The point, in one sentence:
If you are the product, not the paying customer, then not only is there no incentive to cater to your needs, there exists incentive to make the product worse for you if it means the paying customer extracts more from you.
Users of freemium software are basically nothing more than willing cattle. Housed and fed for free only to be slaughtered.
Maybe people just can't help themselves? I fear we can't have a fair and free market if people are so easily manipulated.
I broadly agree with your sentiment, in particular computing equipment that I purchase and ongoing trends in tech (like smart TVs) that are abusive to consumers.
However, I find this argument not terribly persuasive in this particular case. The content of a website isn't an extension of your property. It is not even public property. Visiting a site is voluntary. You clearly didn't pay for accessing the site, nor was it subsidized through a social program. So exactly how should content (regardless of how trashy it is) be funded? Statements like "rights" (i.e. temporary government-granted privileges) suggest you are espousing libertarian views, but at the same time, you are not expressing willingness to pay for a service privately?
I dunno, it just comes across as demanding a handout. Meanwhile, not visiting websites that don't meet your vision for how funding content should be done seems like a perfectly simple and reasonable approach to have for this problem.
He's LARPing president.
In a statistical regression model, that would be a variable that encodes a specific individual; although encoding hypothetical (the scientific meaning of that word, not the layperson meaning) attributes of that individual is probably functionally equivalent, more useful, and easier to conduct.
It's a false flag operation duh. /S
At least a third of the US has abandoned all responsibility for the country and will just spout whatever nonsense to get what they want. Me me me me me. American individualism dialed up to 11, turning into a cancer eating the country inside out.
A lot of American heroes spinning in their graves, watching spoiled babies loot the greatness that was built.
The problem isn't the technology. The problem is the people losing their minds about it.
It's almost like the climate is constantly changing.
Not only does SaaS hold our data hostage, not only does it allow companies to revoke access to software at any time, we are all subject to the instability of frequent software updates, and changing whims of the software requirements.
Nothing about SaaS is convenient. When I install dumb software on my computer, I do it once and forget about it: it doesn't need security because it isn't connected to the internet, I can use a version I am happy with in perpetuity, and I don't have to worry about where my data is. Now that is convenient!
SaaS is a giant scam and software users have all been conned.
Democracy only works when parties hold each other accountable for the good of the country. Republicans have abandoned this since before Clinton. Blaming the Democrats for the Republicans moving the goalposts is the cancer at the heart of US politics.
"Democracy is at stake" was not hyperbole. This is what a fascistic takeover looks like.
The only way change happens is if the people hold them accountable. Institutions, politicians, will not clean this mess up of their own accord.
Insist on change; insist forcefully if you have to.
This is what we get for no longer being the paying customer (that and a quasi Monopoly).