many people will also continue to enjoy playing instruments or knitting wool scarfs just because it’s fun.

Bonus question: How do you see AI affecting music production in the future? Sites like Suno can already produce some sort of music, but will that sort of technology enhance or threaten your work? Is this just like the time when the spinning jenny revolutionized the textile industry?

Nah, too much freedom. Use Red Star OS to properly restrict your activities and let NK know what you’re doing.

Normies noticed when MS took away the start menu in W8, but didn’t notice when W10 shipped with a ton of spyware “features”.

So when I walk past some bicycles parked outside of a store, and simply use my eyes to determine if they have locks, I’m essentially a hacker.

Seems like we’ll get financially viable fusion power plants before that happens.

I had a very different mindset at the time. Nowadays, I can totally understand the need for subscriptions/ads, but back then I just wanted to get everything for free. LOL. Nowadays though, I care a lot more about privacy so the blocker stays on.

I’m also paying for services that are worth it, but I’m just not convinced that YT is proving enough value to me. Besides, I’m also shifting towards other video platforms, so I’m less of a burden to YT than I used to.

That’s probably true for now. Killing the API would be too much of a shock to millions of people, which would obviously hurt business.

However, making small changes every year is more acceptable. Remember how ads were initially rolled out vs. what they are today? At first, it was just an ad banner below the video, and I was willing to quit YT then and there. Well, turns out ad blockers handled that, so I stuck around. However, a shocking number of people still don’t use an ad blocker, such as Ublock Origin on Firefox, and they seem to just tolerate the ads. These changes happen so gradually, that people get used to them.

My guess is that YT will keep on making the service worse every year, and eventually it will be the time to kill the API. At that point, everything else will probably be so bad, that nobody will even notice the API any more.

“Dodge this”, Han Solo said and threw the ring in the volcano.

I follow the “buy a Windows computer, install Linux, and slap an Apple sticker on it” school of thought. If it’s an Android phone, I would recommend using another Apple sticker.

Lizard people wins the price, hands down.