I’m know kids these days who are preferring a dumb phone, now physical media is making a comeback.
Has our surveillance economy finally backfired enough that people are starting to reclaim ownership? God I hope so.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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We're the closest we've been since the cloud started, but sadly, people are still addicted to the almighty algorithm.
Absolutely, and it's about time.
Participating in a boycott this month? You should be doing all that stuff period.
Nah shop Amazon when it costs them money. As in, you know you are buying at or below cost.
I just bought a few things from Amazon, cheaper than any competition to begin with, but also used the last of my Amazon rewards balance.
Then put everything on a 0% interest offer and religiously pay the minimum until the last bill, and pay it all off then. Just don't forget.
Use them when it benefits you significantly more than it benefits them.
I have been buying a hell of a lot more stuff on eBay, Newegg, B&H, etc lately. And most of the cheap consumer junk that I would buy on Amazon is even cheaper on AliExpress if I'm willing to wait a little longer.
I was kinda pissed when I bought a reasonably priced commodity on eBay and it was delivered in Amazon packaging by an Amazon truck, though.
That's too much work. I just don't buy from Amazon.
>buy hard drives from Amazon to build your own AWS hosting without Amazon
Ref: I'll allow it
I was kinda pissed when I bought a reasonably priced commodity on eBay and it was delivered in Amazon packaging by an Amazon truck, though.
I've noticed this too, if the same thing's slightly more on eBay it's probably someone ordering it for you on Amazon and pocketing the difference
Yep. Good to know that soulless cretins who just want to make a buck off the backs of people with scruples are still out there.
If that happened to me i'd 1 star their asses so fast.
Yeah, a friend of mine was recently buying markers, and a lot of companies also just... Don't have their own stores. They either redirect to Amazon, or if they to they still fulfill it through Amazon. Etsy is also full of resellers.
Newegg Commerce, Inc. (NASDAQ: NEGG) is a publicly traded company. It is majority-owned by a Chinese multinational technology firm. Key ownership details include:
Majority Shareholder: Hangzhou Lianluo Interactive Information Technology Co., Ltd. (also known as Liaison Interactive) owns approximately 54.5% to 57.4% of the company.
Founder Stake: Fred Chang, the company's founder and former CEO, retains a significant ownership stake of roughly 22.1%.
Significant Individual Shareholder: Vladimir Galkin owns about 22.5% of the shares.
Public Float: The remaining shares (approximately 11%) are held by the general public and institutional investors.
I didn't see bezos or mush in that list.
In a baby steps scenario, I'd count that as a marginal win.
It's marketing, my friend.
Just inconvenience yourself for this month for the greater good.
Ohh month's already up... he that wasn't that bad was it, maybe keep going?
Theres like 80% of the population that still actively shop at Target and Amazon Prime. People buy from Whole Foods instead of the small "mom and pop" European market on the corner.
I have not been to Target or shopped at Amazon since end of 2024. It was surprising that those 2 habits were the two easiest to correct. If people only knew how easy it is... Deleting Facebook was easy too.
DeGoogling is very hard. I'm still working on it but the progress has made a huge dent in the amount of new personal info available for them to sell, or so I hope. It's useful to start a list of accounts with emails you need to change and just block YouTube from phone.
What happened to good old pirating? We used to show them middle finger for wanting single payment from us, and now we do subscriptions for stuff we barely even use?
They changed tactics.
Pirating is work. You need a little technical expertise for debrid, or to set up a media server, or even to keep a bunch of USB storage organized. And while it's not that hard, when they couple taking care of all that for you AND running your likes through an algo and introducing you to new content regularly, your average person sees enough benefit, if the price is right.
So they introduce a service, get the price down to 10-15 a month. Get you in, get your preferences, sell them to the highest bidder and slowly crank back content to make more profit.
For the music it's worse, they're fucking over the artists AND selling your data.
When the cost in price or morality gets too high, they'll all pirate.
Some never stopped.
