I was under the impression you were trying to indicate that just because Telegram is free, that it's users are paying one way or another. However, agreed that Telegram does end up paying for backend costs but the app could be modified to utilize a different backend.
Almost every kid at my daughter's elementary school has TikTok installed and they are all under 13. If you have an Android phone, they do basically no verification to register and then if you go to your Google Account you can see that they share your email and personal data with TikTok. This is a major COPPA violation. Does this mean Microsoft may soon be the biggest violator of COPPA in the US?
So they want people to pay for the crap that is UFC? You couldn't pay me to watch it. Watching people bleed all over each other and getting hit in the head until they lose consciousness is sick and takes some sickos to enjoy watching it.
Telegram has shown the enormous potential of Qt with the latest update. Not that I have a horrible time with GTK, but Qt just feels better and lighter overall. qutebrowser is another example of the amazing potential of Qt.
TikTok has been caught violating COPPA. One of my kids recently signed up for TikTok without any age verification using their Android Google account, which then shares their email address with TikTok which is clear violation of COPPA. Nothing is being done to prevent this. TikTok actively caters to underage youth and most of the community is about producing provocative dance videos. In the end, TikTok is full of underage kids being provocative and is a cesspool and playground for pedophiles.
If the warez community, you'd actually be surprised to find that most of Microsoft internal leaks and hacks come from Russia. Russian groups like WZorNET produce unreleased internal builds of Microsoft solutions all the time.
There are lot of things they do that I'm not happy with, but it is still very valuable for the price point. No where else can you get unlimited storage that is fast for so cheap, and they are the only cloud provider that doesn't charge egress to those services.
I don't use Google Drive per say, since I run Linux. I primarily use rclone and previously had issues with Dropbox throttling uploads as well. Currently I pay $12 a month and get unlimited storage with G Suite. In addition to all the other G Suite features, Dropbox doesn't offer anything close in terms of price or features.
They don't compete though. Google offers 17+GB free with email, office suite, unlimited photos, drive and Voice with a free number for unlimited calling and texting. Dropbox has much stricter bandwidth limits as well.
For $9.99 you get all that plus 2TB storage with Google One. Dropbox has a minimum for of 3 users for their business plan, but with 1 user on G Suite for $12/mo I get unlimited storage and all the Goodies I mentioned before.
Who does Dropbox compete with these days? They have pretty much the highest prices for the least amount of value. The only reason I see them mentioned here frequently is their connection with Y Combinator.
I like the idea of PipeWire where you can create your own feed without logging in. If I like someone I will send them a donation directly. I don't want want them to be telling me to like and subscribe every 5 seconds and then telling me what products to by because they are secretly sponsored by them.
This is a great question and something I've often wondered. Most of what I see after deleting recommendations, likes/dislikes, and subscriptions is just click bait. If I put something on that is educational for my kids, next thing I know it is recommending vile content to them. Where do those suggestions and recommendations actually come from?
The only times I see embrace extend extinguish get brought up on HN is when there is legitimate concern. Obviously, on something like this if someone is bringing it up it would appear inauthentic. However, I frequently see inauthentic articles spewing Google hate that get upvoted and anything that gets brought up suggesting it is manufactured is automatically downvoted.
Why public education continues to use Zoom is beyond me. Not only do they use Zoom, they spend upwards of $10/mo per student for it. For that price you get the entire G Suite platform.
There are a lot of room for open source improvements when it comes to bookmark management. I envision a CLI and web server that uses TOML, YAML and JSON like Hugo.
I asked for a day off my first week to celebrate my religious holiday of the flying spaghetti monster and got fired too. Couldn't believe it. Everyone on Twitter agreed it was illegal and my religious holidays and celebrations are protected.