In my experience it has also never been necessary to engage in the microtransactions to have fun.

I played EVE for years in the 2010s. Amazing game. I just don’t have enough time for it anymore.

OsmAnd is pretty good. It’s not as easy as GMaps, but that’s understandable. If we all use and support alternatives more, we’ll likely spur their development.

What browser are you using? Some browser features have caused issues like this for me in the past. Specifically privacy-focused browsers like LibreWolf and Vanadium.

Might not be diet. Might be IBS.

All I know is that its a feature of GrapheneOS, and is the main reason why I switched over to it.

It just doesn’t allow you to use the Android Device Policy work profile which makes it so you can’t log into Slack for work (for example) if it depends on the work policy spyware being active on your phone.

I get that for some people that’s a non-starter but for me who vehemently supports and exercises my Right To Disconnect, not having spyware on my phone for work is a good riddance.

That’s what the Google Play Sandbox is for.

The only functionality I’ve lost after migrating to a Pixel with GrapheneOS is the Android Device Policy (aka Work Profiles, the spyware your employer requires to use certain work apps)

Good riddance if you ask me lol

Add Lutris to that list. If anything doesn’t work in WINE, try installing via Lutris. My AxeFX’s GUI now works flawlessly thanks to an older version of WINE running in Lutris.

I’m running REAPER and some outboard gear GUIs on Nobara Linux with no issues so far. VSTs run thanks to yabridge and Lutris/WINE handles the GUI stuff. I bet you’ll be able to migrate without too much trouble.

Heart Machine rules. Hyper Light Drifter is my absolute favourite game. Would love to see them expand on HLD but I’m also looking forward to these new endeavours.

We’ll agree to disagree I suppose. The alternatives don’t necessarily have to be FOSS either. A perfect example of a viable alternative to a predatory “industry standard” exists in the audio production world; REAPER.

When I was in College, Pro Tools was the required software. Pro Tools at the time was a walled garden ecosystem, trapping anyone who sunk their hard earned cash into an environment rife with anti-consumer practices, hardware brand restrictions and invasive DRM.

It cost me over $600 CAD at the time for a bundle containing a feature-limited copy of Pro Tools and a Digidesign MBox.

Meanwhile, REAPER’s noncommercial license was $60. That $60 got you a full featured copy of the DAW with support for the next two full version upgrades (which turned out to be nearly a decade of updates). You could also use any hardware interfaces you desired without restriction.

REAPER also has a free trial that is full-featured. No restrictions at all, even the trial length is unlimited. Why? Because they respect the consumer and trust that if you find value in the software you’ll support their work by paying for a copy. That purchase is one of the best I’ve ever made.

In my experience, REAPER was equally as capable as Pro Tools or any other DAW on the market at the time. As of now I’d wager it’s the superior product.

A world where consumers are respected currently exists, its just not in the hands of the corporate world. The best way to make a better future for everyone in the software world is to not put up with anti-consumer practices and engage with companies and developers that respect our time and hard earned cash instead of treating us like cattle.

This is just even more justification to use alternatives. If a mass migration to alternatives occurs, those apps will flourish and more dev time can be arranged via new devs interested in volunteering or outright being employed to meet demand.

Adobe is only so big because of their userbase. Migrate that userbase to a less cancerous set of applications and the userbase stands to benefit greatly.

Weird hill to die on, friend.

No it was not what many would consider a commercial success. My music is a bit niche, but it was a success in its own right. We had label support (non-financial, basically just printed CDs) for our debut release and more than recouped the cost and if we followed up with releases it likely would have had potential to snowball by re-investing the money into the band. We only released digital and CD digipaks of the album, no merch no extra anything and that gave us more than enough for a second release and then some. I just have no use for the music “industry” as it were. Music is not a means to an end for me, its an outlet and I do it on my terms. I don’t jive with the industrialization of art in general and I certainly don’t want to whittle my relationship with music down to how much money it can make for me. I get it if people wanna commoditize it though. That angle is just not for me.

Indie artists by and large self produce and a metric ton of them do so to an incredibly high caliber. Big tech Spotify man is not wrong, he’s just an asshole. A leech, if you will.

In the modern era, that’s not exactly true. This number is only relevant if you’re outsourcing tracking, mixing and mastering which are all things that can be done in a bedroom nowadays. How do I know? Because I did so myself a number of years ago.

If you’re not learning how to do these things yourself, you’re simply wasting money or you’re rich enough/your band is supported enough to not give a fuck.

The only thing we paid for was album art and mastering simply because I wanted one specific engineer to do it just cause. All in all we paid less than $2k for a full release. We could have paid zero if we did our own artwork and I mastered the album myself which is not exactly impossible for the average person to do.

I get your sentiment, but money is not necessarily needed en masse to release music any more. If you already have your instruments and associated gear, a REAPER license is $60 and you can use the included plugins to create a full professional quality release.

I had a plethora of plugins a while back but I’ve wiped them from my drive in favor of REAPER’s stock plugins, the available JS plugin libraries and a few choice free plugins along with a single drum VST. That’s it. I have pro quality mixes and masters with just that.

The days of the studio as a necessity are over. Studio time is a luxury, not a necessity.

I want to end this comment with a big “fuck you” to Spotify anyway because streaming services are cancerous to the music creator scenes.

When was the last time you tested this? My steam library runs great, not to mention everything else that runs on Lutris.

The thing is that it needs to be literally perfect polarization flipping to protect you. ANC as we know isn’t perfect; it doesn’t perfectly cancel sound and create absolute silence. You’re still potentially vulnerable to high SPL

Very likely lol I’ll whoosh myself on that one haha

Email.

Fax is not secure, never has been and most businesses are using e-fax which is email with extra steps.

This particular dinosaur actually deserves to be Chicxulub’ed.

Please for the love of god abandon fax. I’m tired of troubleshooting it.