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I'm done with Google

deijin.bearblog.dev

121–130 of 327 posts

Re: I'm done with Google

#121
post #58

There's a language issue which has not been tackled by regulators and which is actually the mere definition of what happens when I choose to "buy" or "purchase" something. This is because until recently (by the timescale of "buying things") there were no intangibles to be bought or sold. An intangible is mostly a right to something - in other words, it's paperwork. But some things are both tangible and intangible, i.…

Totally agree with this.

When you buy something it's your property that you own and you can sell it to someone else if you want.

When you rent something it's still owned by someone else restricting what you can do with it.

In my mind it's fraud to pretend to sell a thing when you are in fact renting it out.

Maybe something for EU to regulate next!

Re: I'm done with Google

#122

Tablets and Android don't mix well. On an Android phone, you use it every day, so your auth doesn't get stale and everything stays up to date. On a tablet, if you leave it off for a few days or longer, turning it on prompts a bunch of updates and reauthentication. Also, the boot process is pretty slow, and most tablets I've tried are pretty slow in general (responsiveness). I think they need to de-bloat Android, espe…

More importantly, Android tablets let your trivially install bittorrent clients.

and play nicely with NASes

Re: I'm done with Google

#123
post #81
post #16

> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault) I really like the frank tone of the article and I wish people in general would just write unabashedly more often when it comes to stuff like this. Writers online love to dance around the idea of "pirating" their digital goods when communicating on the topic: "Ooh my 'friend' may or may not have downloaded 'xyz' movie from 'abc' website, but I don't…

> spytify automatically records mp3 files with metadata tags while you personally use Spotify I prefer pirating my music off YouTube. yt-dlp -f bestaudio https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=XXX This nets you a bunch of *.webm files with Opus data inside them. YouTube's bestaudio is usually about 130 kbs Opus, which should be close to transparent. You can then use mkvextract to turn them into more usable *.opus fi…

add -x to yt-dlp to directly remux to .opus and --add-metadata to write tags.

Re: I'm done with Google

#124
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. The courts have been swift and merciless on this shit for music, video and similar things. Google may seem big but they do depends on the law still.

In the current system where Google plays lame duck, sure. But all G has to do is say 'yeah if you want us to feature your content, you must agree to X' With 90% of the search market, half of phones, and who knows what percentage of the smartTV market, they could institute a death sentence to those they wanted to. IF they wanted to.

That sounds like a pretty big abuse of their power and potentially raises anti-trust concerns. They could easily wield that power for nefarious reasons and I don't think any of us would want that. We can change laws. Companies should abide by them, however insufficient they may be at a given point in time.

Re: I'm done with Google

#125
post #16

> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault) I really like the frank tone of the article and I wish people in general would just write unabashedly more often when it comes to stuff like this. Writers online love to dance around the idea of "pirating" their digital goods when communicating on the topic: "Ooh my 'friend' may or may not have downloaded 'xyz' movie from 'abc' website, but I don't…

> Spytify records the same quality that Spotify outputs

But it's still doing bad transcoding. It's like taking a screenshot of a JPEG photo: if you save it, you end up with more artifacts.

I'd just use one of the numerous Deezer downloaders – they decrypt the actual audio stream, and the input quality is just as good.

Re: I'm done with Google

#126
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to be told what to do costs money. Say, Apple put its financial weight at labels with iTunes and iPod, and now we have 99¢ tracks as a norm. But to spend money on something, a company has to plan to get more in return. Apple did. What would be the plan for Google? What money-making machine of theirs would it enable?

At one time Google had a first class music service, and I think they still rent and sell movies. As for money making, I think a guarantee of 'yours forever, no takebacks' would put them way out front of their competition. But perhaps most people don't care enough for that to be true.

> yours forever, no takebacks

MP3s available form Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp at the very least all have this commendable property.

And the sale is once and forever, while an enticing revenue source is a recurring one %)

Re: I'm done with Google

#127
post #39
post #9

The issue here isn't that it's Google, it's that Google is doing what they're told to do. Movie and music licensing has been absolutely destroyed recently and the hoops that you have to agree to are becoming untenable. Recently, I mentioned to a band it was sad they pulled their music off Spotify. Puzzled, they were not even aware that the licensing was pulled, and they had to go yell at their record label (who was u…

That's the funny part about corporations. Because of the large internal hierarchy, even if majority of Google employees thinks that these antics about control over user are a bad idea, everybody perceives there is an expectation not to bring it up internally.

Real Names Considered Harmful

Re: I'm done with Google

#128
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. The courts have been swift and merciless on this shit for music, video and similar things. Google may seem big but they do depends on the law still.

In the current system where Google plays lame duck, sure. But all G has to do is say 'yeah if you want us to feature your content, you must agree to X' With 90% of the search market, half of phones, and who knows what percentage of the smartTV market, they could institute a death sentence to those they wanted to. IF they wanted to.

"How dare Google use their market dominance to do X"

but also

"Why doesn't Google use their market dominance to do X"

Re: I'm done with Google

#130
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, I feel like Google is large enough to refuse to be told what to do. If they really cared...

Refusing to be told what to do costs money. Say, Apple put its financial weight at labels with iTunes and iPod, and now we have 99¢ tracks as a norm. But to spend money on something, a company has to plan to get more in return. Apple did. What would be the plan for Google? What money-making machine of theirs would it enable?

Yeah, the only way things will change is if Google becomes a production studio. This won't be a better for situation for listeners nor for artists.
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