“I mean outside of the areas that are documented by people that work, it is impossible.”

And yet it’s the “liberals” who are the whiny snowflakes.🙄

Which part of “set up and run your own instance” is unclear you whiny buffoon!?

If you don’t actually understand why you got Trumped, making shit up to explain it is the wrong approach and just leads to another Trump or worse.

Which rule at the right says that again? I’m not seeing it.

And since when the fuck is. “Thank you” an insult?

And since when is lying about what you actually said (lying by omission is still lying) intellectually honest?

What is the “right way” and which of the rules at the right explain this?

Wow! Someone who gets “choice” and “freedom of association”!

I’m sorry. Does actually having to put a bit of skin in the game offend you? You’d rather the people spending the actual money and doing the actual work just bow to your whims?

Compassionate fucking BUDDHA are the anti-defederation crowd a bunch of entitled, whiny asses!

Usually it’s just the self-righteousness instinct…

I love¹ telepathic people who can read other people’s minds and post on their behalf.

¹ This is sarcasm. I hate the delusional who think they’re telepaths.

So it’s freedom of association you’re opposed to then?

By “BOFH that happens to run the server” you mean “the volunteer whose money, time, and effort are being expended on your behalf”, right?

This is the single most entitled opinion I’ve ever heard in this. “I, the person who bears none of the pecuniary, temporal, or psychological costs of running the server insist that ‘the free software ethos’ means I get what I want on someone else’s computer.”

Fuck that noise.

If you want a server run your way that federates with the people you want to federate with, put your own skin in the game. Run your own server with your own rules. THAT is the actual free software ethos: DIY if you don’t like the way someone else does it.

The free software ethos is the punk ethos, not the hippy dippy shits ethos.

Replace “communist tankie shit” with “CSAM” or “torture porn” or such and see if that makes any sense to you (keeping in mind that all content from your “whitelisted” stuff is stored on the server owner’s hardware).

I’m not as familiar with the history of telecom in the US–but also, the modern-day telecom industry is a hell of a lot healthier in the US.

Read up. It amazes me that we live in an age where information is at our fingertips in seconds and people still “debate” while saying things like “I don’t actually know …”. Read. The fuck. Up.

The reason the American telecom industry is “healthy” (FSVO “healthy”) right now is because the government stepped in. It was literally government intervention that caused telecoms to blossom.

(Hint: this happened in my lifetime, and not that long before your lifetime, likely.)

…the same way Consumer Reports gives safety ratings for cars without government funding.

After government enforced safety regulations set the baseline standards, yes. Again, just as with the telecoms industry (and the airline industry, for that matter) Read. The fuck. Up. This is not esoteric information that’s concealed and known only to a select few. This is the motherfucking public record.

And there’s the name-calling! Boy, you sure showed them libertarians!

You. You libertarians. (It’s utterly adorable that you’re pretending not to be one and are just “giving their side”. You’re transparent as all fucking Hell, with about the subtlety of a riot.)

Then why obfuscate it with all the verbiage? Just say “I don’t like any cheesecake but plain cheesecake.”

OK, so as I suspected, your “unpopular opinion” is, when all the blather is stripped away, “I don’t like anything but plain cheesecake”.

Not so impressive when worded that way, is it?

I gave a counterpoint re: healthcare, where free market healthcare worked really well.

The nation noted for its “free market healthcare” on the world stage has shit health stats. Working real well there, Sparky.

Telecom was largely rolled out by government monopolies, in order to do it quickly.

Time to open up a history book, there, dude. 'Cause you are so fucking far off the mark it’s hilarious.

I’m skeptical about airlines … They’d have worked themselves out eventually, if left to market forces, but that’s never been allowed to happen.

At what cost in bodies? I know to the libertarian mindset death counts are just number, but each increment of those numbers is a human life. The ultimate loss of liberty is death.

Want to see what “market forces” do in airline industries? Look at the 737-MAX fiasco, where government abrogated its oversight of the airline, permitting companies to “self-certify”, a decision that you can draw a direct line from to 346 dead bodies.

Seriously, go visit those 346 people’s families. Tell them that “market forces” would have eventually settled out the issues. Be ready to run. 346 times.

The idea of regulation is to stop the bodies from happening in the first place instead of waiting, while the body count racks up, for “market forces” to fix everything.

This religion of “the market solves all” is why libertarians are fuckwits.

Now, think of industries that suck, where the companies are really shitty causing people to complain about them all the time, but are nonetheless stuck using them for lack of options.

…

Or…were you maybe thinking (depending where you live) of banking, airline, healthcare, insurance, or telecom industries?

Okay, now, change of topic: think of some industries with lots of regulation and government intervention.

Did you by any chance come up with the same list?

Typical libertarian blather.

In each one of these cases the industry predates the regulation. The regulation of banking is a response to the shitty behaviour of pre-regulation banks. Ditto for airlines, health care, insurance, telecom, etc. etc. etc.

The old adage “each regulation is written in blood” applies (albeit the blood being metaphorical in some cases).

The libertarian cinematic universe (coughRandroidscough) has it that businessmen were just chugging along merrily making a profit when suddenly, out of nowhere, the government leaped in to slap regulations on things. The reality is that regulations (which are themselves, naturally, not perfect, often applied long after the need has vanished, and prone to being corrupted) are a response to corporate malfeasance. Very few regulations are made ahead of the fact. (Politicians are constitutionally incapable of thinking ahead, after all.)

So airlines being heavily-regulated? Go look at the history of the airline industry. Look at the accident rates caused by the complete and utter profiteering of early airlines. Then ask yourself if regulation made these industries evil, or if perhaps regulations came in because of the evil of said industries.

I’ll address your opinion once you define your terms. Specifically:

• define “good”