To be fair, they didn’t actually say that what the others called it was smart or correct, just that they did call it that. But given nuance can be deduced from people’s words, I think we can both assume that the person you’re engaging with isn’t playing with a full deck of cards…

Bandcamp, qobuz, bleep, Beatport, theres a number of options out there to pick up cheap digital music. And then you also have the aforementioned eBay and discogs etc. Which, true, is second hand. But even splitting the amount the artist makes from that physical release between you and the person who previously bought it, they are still making way more from you than they would from just your streams.

And sure, 216 albums doesn’t seem like much. But they’d be all yours. Nobody could take them from you (well, besides if you got physically robbed I guess). There’s a bunch of stuff that has disappeared off of there. Big Black, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom, off the top of my head. You also have artists that have never been on there, Tatsuro Yamashita comes to mind. It also used to be a real problem with artists like Tool, The Beatles, AC/DC just not being there at all too. Then there’s other times where I’ve been playing albums, and tracks are just straight up missing (I presume due to licensing issues). I remember being royally annoyed with A Cross The Universe missing a bunch of tracks ages ago, and it used to happen frequently enough with other releases that it made an impression. Plus all the classic hip-hop that is missing cos of sample clearance issues. And heaven forbid if you wanna listen to classical music, or traditional music from around the world, it’s as if Spotify has never heard of the genre (both genres are represented, but it’s such a poor showing that they would’ve done better if there was just none at all). And I understand that this isn’t all on Spotify, but I’ve never had any of those issues with my personal collection.

Is it perfect? No. Does it reward the artist fairly? Undoubtedly. Would I take it over Spotify? Every day of the year for the rest of my life.

To be pedantic, there was DRM on music purchased on iTunes prior to 2009. Was a bit of a ballache converting that back in the day. Could’ve been worse though, I do like to buy most of my music physically so I didn’t have to convert too much of my collection (still a ballache though cos it was still way more files than I wanted to convert).

Wait, what? That seems odd. They’ve deleted music videos from my account (which I had the files for, and the videos in question were also pulled from YouTube etc by the band, so I don’t think it’s apple’s fault they were pulled), but I still have all the music I’ve made myself. I do back it up every 2 or 3 months (I would cry for the rest of my life if I lost it, I have nearly 2yrs of continuous music), but I’ve never had to restore it (and this has reinforced why I do back up).

Edit: looked it up, I see the issue now. I don’t use Apple music, and every instance I can find of this happening is associated with ceasing that subscription. But I just use iTunes and the iTunes store. Dunno how this would work for you since it’s your own music (and I dunno if it’d work for music not in the iTunes catalogue, ie stuff from Bandcamp, qobuz, cough cough less than legal methods, etc), but it would appear all you have to do is log in to your account again and re-download the deleted files.

Second edit: just realised I have lost some actual music from my account. The series of live albums that iTunes directly released from the iTunes festivals they ran like 15yrs ago just came to mind. They’re gone from my account. And probably a bunch of others. They were never deleted from my hard drive though.

“I don’t get my info from Google”. Then use your search engine of choice, “google” is basically genericized by now. The info is all there for you to read and not rely on your memory which is clearly wrong. And that’s understandable. It’s been 10yrs.

And you’re not entirely right on the YouTube not stealing users from tiktok. YouTube shorts have more active users than tiktok does by a good margin. And tiktoks growth is slowing as a result. Again, these are all facts.

And finally, you’re a fucking idiot. Why the fuck did Instagrams user count explode when they implemented short form video if that wasn’t an attractive feature? Why is my Instagram feed 85%+ videos over pictures? I don’t even follow celebrities on there, a handful of bands (be less than 10), the rest is friends but mainly content creators creating comedy. Be it memes, original creations, stand up clips, etc. Your memory is shit and fallible, the pages I literally just read are not as they are saved for posterity. I suggest you take my original suggestion and do some research on the topic instead of relying on your feelings before you make yourself look like a bigger idiot. Cos yeah, Instagram didn’t take 100% of vines users, but it still took a fucking huge amount of them. The data is all out there, written way better than I can write it. Go read it and stop trying to act like you know all, cos after you read a bit, maybe you might change your tune…

Sure, you might not have, but the data suggests that Instagram allowing its users to post 15s videos and monetise them was what allowed them to poach a lot of vine users. This isn’t me just talking shit, google “why did vine shut down” and I guarantee 95%+ of the results will say the same thing. Twitter got scooped in a big way. I mean, vine had more users than Instagram before it’s downfall.

Data caps may have played a part, but it would’ve been insignificant. They were 6s videos after all, and the average American was already using over 1GB of data even back then. Instagram had about the same amount of users at the time. And their willingness to give their users more flexibility than vine was by giving users 15s videos and the ability to monetise was all it took. It wasn’t helped by twitter giving zero shits about vine. Which kinda makes sense, they had their own video thing going.

Vine didn’t fail cos it wasn’t popular, it failed cos Instagram saw what it was doing, copied it, and did it better.

