I do pirate games that I buy on Steam - just to have a backup copy in case something happens to my account. I want to truly own my media. Nonetheless, this is the only place I have paid for media since we ditched the DVD player)

and the opportunity to give you money

What? Remembering myself as a preteen, even if I didn’t consider microtransactions as a no-no, I don’t think I would be able to do it anyway. Preteens don’t have bank cards. If we are talking about begging their parents - I don’t think it would have worked either. Mine, just like average parents, would have probably thought spending money on games was stupid and not allowed it. That is the reason I had pirated Minecraft too - just like most kids around me.

Yes, I am aware. But nonetheless it is far easier to use anonymously/pseudonymously than “traditional” payment. Like, exchanging BTC/LTC from Monero, and buying said Monero via a non-kyc method as well. And whatever protections you want to layer, depending on how much effort you think “they” would spend on you.

On a phone, I actually rarely get stuck for hours. Not only because most of my personal data has to stay off of it (it cannot have LineageOS or similar), but also because it is inconvenient af. No keyboard, small screen, everything is slow. The problem of infinitely going into rabbit holes solves itself, while on the laptop there has to be a lot more self-control - it is far more comfortable.

Some registrars accept crypto though.

I am skeptical about listening not only because it was not proven, but also because almost the exact same result is achievable via much, much simpler and omnipresent means.

Another option is playing not on your hardware entirely - at least where I live, there are computer clubs where you can use high-end gaming computers for a small per-hour fee.

I installed Mint for my elderly mom a couple years ago, because Windows 7 was EOL and even 10 would’ve been too slow (had an experience with an involuntary upgrade on our family laptop years earlier).

From what I have seen, VPNs are still not uncommon in China despite it all, have seen a few Chinese users in our IRC too. What matters is that opportunity exists after you’ve put in the necessary effort, rather than what happens on Apple devices.

First, it is Apple so all sorts of lock-ins. Second - not everyone is rich like you.

My phones usually last six years at least, three is nothing (and even then it is not “full” updates). Point is - Pixels are premium phones, so the ones that you would get for $200 would either be old models or quite used.

6 barely has any Graphene support left - normal updates until next year and extended ones for just a few more.

It is all closed-source anyway, so would not count on this “e2e”.

It is VERY weird that you replace words with emojis. Looks like a book for toddlers who are learning to read. Why? Are you trying to bypass some odd word filter?

Overall, I just don’t carry a phone most of the time. Fairphone 5 is not quite a realistic option for most because it is very expensive.

And I <3 my purchases not being automatically tracked, so cash where possible)

Not just bot-farms and spammers, but just a regular person. What is Signal’s main feature? Encryption. You would not want to expose your sensitive chats to a smartphone, unless it has a privacy-respecting OS (which not all phones can do). Good thing I only have to use it with a couple of guys who don’t want to use other encrypted communication methods.

I just started hosting Matrix in addition to XMPP (just because some communities prefer it now), and I find it bothersome that it saves chat history and media to every participating server. IDK how much of an issue chat logs would be, but media scares me a lot. Hopefully cleaning old files manually would not break anything…

Anyway, I started with Conduit rather than Dendrite, and it seems like a good experience. Could not even hope to get Synapse going on my weak VPS.

A lot of people (me included) host servers for a single person, lol. This is more than normal.

The most annoying thing about Signal is that they don’t for some reason allow registering from desktop directly, so I had to use signal-cli. Which is inconvenient AF and it’s a shame they haven’t added a feature as simple as “input an SMS code in the desktop client”.

Anyway, glad I only have to use it for a couple of guys and only with my real identity. So happy XMPP exists, and I have most of my 1-to-1 messaging with internet friends there. Very easy to host.

Normal, non-pro are expensive AF too. The non-pro Pixel 7 is around $500. The latest ones I remember seeing for $300 and under are Pixel 5.