DAC Protogen

Honestly… YouTube Premium is just wasted money. It’s a difficult situation. You can watch YouTube for free and without ads already, by simply using a decent browser like Firefox and installing the uBlock Origin addon to block the ads. (Google is fighting adblockers and anything based on Chrome, so 90% of browsers out there will limit their functionality in the future, btw. Use Firefox or something based on it to keep at least a bit of your privacy and freedom of choice.) And you can even automatically skip the sponsorship messages in videos with Sponsorblock. But if you think you would support the content creators with YouTube Premium, think again. You’re mostly paying Google for their servers / platform. A platform that treats its content creators pretty bad, finds all kinds of ways to not pay them / reasons to demonetize their videos to grab 100% of the ad income and has become more and more privacy invasive and aggressive with ads over the years towards its users. And in terms of music, YouTube doesn’t license every single song individually from the musician. They just pay a royalty towards huge labels and companies like Sony, which in turn keep the absolutely most part of that for themselves instead of paying the artists. Yes, by watching videos for free with adblockers, content creators and YouTube aren’t being paid and in a way you are part of a problem. But consider this: Any subscription based content service like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Premium starts by paying its content creators at least a bit of money, but uses bait & switch tactics to lower that payment per stream more and more over time. Once they have all the creators, music / content and viewers comfortably on board, they start grabbing the money for themselves. It’s a systemic issue with streaming platforms in general and always the short end of the stick for the very people who create the content that makes the platform successful and useful in the first place. And if you feel guilty for cutting off the often self-proclaimed “content creators”… YouTube has mechanisms in place to directly support them (while taking a cut for YouTube), like “super chats” and “super stickers” and most of them these days have a Patreon account for direct monetary support and sponsorships going on. But yes, only those content creators who actually offer quality content will benefit from these things, what about all the others, you may ask. Well, let’s be brutally honest. A whole lot of content offered on YouTube is bullshit. It’s either copying successful people’s video style, low-cost, low effort, low quality beginners stuff, clickbait, disinformation, mentally unhealthy nonsense, copyright infringing stuff, and these days even AI generated crap with no value. If all of that would stop being made because no money is to be made on the platform, we wouldn’t miss out on anything. True quality will always be supported directly by fans and sponsors. And as harsh as it sounds… the rest is obsolete and may fall victim to natural selection. Might even raise the quality of content on the platform overall. Feel free to pay for YouTube Premium, if it makes you feel better. But know that absolutely most of it will only benefit Google. Personally, I don’t have the money to pay like 130 bucks a year just to feel like a good person. And those aggressive ads are bad for mental health and sometimes are a vehicle for malware, aside from the technology behind them absolutely shredding your privacy. I’m having none of that. I’ll watch that stuff with adblockers as long as it works, and if that stops working some day, I’ll spend my time with something better, maybe going outside and touching grass or something.

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I think one can be “open” to a fault. If you cling to principles and morale for the sake of it and without exception or nuance, you set yourself up to be exploited or worse. Many things, entities, interactions in life contradict each other and it is important to set boundaries and make decisions for yourself. Because life and people are multi-faceted and aren’t nice and clean and perfect, which blind, naive idealism fails to take into account. The keyword here is nuance.

Many big tech companies run on greed and inhumane, unhealthy, invasive practices for the sake of pure, blind, unsustainable growth and profit. And I would argue that this is one of the driving factors of the fediverse even existing. If you don’t clearly separate yourself from these practices, then we all can simply use Reddit. But people create, maintain and use alternatives for a reason. Not taking a stance or action against what you want to escape from, even openly inviting it for the sake of being open and on a morally high horse makes simply no sense.

Idealists won’t like to hear this, but it’s the same with peace. Look at Ukraine to have a recent example. Most people want to live and prosper in peace. That is natural and desirable. But there are always some, who profit from war and who try to destroy things, disregarding the fate of others. Or political systems that want to expand territory and exploit / convert whole populations. When the desire for peace is only one-sided, and all attempts of talking or peaceful incentives fail, you can either protect yourself forcefully or be stolen from, raped, tortured, deported or murdered, watching your homeland be turned into ashes and those you love suffer for decades from the consequences.

In the same way, when the desire for openness, humane fairness without exploitation of users is one-sided, you have to draw a line and take a clear stance to defend that “safe space” you seeked in the first place from entities and principles that contradict it. And we have decades of clear evidence how big tech, especially Facebook / Meta operates, they are known to invade user privacy, strive for one-sided power, try everything to avoid or circumvent legal regulation. They have more than earned to be excluded from a place created to offer something better, healthier. And it’s not like we hurt feelings here, it’s a corporation, a virtual, soulless entity.

I can only speak for myself and do what I deem is good for me, so I’ll migrate to Lemmy.ml, because at least they have the balls to stay true to a concept, even if it involves difficult or ugly decisions. And even if blocking Meta won’t fully “protect” the fediverse, at least it is a clear message and limits the amount of power they can achieve and the amount of damage they can do here.

I don’t think that the fediverse is exclusively used by “older tech nerds”, but as someone who matches all three points you mentioned… I must say, you’re still a good observer. XD

But it’s logical. The more experienced tech crowd is the starting point of it. They are the ones not only able to see the flaws of corporate platforms and complain about it, but also with the technical skillset to just say “Fuck this, we make our own.”. If you’re not into computer stuff, you simply won’t be able to create and maintain an alternative. And it also takes at least a little bit of both life- and coding / web / tech experience to get to that point, so the age is also a given, at least for the initiators. Younger folks may like what’s happening and be joining in. And Linux runs the web. It dominates the server space, so the people who are working with it might also use it in their private life. Some others simply enjoy their OS and software not being bloated corporate spyware for the advertisement industry. So they are attracted early as well.

Don’t worry though. “Older tech nerds” are regular people, too - with other hobbies and preferences, things, pets and people in their life. So the nature of the fediverse is… community. People stuff. And that is fully compatible with other demographics. If they have enough of the likes of Reddit and Meta, they will find a compatible alternative here for their needs. But that doesn’t mean the fediverse has to replace those big tech platforms. People have choice, you know. And things can coexist. I’m perfectly fine with the size of Lemmy’s community. Reddit refugees are highly welcome, but I don’t worry about the user count, as long as there is a reasonable amount of interaction.

Once life has given you enough lemons, you become really good at discerning shades of yellow.