Andreas (lead engineer) has told the story of how he got that money - they just happen to know each other and $100k is peanuts for the Shopify founders.
It’s worse. My music is on Spotify - while I would no longer meet their minimum for payments, even before that change they refused to pay me or provide stats until I provided a twitter or Facebook page/IG page, none of which I have - despite publishing through an established publishing company who could absolutely handle payments and play stats.
Didn’t work for me. Got blocked with a subscribe pop up.
I have a shortcut that automatically gets or creates the links so no biggie - and I prefer the archive links anyway because there’s so much other noise on articles these days.
One thing I think we all miss: what happens when an overzealous government makes something a crime retroactively? Say, um, disparaging two Cheetos in an ill fitting suit masquerading as a world leader.
That’s part of why we should care about privacy and why we should care when data we expect to be private isn’t.
Most tech users are victims in a system they don’t understand. We might complain that they don’t want to understand but the truth is the providers don’t want them to understand - as it’s easier to sell them whatever crap they’re shilling.
It was highly contentious for a number of years - largely because it had a lot more functionality and touched more parts of the OS than the init systems it was designed to replace. It was seen as overzealous by the naysayers.
I was in the never system-d camp for a long time because I felt like my ability to choose was being removed. Even some distros that provided alternate init systems eventually went systemd-only.
But I’ve come around - it’s fine, good even - though ultimately I had no choice or say in it.
It’s very straightforward and easy to write one’s own units. It’s reasonably easy to debug and often helpful when something isn’t working as expected.
Like all things in the world of software, many folks are going to try (and eventually succeed) to make a better mousetrap.
This particular init system’s design goals seem (at least to me) to indicate a focus on small, embedded and/or more secure systems where the breadth of tools like systemd are a hindrance.
“And we know because we’re making a killing on fees on these low-no-negative balance accounts, not to mention their credit card debt.”