Many businesses, non-profits, and local government offices where I live use Facebook as their primary, or exclusive, online presence. I don’t want to make a Facebook account, but I would like to be able to see some of the content that is posted there; are there any alternative front-ends that won’t …
Redirect social media links to privacy-respecting alternative front ends, or redirects to an alternate service such as Google Maps -> Open Street Map…
Does anyone know of some ethical alternatives to Spotify? I saw this video which kinda tampered my interest in the whole streaming ecosystem right now. I know there’s Bandcamp, and Resonate; both seem pretty cool, but their music selection is pretty limited.
I have no problem paying for music, but I want as much of my money as possible to go to the artist.
EDIT: After an hour or so of searching, from most profitable for the band to least = Buy CD / merch from shows & concerts > buy music from band’s website > buy music from Bandcamp > buy MP3 from Google / Amazon / Apple > stream music.
If you do need to browse Reddit you can use Teddit, it is a FLOSS alternative front-end that does not require JavaScript.
Fractional Reserve Banking is the most common form of banking. It is wasteful for a bank to do nothing with all the money that is deposited, so instead they will only hold a fraction ~(10-25% iirc) of the total value of all deposits in reserve ready to be withdrawn at a moment’s notice. Banks invest the majority of the money that is deposited.
This is normally a productive and stable practice, but can cause the bank to collapse if there is a run on the bank and the bank’s customers want to withdraw more than the reserve fraction in a short time. To solve this problem, central banks hold gigantic reserves of cash to rapidly lend to the smaller banks so they can survive a run. Governments also insure people’s savings accounts to undermine any incentive to run on banks in the first place.
Coinbase is just like any other bank, they do not hold “assets equal to deposits” they hold a fractional-reserve, and use most of the money deposited with them to make investments. Coinbase, however, is not federally insured (for crypto holdings), and there is no central bank reserve for crypto currencies, so if there were a run on Coinbase it could collapse.
One the official recommendations by the House Subcommittee on Antitrust was for the government to mandate “interoperability features” among dominant online platforms, that would be an insurmountable win for the Fediverse by forcing Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, et al. to make their content available to the Fediverse. The cited study in the investigation found that 60% of surveyed Americans currently support mandating interoperability.
If you are eligible to vote in the US and want to help the Fediverse, then contact your representative and express support for interoperability. Very few constituents actually contact their representatives, so it does not take many voices to make a difference. You can be sure corporate lobbyists will be giving eloquent and persuasive arguments against interoperability, so please, help make sure your representatives hear from the people what will be best for the people.
Talk to friends and family about this too: “The Social Dilemma” is an excellent introduction to the consequences of exploitative tech monopolies. Federation is the most powerful way to break the monopolies and enable more humane innovation.
Freedom of speech does not imply equality of speech. Voat’s users are allowed to have hateful beliefs, and they are allowed to spread those hateful beliefs. When Voat shut down this was not a blow to the institution of free speech, it was a blow to the network of far-right extremism. Voat’s users are still allowed to hold their beliefs, and still allowed to spread those beliefs, but now they will have to find new ways to re-connect to each other.
The Centre for Humane Technology coined the phrase “Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach”, just because someone must be allowed to have an idea does not mean their idea must receive equal representation.
See if you can find some nutritional yeast; it’s pretty inexpensive, commonly sold at health-food stores, and is usually fortified with vegan B12. It has a mild cheesy/buttery flavor and goes well in many dishes, so you can add it to just about anything. From the bag I have a serving size of 6mL is ~100% of the daily recommended dose of B12, so it’s really easy to sprinkle a little bit onto whatever I’m eating and not have to worry about a pill.