This is another reason why I think the key to success is timing. Be the first to provide a service people need, and they’ll use it for a long time

I remember a few years ago I activated and used Office 2008 from an old CD. What does it even mean that old versions are getting killed? That you can’t use them anymore?

OP said the point of the disc is the ability to resell it

I tried using Konqueror once, but Cloudflare websites (like WineHQ) would verification loop me. Niche browsers are discriminated against

I lived the switch in second person. My sister kept running out of SMSs to text her boyfriend, and our elder sister told her about Whatsapp and how she could have basically infinite text messages

because it’s the de facto sms replacement in many european and south american countries

Installing Linux turned my life towards computers and now I’m doing a compsci degree

Morality, in general, is a set of criteria used to determine when it is acceptable to do “wrong” things to people. If someone is an asshole, those around them will usually be assholes to them in return, to show them that being an asshole is wrong. The point is where you draw the line

The guy who first came up with abolishing capital punishment had an idea: what if, instead of killing convicts (which makes us seem barbaric and instigates rebellion), we imprison them for life and make them work as slaves? Dying can be noble, but wasting away doing prison work takes away all dignity, so other criminals will not be tempted to emulate them.

This was one little step in the long progress that lead to the fine-tuned fascism machine the USA is today.

What I’m trying to say is, capital punishment is bad, and it looks especially bad because it’s flashy. It distracts us from other forms of punishment, which are just as inhumane (if not worse), but go unnoticed.

So capital punishment absolutely needs to be abolished, but that is only the first step of many.

That one season of Yu-Gi-Oh where they rode motorbikes for no reason

Driving mine off the desk so I can hear the silly scream sound

Your computer has dozens of computers in it!

You may have some luck with ADB

Then “reinstall without Google” isn’t a solution you can suggest universally to everyone even if you don’t know their phone model

No I was referring to the line about users needing google play services

For the casual user, they Just Work™. The famous ones like Stean, at least (I tried it sometime ago, it’s better than the flatpak version nowadays). If you never change your cursor, never check out your partitions, etc. snap’s problems aren’t as visible

This is why I love flatpak and sandboxing in general

Can you do that even if the bootloader is locked (as it is on many phones nowadays)?

Android is open source (and also Linux), so there are many custom OSs that aren’t “fancy linux”, but just Android without Google apps. See: LineageOS, GrapheneOS, e/OS. You might be able to install one of them on your phone if it’s compatible!

I don’t know, I’m not hopeful.

Stallman played a BIG role in the insurgence of Linux (and FOSS in general), but he famously disregards smartphones as he thinks people should just not use them.

Plus, phones are built different: many have a locked bootloader, and there is no standard like BIOS/UEFI, meaning you must compile a slightly different OS for each model.

What I’m saying is the mobile ecosystem is built in a way that makes it very difficult for a serious AOSP ecosystem to build up, let alone a different kind of Linux