Netflix and Spotify almost ended Piracy by making it easy to access whatever you wanted for a reasonable fee. Then they got greedy and everyone else wanted a piece of the pie and now we are in a worse position than package bundle Cable TV.
I’m in my late 30’s and went back to the high seas. I used to sail the seas in my early 20’s when i was broke AF and didn’t have cable TV. When Netflix came around it sudden became easier and more convenient to just pay $6.99/ month to watch whatever I wanted. For years I got by with Spotify and Netflix and I didn’t even look back. Then, all of a sudden there were more streaming services than i knew what to do with and every few months they would all raise their price and reduce their libraries. Then they started putting ads in. Now I’m self hosting all of my media and using Stremio/Torentio for my one off TV shows and movies. I directly support creators wherever I can as well, whether it’s Patreon or Kofi or just buying their Merch.
There are absolutely echo chambers and polarization on Lemmy. It’s definitely less noticeable than Reddit or Facebook, but its still there. They can definitely be good things too, but when the conversation is driven by one or a few people and everyone else constantly agrees or goes along with the status quo it becomes a problem.
For profit models seem to prioritize engagement over moderation, as long as people are commenting and driving engagement, even if it’s largely negative, toxic, or even completely false, it’s okay.
On Lemmy, at least for the most part, Toxic behaviour isn’t tolerated and most communities are pretty good at discouraging false narratives. I don’t think I’ve ever felt attacked here, or really elsewhere on Lemmy, for providing my views in a comment section like I did on Reddit, even if they were contrary to the prevailing opinions. When attacks and negativity are not tolerated actual discussion is much easier.
I mean, its probably a good thing for those that still use microslop, but for those of us who have left for the freedom of Linux it’s too little too late. I’m glad that it’s working out for you though.
There aren’t that many “limitations” for gaming on Linux these days. If you’re into older PC games Linux works much better than windows. Most new games work as good or better too. I wholeheartedly recommend that you give it a try, especially since you seem to know what you are doing PC wise. I went from being constantly frustrated with my system (especially with broken updates) to actually feeling like I was in control of it.
Canadian here. I broke my leg in January. The only thing I ended up paying for was $25 for a pair of crutches. I did have to wait a significant amount of time to get seen, but its a small hospital and someone walked in with a stab wound right after me, so I was okay with it.
We do currently have a doctor shortage in my province and I myself do not have a family doctor, which does complicate things, but there are clinics around that I can still go to that are just less personal than a family physician.
We do have to pay out of pocket for prescriptions, but generally speaking the cost for most things are pretty low. There’s also a whole bunch of basic I also have 80% drug coverage through my employer, which is pretty common as well. In addition in my province a lot of diabetes medication is provided free of charge.
Well, that sucks. Now what?
I’ve only used KDE until recently because it’s pretty familiar feeling after coming from windows, but my wife recently put gnome on her laptop and she loves it. I’ve used it a bit, and besides just being unfamiliar I do actually like it.