Interesting. So the terms of service have not changed, and yet people are saying that they did. I wonder if there are criticisms that are still valid. For example, the terms of service that you linked:
do not let me use a VPN (¶6.4)
do not let me use glitches (¶6.4)
do not let me own the copy of the game that I bought, but instead give me a limited license to it (¶2.1-2.2)
do not inform me about future updates to their terms of service (¶10.2)
force me to enter arbitration and do not let me be part of a class action lawsuit or have a trial by jury (¶17.5)
link to their privacy policy, which:
does not let me opt out of having my data bought, merged, and sold through ad networks or data brokers (§ Categories of Information Collected, § How We Use Information and Our Legal Grounds, § Sources of Information We Collect, and § When We Share Information ¶ 5— all sources combined)
does not attempt to deliberately minimize data collection to protect my data. With the only exception of children’s data, their purposes are extremely vague (§ How We Use Information and Our Legal Grounds, as well as the entire document, because they do not attempt to do this in their privacy policy)
does not attempt to anonymize my data (I cannot provide a citation because there is no attempt to do this in their privacy policy)
does not specify the purposes of gathering and using information about any installed application on my device (§ Categories of Information Collected— this is especially worrying)
does not let me opt-out of data collection categories for specific purposes (cannot give a direct citation because they simply do not do it; instead, they wrote vague types of information they collect —such as “details about… other information related to installed applications” in § Categories of Information Collected, as well as vague purposes in § How We Use Information)
So, coming back to the original claim you were debunking:
They added spyware to it.
Your response was
No, they didn’t.
And I agree with you, now that I have read their terms of service and their privacy policy. Of course, we’re assuming that they haven’t changed their terms of service. If we assume that, then their spyware clauses weren’t added. No. They were always there. They have always said that they gather “details about… other information related to installed applications” on my device for purposes that can include merging and selling my data to data brokers and ad networks.
Totally unrelated, but I’m wondering if you saw the Boost post a couple of days ago: it is not private and sends your data to advertisers 😢 Maybe seek for an alternative? There are many ☺️
No games that lead to players being pissed at other players, even outside of the confines of the game. I've had that happen with, for example, Secret Hitler, so no Secret Hitler.
The Mind seems to do that. Hanabi does it to an extent.
Humans care about belonging and fairness. Profit is one type of political good that can be distributed based on different criteria, for example by selling a good or a service or by stealing or copying someone’s code. But profit is not the only political good that exists. There’s also relevance. There is credit. There is legitimacy.
TL;DR: Money is not the only thing that humans care about. Humans also care about fairness.
Hey.
My brother will buy his very first laptop soon. He was saving for a MacBook Pro, but hearing me go on about Apple being PRISM-compliant and about how open source software is awesome, he's open to new options.
His main argument to buy an M1 is that there is currently no chip nearly as good (in terms of energetic efficiency). And I see that he has a point there.
However, I was also kinda hoping he'd use his savings for a Framework laptop running Linux. Regarding those computers, my biggest hope is that they'll eventually run good RISC-V chips, chips that can be easily be changed with a simple module change. But that may be a *long* time from now, maybe decades.
Another option I thought about was him buying the M1 and fighting his way to install a Linux distro that supports all the M1 MacBook hardware. He'll have a really fast and efficient chip, as well as a good system!
But the main objection for this is that the M1 is not really future proof... like, it is *guaranteed* that in the next two years the much better M2 will be put into the MacBook Pro. That improvement isn't trivial; it'll be a 20% reduction in transistor size. But apart from quick changes, it's possible that the novelty of the M1 is problematic. For example, I was reading about a vulnerability in the M1s because of not having adopted a particular instruction set in the very basic operations of the chip. It's almost as if this M1 is an early-adoption technology, if that makes sense.
Anyway, those are the considerations that I have about my brother's computer... hopefully we'll have more clarity by the time his classes begin. Do you have anything that could help us achieve that clarity? Or even muddle the waters a bit more in an interesting way 🙃?
Edit:
Thanks for all the comments! They spurred lots of discussion and some changes of hearts!
So, I was really looking forward to getting a Linux-first machine, but two things happened.
One was that there were few options (due to the chip shortage probably?): System76 Pangolin not available, TUXEDO quite expensive (and only integrated or Nvidia graphics), Slimbook Titan quite expensive, Slimbook X15 without dedicated graphics (or Nvidia I forget which).
The other thing that happened was a friend having us consider the possibility of getting a pure-AMD machine. Since AMD has open source drivers (unlike Nvidia), they will probably work with Linux without much of a hassle. He'd also keep having the option of a dual-boot with Windows, to work with non-Linux software (in case he needs that for school). Such computers could be those with the 'AMD advantage' (AMD CPU and GPU), though they're a bit pricey. Yet this is his money and he's very excited about gaming in them!
This is the most likely route. So, no longer Apple. I would've liked to support Linux-first machines, but I guess AMD was the winner here?
What? Amazing! I stopped playing Baldur’s Gate because I dislike the combat. How do I avoid it?