Reminds me of the monty python sketch, “what have the romans ever done for us? except sanitation and roads and canals and public health” lol.

Steam gives devs a huge marketing presence that smaller devs simply wouldn’t have otherwise, it gives countless high bandwidth distribution servers that automatically scale to demand, you can integrate the largest PC social community for matchmaking or other multiplayer features, you get a community page where people can post fan content or mods, etc.

That is worth way more than 30% to most devs. The only ones who it’s not worth it for are huge companies like Blizzard and Epic who can manage all that themselves, hence why they’re pretty much the only ones who don’t sell games on Steam.

I have Tails on a USB for temporary use , I don’t think it’s supposed to be used as a full time OS with persistent storage though.

Yep, software dev here for a static marketing site for a product. We are in a constant battle with PMs and SEO who want Google tracking, Facebook, TikTok, A/B testing, cursor tracking, etc. We’re trying to keep page-speeds fast while loading megabytes of external JS code…

Luckily all that can be blocked by the end user without affecting the site though, all you’d lose is some carousels and accordions etc that are done with a few lines of code.

Yeah don’t worry I have no social media accounts other than Lemmy

I did try to install Qubes recently for this purpose but it’s not well supported on my laptop hardware.

My bank only has an app, no website option, but luckily it works just fine on GrapheneOS with no Google Play. I barely use it anyway as I pay cash everywhere possible

Bitcoin is terrible for that though. High transaction fees, slow transaction speeds, everyone can see your balances and transactions (and with KYC requirements it’s very easy to link a wallet and a coin to a person).

Monero is the only digital currency worth having.

I don’t entirely agree with this: I know there are no ANPR cameras within my town for example. There’s a speed camera that only takes photos if you’re speeding, but ANPR cameras are limited to motorways and trunk roads, I can move around my town and the surrounding ones without clocking ANPR. Of course I’m still on regular CCTV and cell towers triangulate my phone, but that requires authorities actively looking into me which I doubt they are.

I tend to use an eBike where possible but again the phone triangulates if I have it on me, and it wouldn’t be too hard to follow on cctv if you really wanted to. Everyone and their mother has a doorbell camera now

My ebike comes with a GPS tracking app to locate it. Luckily it’s optional but it’s already begun

Another awful “innovation”. The screen in my 2016 van just does maps, music, and radio. I can swap it out no issue if I want (but I don’t want android auto so I don’t). The climate controls are still physical knobs thank god.

Holding onto my 2016 van with zero telemetry for as long as possible.

I use it both daily and for long trips. I use it daily because as I’ve said when I don’t use it, I get stuck in a queue on the motorway that was easily avoided with traffic info. And also for long trips because again, there are multiple routes and there could be hours difference between them depending on traffic. I frequently travel from North England to London and depending on the day I’ll use a route either on the western side or eastern side of the country based on the traffic.

What a bizarre comment. Of course I need traffic data in a navigation app. Why would I want to sit in an hour queue on a closed motorway due to an incident when I could be using the alternative route that’s still moving?

Probably vaguely similar from when I’ve visited

Tesco now even has stores in the UK where you scan your loyalty card on the way in, pick up items off shelves, and walk out and it charges you accurately. The amount of cameras and sensors on the ceiling was uncanny. So not only do they have your purchasing profile but they now know what you look like, your gait, and any other identifying information they use to make that work

(OK it might be just lads in the Philippines following you on CCTV like Amazon did but still)

As an aside, this is why I recently degoogled, having been all in on Google products for 10 years. 10 years ago you got amazing value for your data from Google but now every single useful product has been enshittified or shut down and they collect more data than ever. The sums just don’t add up any more.

Indeed. Its very uncommon to get flat cashback options in the UK for this reason. I think I had AmEx that gave me 1% for a year and nothing after that.

This is one thing the UK is really good for, all bank owned ATMs and most public ones are completely free to use for any cardholder of any bank. My bank doesn’t even have physical branches but I can still use the ATM of any bank lobby for free. There are some paid ones run by private companies but the fee is usually a flat £1-2 max. I’ve been to ATMs in Europe that have tried to charge me something like 10EUR to take out 30.

It’s a private contract between the business and the customer, you are supposed to ensure you have means to pay beforehand.

Interesting, we have £50 notes in the UK but they essentially don’t exist for most people. No cash machines will give you one, and shopkeepers mistrust them, although generally accept. 20s are the highest people deal with here usually.