No I am not confusing it. When microsoft got it they made it much worse, as they centralized all calls, were before it was p2p after the call was made.

But prior to that, when it first started to go from skype to skype was free and it was ok. To go from skype to landline cost money. But there were plenty of other services that did that for free. I suppose it was just because we were computer savy at the time so skype didn’t seem like a big deal.

They did do a lot of things right though. Encryption, conference calling, and a lot of devices support.

Anyways, you know who made skype? The same people who brought us Kazaa.

Skype was good?

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Robocop vs Terminator was a interesting comic. The premise being that Skynet interacted with RoboCop’s cyborg brain which is how it gained sentience and was able to bring about war. The fact it was a cops brain, well there you go.

Hulu. Fuck Hulu.

I was given a subscription once many years ago, (2014) and it came with ads.

They helped start this pay to get ads on streaming shit. I will never forget or forgive.

On the opposite end of the spectrum: Nightflight has been fun to have, even if it isn’t for everybody. But it does what is says and no ads.

Also Kanopy is nice enough for what it is: a way to watch movies from the library.

There it is again. That term “gatekeeping”. I see it here so damn often, but nobody ever can back up the claim.

You are saying: people are actively trying to make things difficult to use in order to keep people out? Can you give me an example? Has anyone in the fediverse rejected YOUR proposal to improve anything? Pull requests made and denied?

Ever consider that it is not gatekeeping, but the lack of millions of dollars on advertising and venture capital that makes people think anything else is easy to use? Instagram and Facebook are MUCH harder to join and MUCH harder to curate for anything useful, and keep some sanity on your privacy, but nobody complains about them.

I am being disingenuous? You make a very bold claim that people are “gatekeeping” open source software. You then claim that everything in Linux outside of web browsing requires the command line. I am completely serious.

All I am asking you to do is back up those claims.

Either you have a specific gripe that should be addressed, or you are just spreading bullshit online or trolling. Which one is it?

Having to do most real things besides browsing the internet via command line on 2025

What are these “most things”? I haven’t had to use the command line on this laptop I am typing on since I got it a year ago. Files, music, shares, my own cloud storage on s3, photo editing, etc? What are “most things” to you?

And even if it was “most things” you are not showing an example of gatekeeping. Give me an example, such as you submitting a pull request for a GUI for a current command line only “most things” that was rejected.

Can you show me an example of gatekeeping in this space? I am not sure that word means what you think it means.

I mean it is open source, ANYONE can create a different UI and fork the code, which is drastic but an option.

Are you saying you have submitted UI improvements as pull requests to several projects and had them tell you they would not merge due to a desire to keep the UI the way they designed it?

I don’t like Brussel sprouts. Not even after they have been selecting them for sweet not bitter over the last 30 years.

But… It is not really surprising that Salmon and roasted Brussel sprouts go good together. I mean this is not an uncommon pairing is it?

Alright if you know you know…

Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream and Garden of Eatins Red Hot Blues tortilla chips.

You asked for surprising…

I am not downplaying the phone spying on me, I imagine it is.

But ads are the least of my concerns. I see less ads now than at any other time in my life.

So how do I know if it is happening to me?

And sadly now I have to watch a video. Wouldn’t step by step instructions be quicker and more effective? Yes. They were. Now it’s some video wasting my time.

Not sure that is a great example.

Reddit was like that too.

Because the line break in markdown is two spaces.

Markdown is pretty great to work with.

Anything but Ubuntu. The “broken or will break” since version 4 but looks like it might be user friendly!

Fedora is more stable these days, and that isn’t even my desktop of choice.

In the scenario I described to you trans people are much more comfortable than have 2 sex bathrooms.

A single sex bathroom means there is no choice that need to be made. They do not have to present as anything, nor be judged as anything. It is simply a person in a public room, and a private room for the private time.

It also means (as I described it) the sharing of the hand washing mirror facilities are barely different than being in the hallway. Do people share hallways? Of course. So this open to the public space adds a level of protection.

Then for the private space it is single use. One person.

I feel like I am having a hard time getting this across, and I don’t know why.

There will always be somebody who doesn’t like something. But you normalize things and then people adapt.

They like it better because they feel it is more private.

Nobody cares about washing their hands or fixing thier hair or whatever in front of others, and the appreciate that when they are doing the business part their is a completely private space.

I just visited a high school that does exactly this, and no one cares.

In fact they like it better.

You put the handwashing station in an open area, visible to the hallway.

You put floor to cieling stalls for the actual doing your business part.

I have been to a lot of places that do this and nobody cares. It is an added level of safety that you are either in private or visible to passers by.

I worded what I said poorly. I agree with you, it makes no sense. Short term thinking. I was trying to say that they could do all sorts of horrible things in the old fashioned way, not draw much attention and not much complaint. They could accomplish their short sighted plans without all the drama and scrutiny.