There’s a FOSS app for just about everything. You can also use Micro G to replace Google Services, so there’s almost no reason for using anything Google on an Android phone.

I think I saw something being dissolved on that page.

It’s a lot of Chinese writing and porn gifs. I had to close it immediately because there were about 30 gifs all over my screen.

You’ve obviously never tried to stream multiple things from your own server. It’s not as simple as you make it sound. Why do you think nobody can compete with YouTube? It’s because the cost is so expensive to stream. You can post the same videos to an FTP server with no huge bandwidth issue, but streaming takes a lot more.

Only people with a T1 line could stream in the 90s. Either you’re too young or you’ve forgotten that it wasn’t possible for 99% of people to stream until cable internet started being introduced in the early 2000s.

You seem to not have the slightest understanding of what I was referring to. I’ll try to break it down into something easier to understand.

Imagine that Spotify is a stream (a real stream of water, not an internet stream). To get to the ocean it has to pass through a concrete tunnel. There are millions of little fish that pass through that tunnel all the time. Suddenly several crocodiles decide that they want to pass through at the same time. The tunnel wasn’t designed for crocodiles. Sure, they can get through, but they fill the tunnel and the little fish get bunched up, slow down, and take longer to get to the other side. If you just gave the crocodiles a road to walk down that was over the tunnel, then they could get to the ocean without slowing down the little fish.

For this analogy, the little fish are songs, the crocodiles are white noise, the tunnel is the internet stream, the road is an FTP server, and the slowing down of the stream is buffering and increased cost.

You say you’re paying for bandwidth. You’re paying for access. Spotify is paying for the bandwidth, and it increases in cost the more it has to be increased in size to accommodate the service. If the company can reduce the demand on the bandwidth, then they can continue to offer the service without having to increase what you pay, while also using that savings to better their services.

The biggest issue with streaming services right now is that they are realizing that what they are charging is not covering the expensive cost of the bandwidth they are using. That’s why most of them are increasing what they charge. If Spotify can find a away to eleviate that issue, then that’s a good business practice.

I didn’t realize that you could stream it. There are tons of apps and downloads that you can use for it. I sleep to white noise cast to my TV from an MP4 that I have on my computer. It does seem like a huge waste of bandwidth.

This is just one story about it. Many journalists under the last 3 administrations have had raids and seizures of their devices. It’s an extremely disturbing development, but it actually dates back to the Wilson administration. It’s not nearly as new or as rare as it sounds.

Auto correct is a bitch sometimes.

A non-corrupt government, by nature, will never exist. That’s why the press needs to exist, until it also becomes corrupt. There seems to be no difference between the national press and the government in the US. I remember when I was a kid, I thought the press was part of the government. I kept seeing government officials going to work for the press and I just assumed it was one big organization. Now that I’ve gotten older and understand what’s going on, I realize that I understood more as a kid than I thought I did.

The only way the sheriff will be reigned in is by the local citizenry. If they ignore it or accept it, then there’s nothing to to stop him.

That’s why the press toes the government line. They know what will happen if they don’t.

The way I read it is that he was pissed that they didn’t carry out the original order by the court, so he was just shelling out a punishment that would get his point across.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. 🤷

It sounds like the judge is doing it because the lawyers failed to carry out the original order. Judges can be assholes if you defy them.

But it used to take skill, and lots of expensive equipment. Now anyone can do it for not very much money.

Good luck regulating them when you can 3d print them.