Fuck Empress, however she’s right on this specific matter.

Lemmy instances run on servers which are funded by donations. I don’t see how Sync (which is made by one developer) gets to be frowned upon because there’s a price for ad removal. All FOSS projects are somehow funded, usually by donations. Nothing runs for free.

If we get to use all the FOSS Lemmy apps is because someone put in the time and money to make it happen.

What rubs me the wrong way is the $20 ask to remove ads

I would feel the same way if Sync was the one and only option to view Lemmy on mobile but it’s not. You can use all the other FOSS apps which don’t have ads.

By the way you can install a global adblocker on your phone to remove all (well, most let’s say) ads across your device. I use one and don’t see any ads on Sync, just a blank square.

I’ve tried pretty much all the FOSS Lemmy apps I could get my hands on but the experience Sync provides is far superior. I’m an ex Boost user and since I couldn’t find Boost for Lemmy I naturally gravitated towards Sync and I’m not looking back.

I felt the Adobe part. I bought Photoshop CS2 back in the day then sadly lost the license key a few years later. I never felt bad for pirating the latest version.

Another example of ethical piracy would be when offline games force you to be online all the time. Minecraft forces me to be online to play through the official launcher. Since I also play with mods that are still a few versions behind, I downloaded a cracked launcher so I can play even when I don’t have internet access.

To you perhaps, I’m perfectly fine with it.

Like segmentation isn’t an issue…

Copyright infringement laws vary but even though simply downloading copyrighted material is against policies, it’s hard to enforce and most copyright holders don’t always find grounds for a lawsuit or it’s straight up not worth pursuing. You downloading a movie off a website is the same as a friend of yours sharing the same movie with you on a USB stick.

Actions against unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials (especially if it’s for profit) on the other hand are much more easily enforceable.

Windows 10 on my main machine and Lubuntu on my home server

I don’t even think it’s possible. Made a profile on Threads just to see if this was possible but I can’t seem to find a way to connect it to the fediverse

At least with cable TV you can get the highest tear subscription with all the channels. With streaming services you have to subscribe to a decent bunch just to have a broad variety of content, resulting in a much higher price than any cable TV subscription.

It’s a disaster.

I’ve been using flixhq.to which is add-free and I’ve been pretty happy with it!

There’s people on both sides of the scale here.

I used to pirate stuff because I couldn’t afford it or because I prioritized spending my money elsewhere since I could get stuff for free. Then as I got a job, I could afford to pay for lots of things and legal options became more convenient than piracy, so I just stopped pirating.

Now I’m back on the ship because pirating has become more convenient than subscribing to a bunch of different fragnented and anti-consumer services just to access a handful of content.

Some people just want shit for free (which is ok, been there), some others value service and convenience first and foremost.

And there’s no other way to play those games. They’re pretty much gone forever alongside the money spent to purchase them.

Not to mention the fact that oftentimes pirated content is just better. DRM free games run better and some work people have put into remastering media in general is outstanding.

I found a collection of the DBZ anime which is color corrected, proper aspect ratio, higher resolution, improved audio (from a different home release with better audio) made by fans for no profit. Even if you wanted to you couldn’t purchase that but piracy made it possible.

Unofficial remasters of some old, poorly mastered songs have made a difference for me and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy them without resorting to piracy.

I will definitely consider sub.rehab since my communities gain a bit more traction! Thanks a lot

I don’t think piracy needs to be justified because different people have different reasons.

Sure you could argue that you’re not actually stealing but creating/downloading a copy of something it already exist. I always found that anti piracy commercial “you wouldn’t steal a car” ridiculous as that’s not how piracy works.

For example, I do it because I don’t agree with how segmented the video streaming industry has become in recent years with this many different services that force you to buy a bunch of subscriptions while continuosly pulling content. Unlike the music streaming industry where all the most popular content (the majority of it) can be found on pretty much every serivce. You could have Spotify or Apple Music, not much difference (if any at all) in content or quality.

When I was a teenager I did it because I couldn’t afford to buy any sort of media content and options were limited. Pretty much everyone that owned an MP3 player was pirating music.

I miss the niche subs I was a part of, I recreated them on Lemmy and hopefully they can gain some traction, I loved the discussions on those subs and I hope I can have the same experience on Lemmy. If not, life goes on.

I didn’t know you could sell your Reddit account. I deleted posts and comments on my 4 year old account with over 14k karma.

I just did the same thing. I deleted all my posts and comments on my 14k karma account. I’ll be keeping the account though, just for the memories.