Link worked fine for me just now, 13mins after your post.

Pirates 2 had an $8million budget.

Heaps of people still buy music, sales still account for around half of music revenue.

The documentary film The Producers goes into great detail about the making of it.

For me here in Australia, my yearly check up (although I only go every two years) is paid for by the govt. Back when I was at uni and super poor, I still went to my childhood optometrist cos I still lived at home, she lived within walking distance, and why not? And over the four years, she’d do my exam for free, then give me all the info I needed to be able to go to the super cheap optometrist to get them made there. This was back in 2003, way before we had all these budget options we have now. So, being able to get a pair for $180 as opposed to the $500 my childhood one wanted for hers was worth it. To be fair though, her range was pretty damn stylish compared to the other.

And I dunno if you’re saying that in case you think you might be offending me, but even if you weren’t, a phrase like that would indicate you’re an ally anyway! Also, who can get offended by being called brother? Although, I am male, maybe that’s giving me some bias… Anyway, my weirdness aside (it’s friday night, I’ve had a couple of beers hahahaha), yeah, shit. It’s fucked. I actually get a double length session when I go now (still for free!). Twas my first time seeing this optician and she asked me “do you have ADHD? Or maybe youre otherwise neurodivergant?” And I was all “yessasssss…?” So now we take longer and do more stuff. I’ve never really fucked up, but there’s been some glasses I’ve had where I’m like “yeah, this is like 85% instead of the 100% the last pair were…”

Nah, no need to apologise for that, I was just trying to relate to you on that issue. It doesn’t bother me either, I could not give a fuck how I look 95% of the time (special occasions like weddings etc are different. And I bet my mum wishes I gave more than half a shit about my appearance in public hahahaha). But I do like to have choices (even if my ADHD does mean it takes me FOREVER to actually make a decision), so it does annoy me somewhat.

As for the online supplier, if you’re North American, theres an online store called glasses are awesome (that’s not actually it’s name, but if you say the wrong thing is the right thing on the internet, someone will invariably correct you. It’s like Zillow or zenni or something? Starts with a z, that much I do know. Used to get mentioned on Reddit a lot), but they were super cheap when my mate ordered their spider jereusalem knock off glasses for a costume party. His prescription is a bit more normal than mine so he might have saved some money there, but even with shipping from the states to Australia, it was still absurdly cheap (I think it was less than $AUD40).

Edit: Googled it like a sane person, its www.zennioptical.com and I just clicked on the first pair I saw. All up, they wanna charge me $USD26 before delivery for the most basic options (most basic lenses, no coatings etc. the coatings costs were kinda reasonable though, started at $USD4 and went up to like $USD35), and that includes a $USD9 additional charge cos my prescription is so insane. Seems pretty good to me. Way cheaper than what you suggested yours cost (you didn’t give an exact price, but I’m not an idiot so I can figure out the ballpark of “10x more than $60” hahahaha).

Er, the lenses are still stupid cheap. I literally paid $50 all told for both frames and lenses. And I just searched for online budget retailers here in Australia, went with the first result, and their single vision lenses (even with my current prescription which is a bit fucked cos my eyes are vastly different and one of them is so bad the lens may as well be the bottom of a coke bottle) start at $AUD9.95. Bifocal is a bit more expensive, but still quite reasonable with prices starting at $AUD42. Sure, they have fancy Kodak lenses for $AUD280, and getting coatings and UV coating costs more (I still say that $AUD80 for the ultra premium ones with added blue light filtering and all those bells and whistles is “cheap” compared to what I used to pay), but there is no reason you can’t get a pair for under $AUD50 that’ll do you just fine.

Someone’s lucky enough to only need single strength lenses and/or have choices of lens suppliers.

Nope. Both eyes are vastly different, and I’ve never shopped around for lenses, just buy what the optometrist recommends me. I am in Australia, so things may be different due to that. And I feel you on the limited frame selection thing, one of my lenses may as well be the bottom of a coke bottle, I too don’t get much choice when I select a new pair.

Nah, glasses don’t have to be expensive. I notice literally no difference between pairs I’ve had that were over $400 and pairs that were $50. It’s just shaped glass… And whilst I mostly agree with you on headphones, there are a very small number of manufacturers out there who are doing some fantastic budget headphones. The earbuds I use now cost me $40 and shit all over any others I’ve had (and have lab verified frequency response curves to prove they are legit too). Should add, that even though they are budget, some of their products can easily cost over $1k, but then they are emulating headphones that cost over $5k…

What the fuck would you poms know about it? Like in the cricket, Australia has you beat. You’ve had 6 since 2000, we’ve had 8.

Companies exiting a market and leaving clients/customers without their service isn’t a new thing. Was happening well before DRM was even thought of, let alone implemented. And still happens now. Polaroid leaving the instant photo market comes to mind.

Kurzgast (or however you spell it) did a video on this. In short, not enough fissible material on earth (well, I guess technically it’d be “in the earth”) to completely destroy the planet. Which is kinda remarkable cos that’s equivalent to 10 billion of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima.