I don't think that's something that RSS (or any other alternative) can fix. I don't think RSS is as toxic as algorithmic feeds, but they are still cut from the same hyper-connected cloth. If you want to fight the algorithmic drip, promote people to connect with others in their community on a small scale.
Even if you have to use the internet to do it, making time to talk (with your vocal cords) to a friend on a regular basis can be much better than mindlessly scrolling or reading endless news feeds.
What might be even better are various other social activities away from a computer. It doesn't have to be highly social either. Just being in a park or library with other people silently reading or feeding ducks can be a highly positive semi-social experience. Just silently enjoying a common experience draws way more connection than the various "social" media apps out there.
> Have you ever tried to dock a Steam deck to a TV?
Yep, works great with non-proprietary docks vs even using a 3rd party dock on Switch has led to bricked units.
> Have you ever tried to use physical media with a Steam deck?
I haven't tried, but I'd be surprised if plugging in a USB optical drive wouldn't work. That'd be pretty silly though, but so are some of the Switch physical releases when the bulk of some games isn't actually on the cartridge.
I think the better thing to look at is DRM instead of specific transmission format. Steam itself is a grey area for DRM (some games are DRM-free IIRC), but you can also use things like Lutris... or generally whatever you'd like. Takes a bit of tinkering, sure, but a whole lot less tinkering than getting anything unofficial to run on a Switch.
> Have you ever tried to get 5 hours of battery life with a Steam deck?
Yep, works great. I'll still give the point to Nintendo because they prioritize battery life so much more, but if you aren't running the SD at full tilt with a large 3D game, it can get decent battery life.
> Have you ever put a Steam deck in your pocket? (I do have big pockets, but at least with the Switch Lite, it's possible.)
I would love a Steam Deck Lite or something. That's probably the biggest reason I keep my Switch Lite: it's easy to just toss in a bag on a whim while the SD (and other Switches) require planning to actually use them.
> Nintendo will be just fine.
Yup. They're probably still sitting on piles of cash from the DS and now Switch. People were saying Nintendo was doomed when the Wii U did poorly, but others at the time rightly pointed out that they've probably got enough runway to have a few more total flops of consoles.
> I personally will never use a platform that can kick me out on a whim, or could screw me the moment Gabe Newell gets hit by a bus.
Losing Newell is a valid concern (again, for Steam as a platform), but Nintendo is certainly an interesting choice to say they won't kick you out on a whim, given their track record of bans, lawsuits, and just being particularly litigious.
Wake up and... do what exactly? Tell others to "wake up" ad nauseum? The whole "wake up, sheeple, you're being manipulated" is both correct and amusingly self-terminating.
Metacognition, for all its benefits, comes with the newfound sisyphean task of being unable to intentionally avoid thinking about a white elephant for an entire minute. "Don't be influenced by the ads/media/propaganda" works about as well.
So perhaps the best way to reduce manipulation is to find a way back to sleep sometimes. A sort of meta-meta-cognition, if you will. It's self-awareness all the way down.
> We learn to live with it, but it isn't right, for simple pieces you can tune a piano for that exact song and make it sound much better
"Better" is always relative, so it's often more correct to say it is/sounds "different".
For example, a true temperament guitar can sound weird/"wrong" to some people. A lot of folks are used to those compromises just being part of the sound. Similar to a "honky tonk" piano: if you tuned it differently, it would come across as a timbre change more than simply "better" tuning.
In the grand scheme of things, there are professions and arts that were once considered essential to everyday life and in ways that we today don't even consider. The profession is lost to time, but so is the need. It's the in-between transitional state, where the profession is in the process of dying, that is the most painful period.
Some day, the last note played on a piano will be played and lament for the piano tuner will die with it.
At what point does my weekend project become a "critical online service"? At what point does my Pong clone become a game that needs regulating on how it's built?
Is it illegal for me to create a piece of art (i.e. a game) whose sole purpose is to demonstrate the fragility/absurdity of modern software abstractions by building it in some insane nesting of APIs?
I don't ask these to rhetorically imply that we don't need more regulation. I completely agree that there are online services that need way more regulation as they have become infrastructural.
These are all questions that we have to collectively (and not just programmers) discuss and decide where the lines are. It's not as simple as "force a set of simple as possible exe file format and OS interfaces."
This is the native app vs Electron argument all over again (except limited to proprietary AAA games). "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and all that.
Yes, a few game devs will drop native Linux support because building and maintaining just the Windows version and relying on Proton will be cheaper for them. Some number of them would have inevitably dropped native Linux support anyway. Take Rocket League for example. For most games, very few would have EVER had a native version for Linux. Source: the decades of PC gaming history prior to Proton.
Even with regular WINE being available, it's not like game devs were testing how their game ran in WINE. Currently, if your game doesn't work in Proton (and therefore the Steam Deck), you get an "Unsupported" icon on your store page. Getting that Deck Verified green checkmark is an actual economic incentive for game devs to support Linux in any way, even if that way is unsavory to some.
So, like Electron, the argument is less "Electron app vs native app" and more "Electron(/Proton) app vs no app at all".
Also, given that Proton isn't preventing developers from still offering a native Linux version, you really can't say that Valve/Proton are why those devs are dropping it. The developer is still choosing to drop native support.
> This is the native app vs Electron argument all over again (except limited to proprietary AAA games). "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and all that.
Agreed and in both cases I'd rather have quality than quantity.
> Yes, a few game devs will drop native Linux support because building and maintaining just the Windows version and relying on Proton will be cheaper for them.
There have been pretty much no native ports of big games since proton got pushed by Steam. All Linux game porting companies have either shuttered or switched focus to only Mac and mobile.
> For most games, very few would have EVER had a native version for Linux. Source: the decades of PC gaming history prior to Proton.
There were many more native releases in the period before Proton than now.
> Getting that Deck Verified green checkmark is an actual economic incentive for game devs to support Linux in any way
In a way where they can in the future publish changes that break the game on Linux without you being able to complain because what you bought is a Windows game.
> So, like Electron, the argument is less "Electron app vs native app" and more "Electron(/Proton) app vs no app at all".
Absurd. There were plenty of native programs released before either compatibility layer.
> Agreed and in both cases I'd rather have quality than quantity.
Of course, but if there's a game that I really would like to play, it doesn't matter how good some hypothetical version of it might be if nobody ever ports it. The quality of a nonexistent game(/port) is zero, no?
> There have been pretty much no native ports of big games since proton got pushed by Steam. All Linux game porting companies have either shuttered or switched focus to only Mac and mobile.
> There were many more native releases in the period before Proton than now.
I suppose we are just in different circles of "big games". Before Proton, I can't recall the last time I saw a AAA game with Linux support. The occasional indie game had support, but that's still the case. World of Goo 2 just came out with native Linux support, for example. DRM free too, if you buy it direct from them.
> In a way where they can in the future publish changes that break the game on Linux without you being able to complain because what you bought is a Windows game.
This is the case regardless of native vs Proton. Just because a game has a native Linux version at some point is not a guarantee that an update won't break it nor that they won't just drop Linux as a platform outright.
> Absurd. There were plenty of native programs released before either compatibility layer.
And there are still about as many (in my experience) with both compatibility layers.
I paid for YT Premium for years until I noticed just how atrociously YT runs in Firefox. There were also the accusations that YT slows down the video pages for anybody with an adblocker... even if they're paying for Premium.
I block ads at the DNS level and am not about to tweak things forever just to de-mangle my paid-for YT experience. So I dropped Premium, started supporting channels that I actually watch directly via things like Patreon, and watch YT videos via tools like Invidious and yt-dlp.
Local video players such as mpv and IINA are so much better than the YT player has ever been in any browser and I don't have to worry about buffering. The bonus is that I can keep a backup of favorite videos sans baked-in ads or whatever customer-hostile tactic Google dreams up next.
It seems like OP meant for it to be negative because they think that it is negative. You're just explaining their point back to them.
Just because transactions are "basic" doesn't mean they aren't also negative and, therefore, exploitative.
The bit about them not selling your information outright: the way that they sell those ads is based off of your information. The way that they do so matters, but not as much for this particular conversation: they are still exploiting your data regardless of the precise way that they package it.
Yes, you can use their services to get features and abilities for free. Nobody is saying that part is bad. The problem is that they have made it hard/impossible to go anywhere else if you don't want to use them.
The "company stores" of yore also made it particularly easy to get the tools and supplies you needed, but it was still an unfair trade. The fact that Google and Facebook make such massive economic profit off of something supposedly so worthless as personal data just doesn't add up.
Even if you have to use the internet to do it, making time to talk (with your vocal cords) to a friend on a regular basis can be much better than mindlessly scrolling or reading endless news feeds.
What might be even better are various other social activities away from a computer. It doesn't have to be highly social either. Just being in a park or library with other people silently reading or feeding ducks can be a highly positive semi-social experience. Just silently enjoying a common experience draws way more connection than the various "social" media apps out there.