Truscape

The big 3 (AMD, Intel, Nvidia) in the graphics space already have a presence in the country due to manufacturing and design capabilities.

It's a similar case with certain weapons manufacturing as well.

The most evil companies tend to send the most reliable and substantial paychecks, unfortunately.

Nothing hotter than consent and care, I say! :3

A .zip archive :) or for that matter, a YouTube Playlist that you can just use YTDL to copy for yourself

From experience, it's because assholes will sometimes swipe ya down the aisle if you stick out. You have to pull in as much as you can.

I guess a big factor would be constant access to the internet on your mobile devices. I usually travel through internet "dead zones" (no cell coverage, wifi, or just in a building that doubles as a Faraday cage), so I find having offline music a lifeline for staving off boredom. That could be why it appeals to me more - plus the whole "they can't take it away" side.

I suppose. Ready Player One was just the first thing that came to mind for me. What story do you think would fit better as an analogue?

In the novel, there's a sense of apathy towards any of the Federal government's affairs, and society places all of their interest inside the day to day affairs online and through the actions of companies.

It's even mentioned in one of the opening chapters that, "A reality TV star became the president, and all the government is doing nowadays is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic". It's obviously a satirical quote, but the point I was trying to bring is that the average citizen is just burned out, not even caring anymore.

To many in the US, more people are focused on what's in their public feeds and what new products are coming out far more than political actions. That's not a good thing.

You're right, now is one of the most critical times of our political system. It's not sustainable, the actions being taken are abhorrent, and we should continue to advocate for change.

It's just comparing our world to fiction might be one of the only coping mechanisms left to avoid being depressed from it all.

"You really think someone would do that? Go on the internet... and tell lies?"

"Hi there, would you like to sign the petition?"

I never really had much interest in music streaming services, given the wealth of storage on modern devices, and the ease of ripping audio from almost any source in existence.

Do we need a constant internet connection to listen to music? Is it that hard to use VLC, and just buy/download what you want, and rip what you can't?

Always has been, pally. Unfortunately merit doesn't mean anything compared to loyalty and tribalism here, and we were never truly represented at any point federally.