Matrix, it is an open standard and the reference server implementation along with some other server implementationa and the various popular clients are open source. The Element X client and the main fork of it called schildiChat both look a bit like Microsoft Teams. But there are other clients and a company could fork an existing client and customize it to suit their needs or even create a new one if they really wanted to spend the resources.
Yeah someone has to be paying for the phones and internet access, both mobile internet and or home internet or if they don’t have a phone yet, the tablet , desktop or laptop with internet access. It’s usually the parents paying for this stuff.
There are parental controls built into the Android builds of all the various mainstream manufacturers. The main exception might be for example small companies selling phones with custom Android OS distributions or people who install their own where parental controls are not built in, but that isn’t what the vast vast majority of people are using let alone installing on their child’s phone.
There are parental control options built into IOS too. They allow parents to setup a variety of controls.
https://families.google/familylink/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121
The following article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation cites various research about how a majority of social media use even by people under 13 is often done with parents knowledge and even direct help.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech
Most Social Media Use By Younger Kids Is Family-Mediated
If lawmakers picture under-13 social media use as a bunch of kids lying about their age and sneaking onto apps behind their parents’ backs, they’ve got it wrong. Serious studies that have looked at this all find the opposite: most under-13 use is out in the open, with parents’ knowledge, and often with their direct help.
A large national study published last year in Academic Pediatrics found that 63.8% of under-13s have a social media account, but only 5.4% of them said they were keeping one secret from their parents. That means roughly 90% of kids under 13 who are on social media aren’t hiding it at all. Their parents know. (For kids aged thirteen and over, the “secret account” number is almost as low, at 6.9%.)
Earlier research in the U.S. found the same pattern. In a well-known study of Facebook use by 10-to-14-year-olds, researchers found that about 70% of parents said they actually helped create their child’s account, and between 82% and 95% knew the account existed. Again, this wasn’t kids sneaking around. It was families making a decision together.
A 2022 study by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom points in the same direction, finding that up to two-thirds of social media users below the age of thirteen had direct help from a parent or guardian getting onto the platform.
The typical under-13 social media user is not a sneaky kid. It’s a family making a decision together.
Respectfully, this is a bit more nuanced than that. There are free VPNs ran by non profits supported fully by donations. Yes somebody is paying for it but it’s people donating to the services.
For example there is an open source application called Bitmask that has 2 VPN providers by default, Riseup VPN and the Calyx Institute.
You can download the Bitmask app itself or download the RiseupVPN app which is based on Bitmask but just pre configured to only use that single Riseup provider.
I have never used a Windows machine with a Microsoft account for my own personal use, only if it was somebody else’s PC that already had it. I just keep it disconnected from the internet during setup and it eventually gives me the option to not use it with a Microsoft account.
There is a command to disable the account setup too but I have only used that once. The disconnecting from the internet trick works for me.
I mostly use GNU/Linux for my own use but on the rare occasion I setup Windows for someone else or need to use it, I just disconnect it / don’t connect it to the internet before setup.
Edit:
The reason bypassing the forced account with up to date Windows 11 was still so easy for me is likely because I used the Pro edition and possibly may have used the setup for work feature when I installed it recently.
Does anyone who has been to a store where something like this has been implemented know if this is at least likely to help with accessibility such as say a button to make it read the price labels, maybe larger font options and or a QR code to scan or various other options like that etc?
I know this would likely vary by manufacturer of these digital price labels. But if they are going to be switching to them I would hope that at least a side benefit would be increased accessibility for customers with disabilities.
I did see a post on reddit talking about how the OP actually found them harder to read but that obviously depends on the person.
I saw something about how there will be an LED light that will light up to help store employees find items faster for tasks such as online ordering. I wonder if this will be something customers can use too?
I know Walmart recently launched free Aira access using a geofence. It is a visual interpreting service which uses your phones camera so that someone can help you shop if you have a visual disability. But it would be nice if these digital price tags had some extra options too for people who don’t want to download that app or maybe cannot very easily because they have a phone such as a GNU/Linux phone where idk what the status is of Android compatibility layers or maybe even a dumbphone if they are someone who prefers that or are older for example.
It would just be nice if we at least got an accessibility benefit out of these digital tags too.
Yeah that argument is so ridiculous.
You can buy lightly used phones on Swappa for a large discount even when we are talking about flagship phones. There are also situations where someone could be poor but have enough credit to get a phone financed with monthly payments that they can afford.
There are pre paid MVNOs in the US where you can get unlimited talk, text, and on device data, that also includes unlimited hotspot at fairly decent speeds (plus there are ways of bypassing hotspot speed caps, Tetherfi is an example open source app) for less than 30$ a month taxes and fees included. I have known people who have used their unlimited hotspot as their only internet at home.
Just because some of these people may have a high cell phone bill does not mean everyone else does.