I’d recommend just buying from smaller and local shops. Instead of going on Amazon and searching for a product, search the product on Google/DDG and see what comes up. Hopefully you’ll get some decent prices from smaller sites or maybe come across a good local shop that you can pay a visit to periodically.
BforBrian
Sure it's a centralized USA-based messenger, but if it's end-to-end encrypted with literally no data collection why does it matter?
It's becoming inarguable that Canada is the greatest country.
I imagine that is slowly changing now since they've made that announcement. The only thing that was holding most people back from at least giving it a shot was the fact that it wasn't open-source. I personally think it should be included at this point because it is privacy-focused alternative to WhatsApp.
I don't think it's very fair to leave Threema out of the discussion, now that they're open-source.
Either that or the server directories would need to be made easier to work with, perhaps all on one Fediverse directory website??
It sounds terrifying when it tries to do AC/DC style singing.
The dominant theory seems to be ease of use/simplicity and the front page of everything having furries, hentai and a bunch of nerd chat.
I think a good way to solve a few of the issues is to have the main instance of each platform market themselves a little harder and not so much on the pods/instances - teach that to the people later after they get in to the atmosphere of the Fediverse. For example, someone goes to Mastodon.social, all they see is that it's the main instance, and other that the word instance, it looks like a simple Twitter alternative.
Then later if they want to delve a little deeper (the customer), they can learn about instances/pods. From there they can host their own, or search for a new one. (Most of the instance directories could use some simplifying too)
Then to go along with that, each main instance would also have to be moderated quite heavily to keep things clean for when people first join.
Thoughts?
Could you explain a little more on that? Do you mean all of the main instances of each platform could just say that they are the main platform and later educate people on the whole pods/instances thing?
This here is exactly what I am thinking. Sure, we do have people. And some might not want it to be loaded with people. But if there is no audience for content, it's not likely that people will stick around for a very long period of time.
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