kadu

Buy more so that their economics and capabilities can be improved so they can sell better for cheaper.

So you do that and I buy when the price makes sense, thanks. Sorry, not paying a 60% premium for three year old hardware so “in the future it can become cheaper for others”

My biggest issue with the alternative phones is I’m not paying a massively inflated price for bad hardware just because it’s using free software, sorry. Same goes for Framework laptops. I will tolerate paying a premium, but everything about the device must match the price tag.

but the developer will need to verify their identity with google.

If I purchase a device today, it’s got the ability to install apps that are not verified. This is a feature. If now it’s restricted, it violates our code.

A “certified Android device” is a device running Google Play Services, Play Protect, Google’s WideVine DRM scheme and a few other requirements. If you purchase a device from a known manufacturer, like Samsung, you’re falling into this category.

because their governmemts support this change.

I can see how Google’s PR team might use this argument, but it’s certainly illegal in Brazil so our government most definitely isn’t supporting this decision. Also, it needs to be way more specific than “government” - who exactly is endorsing this? Procon? Anatel? Polícia Federal?

Either way, the actual reason for targeting Brazil as one of the first is because we do love our piracy, which naturally translates into sideloading being frequent.

Hasn’t he admitted to changing his opinion after learning about the effects on children?

He did. The argument against him was half based on misquotes and incomplete sentences, but the other half was indeed once his opinion - he argued that age of consent was a dumb concept and that instead it should be based on what the child wants to do and any harm they were subjected to.

He later on said he regretted this view because it was explained to him that there’s no ability to consent and this always causes harm to the child. His original arguments were, in typical Stallman fashion, quite obsessed with definitions themselves, almost as if the subject at hand didn’t really matter he was just bothered about how the definition had some flaws.

But even with that in mind… I can’t feel comfortable knowing he defended this point of view, and it does significantly harm my opinion about him.

Technically illegal where I live.

In Brazil you can’t sell a device with a given feature and then remove said feature in a software update. Even Apple, known for never allowing downgrades, was forced to downgrade and pay a fine to a customer after his iPad 3 updated to iOS 7 and lost an iOS 6 feature.

In other words… every single Android device sold until today in Brazil allows sideloading. Even if a single customer uses a sideloaded app, removing the ability to sideload freely would be illegal, and because the original feature didn’t require a developer signature it can’t be enforced now.

The issue is, as always, if this went to court somebody would have to manage to explain to a tech illiterate judge what a “developer signature” is, how this relates to “sideloading” and so on.

the benefit of it is just not bloating my 128gb phone to it´s limits

That’s kinda the thing though, using modern codecs there’s no way you’ll get anywhere close to facing this issue. A song encoded with Opus at higher than necessary quality is 2.5 MBs on average - that’s over 20 thousand songs in 50 GB, not even half of your total storage gets you 50 days of continuous audio.

Whaaat? There’s Android for jailbroken Kindles? Back in my day the only thing you could do with a jailbreak was installing a slow version of KOReader that didn’t really work very well.

This was only a controversy because GIFs were falling out of favour

They were never falling out of favour, and there’s not a single human being out there using WebP, only Google and bots touch that format.

Or … just don’t connect it to the internet?

It is not because it has a wifi antenna or an ethernet port that you need to connect it.

This is increasingly becoming a false statement, unfortunately. Companies are indeed forcing customers to connect in order to use the regular features. For instance, Roku TVs won’t let you change to a regular HDMI input without first connecting and accepting their ToS and updates.

Secondly, even when the forced connection hasn’t been implemented yet, the problem is not entirely fixed. These fridges with digital panels are notorious for randomly having that panel fail, and then the ENTIRE FRIDGE stops working, even though the actually useful compressor and refrigeration loop is intact. Of course, the company will also refuse to sell you a replacement digital panel.

A smart appliance disconnected is still significantly worse than a dumb appliance.

The Homebrew Channel for LG WebOS is got three pieces of absolutely essential software:

A YouTube app modified with built in ad blocking and sponsor blocking. The Jellyfin app. The Moonlight app.

With these three plus the toggle to block system updates your TV gets 1000% better for free.

for music: not streaming.

Music is a solved problem, the files are small even at FLAC quality and can be tiny with Opus whilst sounding transparent. Any SOC made in the last 15 years features a more than fully capable DAC.

Why even bother with streaming? Have a local collection of files. Even syncing is easy.

Remember when Plex tried to sell you a subscription to use outdated versions of open source game console emulators?

Plex wants to be a profit-driven company, but their business model is piracy. They’ll squeeze you for subscriptions, while making your experience worse to try and broker a peace deal with content owners.