Dang it, I'm already boycotting them because i want to actually own my media and support local businesses and a bunch of other reasons, how am I supposed to boycott them harder to include capitulation to Trump?!
Help your friends
Discs from libraries!
lol. I was boycotting more than I thought. Seriously though its practically a fight to do things without a cell phone now.
My rapidly diminishing purchasing power due to high inflation, tariffs, higher interest rates, higher taxes, higher junk fees, and stagnant wages is forcing me to boycott as much as I can, whether I like it or not.
I feel that.
And specifically an Android or IOS phone, and bit by bit, a sanctioned, non-rooted OS.
I mean without one entirely. Like a non app option. I mean even if its a super libre free as in freedom hardware and software with stallmans personal seal of approval I still don't want to be forced to use only that one option. I should be able to use a web portal or mail a check or come in person.
My semi-long-term goal is pocket Linux and just a cellular AP. There's just nothing Linux-wise that's not ancient and expensive AF.
The last two years I started going to garage sales for DVDs/Blu Rays.
It's been great. You can get like 5-10 movies for the price of a month of Netflix. Then you can sell them next spring for $5-10 and buy $5-10 worth from someone else of stuff you haven't seen.
Dusted off the mp3s too. Long live VLC
Just missed Bandcamp Friday. Also, get u some flac.
With how much storage costs these days? I'll stick with MP3.
convert them to vorbis. much better quality at mp3 sizes
Not that familiar with that format, ill look into it. Thanks!
This. If you want to be sure that the flacs are worth it, go do one of those 128kbps mp3 vs 320 mp3 vs flac tests and see if you can hear the difference. I can't, so I just do 128 mp3s and save the storage. Almost 2k songs in 10gb of space :D
I ripped to flacs not because I can hear a difference but I can reencode to any format I want and never have to rip again.
If you have Plex, Plexamp does a great job of streaming music outside the home and having a host of other features (playing similar songs / keeping the playing going / music by mood / etc).
although I doubt this will get much of any mainstream coverage, as someone who has been setting up/administering a number of plex servers for the last ~20 years, I have noticed a rather remarkable uptick in not only setting up new servers, but a flood of interest in membership for the handful that I administer.
This has had the interesting side-effect of renewing interest in the fact that you can borrow DVDs/BRDs for free from your local library for the purposes of ripping them. Believe me-- you may think that, in 2026, everything is available for download very easily.... no, it isn't Yes, much more is widely available at (generally) much higher quality than it used to be, but it all relies on how popular a show/film/album is (and continues to be). If you're looking to dl something new/current, you'll very likely have a 2 week - 3 month window it will very reliably be available to download. after that, whether it's available (and for how long) depends entirely on how popular it remains.
Example: The "New Trek" that most old-school Trekkies hate is less-available than, say, a mega download of all 7 seasons of DS9. DS9 is probably available (as a single download and as single seasons/episodes) much more easily than any episode of STD. Or, even, the JJ Abrahms films. Shit, even the Rifftrax commentary version of ST II has more seeders on more torrent sites than any of the 3 JJ Treks. And, to put a pin in this... Star Trek Lower Decks is even more available now than it was when it was airing.
The cool flip-side of this: I never got to see the iconic Fritz Lang film M in the pre-torrent era because I could never find a Blockbuster's that carried it in stock. But, as soon as that barrier to see it was removed (availability), I got to see the prototypical murder mystery thriller film which, still today, holds up as pretty awesome.
TIL I am unintentionally boycotting
targeting tech companies who, they believe, are not doing enough to stand up against President Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown
Oh ffs, they're not doing enough because they've submitted to him! They literally went to his inauguration to kiss the ring!
But better to wake up late then never I suppose
No, we don't "Believe they are not doing enough to stand up against", that's slimy spineless wording.
We "KNOW that they are ACTIVELY HELPING"
The website would be better if there was also links or resources to alternate.
But also that's hard depending on where you are.