Before the internet you would have to go to a library to read a book you didn’t want to purchase. Libraries are still a thing. You can still go there to borrow a book, read it, and return it, so that others can read it.

The only difference here is the magnitude of access, where publishers weren’t very concerned with at the local library level for token public good, but are very much now alarmed with, in that the internet can distribute content to everyone all the time, content they were very much hoping to continue to monetize.

It’s information gatekeeping, but no one is going to tell the publishing industry they might as well fold up shop and stop publishing because they can’t make any money at it any longer.

If you have many choices for your Internet Service Providers where you are, go ahead, and if they terminate your service, sign up for another one, if there isn’t, a VPN is absolutely necessary if only to protect your access.

“angry ISP letters” followed by termination of service and inability to get new service from that ISP for that physical address no matter who attempts to sign up for new service under a different name. if your address is only serviced by one local ISP, and there’s no good alternative, then you’re fucking hosed. every other concern is a distant second to that.

lulz

If you’re “self hosting VPN” then both your ingress and outgoing VPN servers are showing THEIR I.P. address publicly, which is then tied back to you through DNS/Hosting services, so, Lucy, splain that to me

It 'asent dissapeared guvn’ah, it’s jus very small innit

obvious troll is obvious

kodi/debrid cough cough cough

whooobaby now that is a question and a half huh

he knows mama

individually, not important, together with a mass of collected data, over time, patterns emerge, those patterns can be everything from people, and people within your demographic, age, sex, location, race, education level, marital status, relationship status, and THAT is invaluable to corporations (and governments) in figuring out what to sell, how to sell it, and who to sell it to.

they say knowledge is power, and that’s just what all this data from billions of different sources gives others, an overview of human interaction with each other, technology, and most importantly the things that motivate them to act.

I think it was 10th grade, boy they gave us a lot of homework

Well, it’s better than feudalism, or 99.999999999% of all time inhabited by human beings on this earth, for human longevity and enjoyment of life.

lol, you wanna wallow in pessimistic self pity, go right ahead, it’s a valid way as any to spend one’s existence.

Owning more than one firearm

I don’t think that’s true, and even if it is, since I can’t do anything about it, I’m going to ignore that reality and replace it with one of my own making.

human labor always makes more financial sense when you’re not paying the human labor a living wage, which is why, for the last 30 years, everything the western world consumes is produced in china. it’s the human slavery. it’s in the machine.

democratic capitalism is the worst form of social and economic government, except of course for all the others (that have ever been tried throughout the course of all human history)

there’s the good kind, you see, then there’s better, best and lastly …

Depends on who you define as “the original owner”

… aaaaaand there goes the infinitesimally tiny nut inside the case