There’s a lot of empirical claims surrounding this topic, and I’m unaware who really has good evidence for them. The Substack guy e.g. is claiming that banning or demonetising would not “solve the problem” – how do we really know? At the very least, you’d think that demonetising helps to some extent, because if it’s not profitable to spread certain racist ideas, that’s simply less of an incentive. On the other hand, plenty of people on this thread are suggesting it does help address the problem, pointing to Reddit and other cases – but I don’t think anyone really has a grip on the empirical relationship between banning/demonetising, shifting ideologues to darker corners of the internet and what impact their ideas ultimately have. And you’d think the relationship wouldn’t be straightforward either – there might be some general patterns but it could vary according to so many contingent and contextual factors.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that this is literally only a problem in the United States. Everywhere else in the world, folks are totally fine using messaging apps. WhatsApp is pretty popular worldwide, and there are regional favorites too. But, the point is, it’s only in the States that people seem to be against this idea. The answer for why is very much up for debate, but the conversation is, at this point, just getting exhausting.

Can confirm, as a Brit. We probably would have a sardonic explanation for why only people in the States are against using other messengers too…

But loans are temporal. That’s all that is happening – you’re renting out software (akin to digital library borrowing), in some sense, not buying a product.

The problem is how to do it otherwise and maintain enough income to ensure continued active development for future updates.

I don’t have a solution to it, and subscriptions aren’t ideal, but that’s the problem at least.

Yeah I think this presents a genuine problem for the active development of apps for smaller developers, for sure.

Right but OP isn’t talking about Stremio/Torrentio without Real Debrid, and neither is the guy in the comment chain you were replying to. I’m not sure you’ve a good grip on what Debrid services are by saying “just another Netflix”; it reads like you’re imposing your grievance about Stremio onto a thread that mentions it but does not recommend the use case you specifically object to.

The app “Island” sort of does this already.

That’s a fair criticism, but worth noting that if you’re plugging in an RD API then the vast majority of the time you’re not torrenting at all (and never on your network). You’re downloading from the cache. One person, one time has to request a torrent file to that cache. Which has likely always happened before you’re making any requests, unless it’s something very niche indeed.

Many people think you do not, for the reason I just mentioned in a reply to the comment you’re replying to. There are other reasons you might think it wise, but it is not true that with this setup you are torrenting on your home network.

If you are using torrentio, you are downloading via torrent on your home network.

Because you can configure Torrentio to work with an RD API, this is not true. That’s the point of the setup – the end user is neither seeding nor leeching any torrent files. They are using the add-on to access a cache elsewhere, providing them with a simple and encrypted DDL.

For as long as Magisk has been going, that’s been my root strategy. I’m new to hearing about KernelSU though. Any advantages?

It’s a question of whether they would ever get subpoenaed really, and then whether they’d comply. I’m not sure it’s worth it from the copyright holders’ perspective. The individual users are getting DDL links, so they’re not uploading – i.e. “sharing” – anything. These days, if holders go after anyone, it’s for the sharing not the downloading. As for compliance, I don’t think we have any evidence one way or the other, as (afaik) they are yet to be subpoenaed (despite running for a long time).

It’s also worth noting if you do want to do this totally privately: when you buy an RD subscription, you cannot use a VPN during that process (they block known IPs). So, you would want to use a public WiFi connection somewhere, and choose an anonymous payment method like paysafecard.

With your capitalisation of “rip” there, I nearly had a heart attack thinking something (implausibly) had signalled the end of rips from streaming platforms lol.

now i’m comfortable with openboard, and keeping an eye on florisboard

Sadly, the swiping options on these ones are useless or nonexistent. I find only gboard tolerable for this form of text input now, which is really crap. Swype was king. Long live Swype.

It’s like people standing in line at the supermarket instead of using the scan-it-yourself-and-self-checkout app. Why???

Some people like the human connection. Some are lonely. Some find the machines stressful.

Look, I’m a consummate checkout-machine-user and always go for that option, much as I always swipe my keyboard, but still, I get it. I actually think it’s a shame that ordinary parts of our human experience that used to be mediated by humans are increasingly dwindling.

The real issue here is that people in the US are tied to using SMS for real-time chat groups when so many better (and private, and well known) alternatives exist. Thankfully, in Europe, nobody so far as I know ever really uses SMS anymore – whether for single or group chats.

Thanks for that, interesting stuff.

I see. But in the limit case where just everybody decided BTC is nonsense and stopped transacting entirely, while mining could continue, eventually it would die out, right?

So in a sense, do transactions not drive the need for mining? If that’s the case, the connection isn’t directly casual so much as one of complicity. Does that make sense or am I still barking up the wrong tree with this way of thinking?

Thanks for clarifying that!

However, the amount of mining is not dependent on the amount of transactions.

Entertain my ignorance on this for a second, but isn’t there some sort of dependence here? Like not a strictly casual dependence, but if transactions were, say, to magically halve for a few days, would that not affect the mining required and thus the total energy expenditure of the mining?

(Obviously the limit case would show this to be true, in that in the absence of any transactions at all, mining would cease. But I’m after something a bit more clearly casually related, somewhat like supply and demand in the marketplace – consumption of beef driving more supply and more methane, e.g.)

It would stop you from using the email sideload option, which is my favourite way to get books on. But you could turn WiFi on just for that and off again. More of an issue would be sync with the Kindle app, say on your phone. So if you don’t take it everywhere but find yourself stuck and wanting to carry on reading, you can get your phone out and pick up where you left off. Honestly, that’s pretty handy. But everyone’s use case is different.