ProdigalFrog

Cheers for the suggestion! I never came back to update this post, but ultimately I ended up going with a lightly used ebike off craigslist, which has been excellent so far :)

That's unfortunate :(

Both are equally difficult. While it's possible to vote in an FDR-like figure that will tamp back on the worst examples of profit driven exploitation of the planet, I don't think it's possible for the system to self-correct without eventually backsliding due to profit motive, as I believe history has shown in every attempt to reform capitalistic societies.

Personally, I think the best way forward for humanity is to build horizontal structures that will slowly replace the need to rely on the state/for-profit institutions, aka Prefiguration. The fediverse itself is a nice example of that happening.

I try to avoid posting to .world if there's a viable alternative, personally, so I'd opt for lemdro.id consistantly. I do the same with the videos communities, where I've been trying to boost !videos@sopuli.xyz instead of posting to videos at .world.

But if it wasn't .world, the situation wouldn't be ideal, and I'd support combining the communities if the mods were down for it.

Freet Barefoot - barefoot style shoes made in the UK, often out of recycled material, and known to be quite durable for the money.

Posteo email (Germany).

They're one of the cheapest privacy focused email providers at 1 euro a month, offer very cheap plan upgrades based on what you actually use/need, run off 100% renewable energy, and have a really nice simple and intuitive interface.

Tuta is probably a bit more private overall, but if you only use email for mundane stuff and just want to prevent my data from being sold to advertisers, posteo fulfills that need with minimal expense very well.

Hm, I can't recall encountering that yet, but I can see how that would be a harder one to decide. I suppose I might cycle between them.

I think SimpleX or XMPP are the best options at the moment.

I've personally developed my system as:

1. If there are multiple communities, which is the most popular?
2. If the most popular community is on a problematic instance, skip to the next most popular that is also on a good instance.

That takes away the paralysis, at least for me.

I had the same impression, but fortunately can confirm that the free vids are the same as the paid ones, just coming a month later.

1. Joining and organizing within your local community to create connections with others is incredibly powerful, will lay the groundwork for effective resistance.
2. We can effect things drastically with a general strike. This can massively impact their income streams, and can bring a government to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
3. Join the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective.

If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Join up with allies while we still can easily!

You may want to take a look at the book "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It provides a compelling argument that past human societies were quite egalitarian, cooperative and non-authoritarian, and that the human civilizations of recorded history being the way they are is actually an aberration from the norm.

Quick video summary of the book by one of the author's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SJi0sHrEI4