sunbunman

VScodium is FOSS though

Honestly about as deep as some debates between adults

Windows 10. End of life, constant nagging to update to W11 and my SSD dying created the perfect environment to change over.

I’d imagine they’re mostly physically disabled people trying to get control of their limbs or access to the freedom this type of tech is promising. As abhorrent as all of the testing behind this tech is, if I were a quadrapalegic or something similar, I would volunteer because wtf else have I got going for me?

As a long time Windows user, my SSD just shat itself last week. MS has been pissing me off with the constant “upgrade to Windows 11” messages that I’ve finally taken steps to change over to Linux. My experience has been as follows:

• Ubuntu has been hot garbage, half the things I’ve tried don’t seem to work, and Gnome is hot garbage for a newcomer (this might just be an Ubuntu issue)
• My current distro, Debian with Cinnamon, is pretty good. I don’t want the cutting edge of OS, I just want something that works and won’t bug me for major updates every other month.
• There is a learning curve. No matter what anyone tells you, you will need to at least be able to google and copy and paste some terminal commands in Linux. Anything more is a bonus.
• Linux can have a really pretty GUI after popping in a few changes to the default setup.
• Gaming has actually been pretty smooth. 0 issues Lutrix running games from GoG and Steam is not bad even those without Linux support 👍🏾

No worries, I’ll take your U2 example and try it from my end (I don’t listen to them so I can’t decide on what album(s) specifically you are looking for). I’m going to be frank, it was a pain, but I did find zdigital (7digital outside of Australia) selling their albums without physical media. But getting there, I had to see that the U2 website/publisher website did not even advertise it. It was like the 5th option on duckduckgo after searching for

u2 digital download

I’m sure you would have better luck if you slide in the specific album that you were looking for.

Important to note is that you aren’t googling for that artist or album, you’re googling

artist album digital download

I do agree with you that mainstream artists and publishers are going down this route probably due to some deals with streaming services, but unfortunately that is the reality we live in now. Additional work will be required by the consumer to get what they want. If the publishers start completely stopping this at some point all I can say is that I have the disposable income to buy the products I want and I am going to get it. Whether the publishers sell it to me or not is their decision to make.

Bandcamp is good for indie artists and if you want to discover new artists. I’ve found quite a few diamonds in the rough on there. A surprising amount of metal / punk artists sell via Bandcamp if you’re into that.

How is 'just Google it" not a valid option? This is literally how you can find 99% of all problems about the internet especially for finding where to legally buy digital products within the first few websites. You know what is good for business when you’re trying to sell a product? Making sure its one of the first few, if not the first choice the customer gets when looking at the default search engine.

Moving on from that I’m guessing getting in contact with the artist is not an option? Y’know the other 2 points?

There’s quite a few ways actually:

• Bandcamp (preferred)
• just google it
• Artist’s official website
• contact artist via social media

If none of the above has worked, this is no longer an issue about whether you want to pay for the product or not, it’s a supplier problem.

I always try to buy my music first, digital only though. I don’t have space for CDs or the like. If the option is not available (not common), the tricorn goes on. And normally I would go through any loophole I can find to get it legally. But damn, the Japanese really don’t like doing business with foreigners.

Just a heads up to everyone, quitting Spotify and buying / “procuring” your own music and playing it via a music player makes reading this quite cathartic. Do it for the moral superiority and self esteem boost for no effort you come to the internet for anyways.

It is actually dark patterns. The number of times I’ve saved a file and thought I’d lost it only to find it in OneDrive is infuriating.

Are they too dumb to uncheck the “show NSFW” button in settings? It was the same in Reddit idk. Can’t do much about Communism, but at least the Lenin porn is blocked.

Yeah no, software is made with the time and effort of the devs. And maintained with the time and effort of the devs. And good software usually reflects experience and skill of said devs and a usually a broader team as well.

Saying something isn’t worth anything just because the end result of the labour can be copy/pasted is insane.