Every time you do anything more and more often it feels less special. That’s how things work.

Knowing that guy, he’ll use his elevated admin permissions to remove it like he edited other people’s comments.

Reddit still has better content. It’s not as good as it used to be before the shenanigans broke loose, but while Lemmy is getting better every day, it still has a long way to go.

How hard it is to replace the backend while keeping the experience the same?

I used to lurk there out of habit of using my 3rd party app of choice. Now that it had shut down, I don’t think I’ll come back.

Almost as if it was a deliberate move. If I was given control of Reddit with the goal of running it to the ground as fast as I could, I’m not sure I could have done a better job than the current team running the site with the goal of making it profitable.

It is a lot better than it used to be. Emulation tools got much better over the last couple of years, and there are many things that required applications in the past and now just work from the browser. You can edit documents, send emails, play games and videos, configure devices, edit images. All from the browser - over windows or Linux.

Making the shift to Linux is easier now than it has ever been. Linux caught up, Windows got bloated, emulation and platform agnostic web services gave a lot more options for counteracting Windows main advantage - which is software compatibility. And as Linux gains popularity that is changing for the better as well.

You did pay for a computer. But not just with your money, you pay by being forced into using the services of the company that subsidized the price of your product. Be it Android bloatware that you can’t get rid of, a free version that keeps reminding you about the premium features or simply ads.

Back in the day, the products you bought didn’t keep trying to sell you other products. However, we tend to take for granted the amount and quality and value of services that companies just give for free. Back when free mailbox used to be limited to 6MB, encyclopedias and map services used to cost a lot of money. The sheer amount of things we can do today online without giving a payment method is astonishing. And it is not just because of the advancement in technology. Personally I prefer this model of giving a product for free and using it to promote the paid product as long as it “polite”. Those who would like to get a premium experience will pay.

You could use Linux to avoid paying for software while avoiding the bloatware. Linux had massively improved over the recent years in being noob-friendly. However, you still pay for it with your time as still there are things that are not supported and you have to come up with workarounds. Personally I use Linux, but it took me a while to get comfortable with it. Unlike Windows, I can configure it nearly any way I like. But I can’t recommend this to everyone.