Better for whom? I would say it’s only better for the people being harmed if we aren’t spreading that attention around. But if I listen to early Kanye tracks on a personal device through headphones, is it “worse” because I’m giving him any of my brainspace?

I think OP’s question has two answers, a philosophical one and a practical one. If we cannot practically separate the art from the artist in a way that gives them attention, money, or power, fair enough. I’m just saying I think there is a way to do that.

This is usually my first litmus test - will the person still benefit? If watching the new HP series will put money into Rowling’s pockets and thus into the hands of anti-trans groups, I’m not streaming it. If you really want to watch something in that category, the high seas await.

But I disagree that you should just find something else to enjoy. If you want to enjoy something, do it guilt free. Our brains don’t get to decide what we find interesting or profound. But if the artist is a piece of shit, just know that singing their praises will drive more people to them.

Depends on the book. For stock digital graphic novels, it’s much easier on the Fold. For webcomics they are usually optimized for a narrower vertical screen. Same applies to static PDFs.

Text really comes down to the viewer. Assuming it’s a book format that can be reflowed, reading can be just fine. I still prefer the wider format so I’m not constantly scrolling or tapping to turn pages, probably helps with eye fatigue too but not sure how long you plan to read on your phone anyway.

I had a ZFold 4 for a good long while before switching to a Pixel with GrapheneOS (OP is right, it’s a legal requirement when joining lemmy). I can share my experience.

I really loved it but I also had very specific use cases. It was great for reading long-form content on the go and much more comfortable browsing websites, mostly those where they don’t have / use mobile-first design like old forums. It was also great for sharing content in person, like sharing a spreadsheet or slideshow in person became so much easier. Some edge cases were nice to have, like taking a conference call you could split screen at the crease and prop it up for a more laptop-like experience. Ultimately it did away with the tablet use case between my laptop and phone.

Downsides were definitely price, it’s like an $1800 phone, probably more now. I kept it for probably 4 years and still use it occasionally so I feel I’m getting my moneys worth. Not sure how the durability is these days, used to have issues with screens cracking even though mine is going strong. They redesigned it from 5+ in a way that it folds fully flat now and should extend screen life.

It really boils down to “is the screen real estate of two phones worth paying the price of two phones?” It has all the flagship features you’d expect, so you’re really buying the form factor.

In the US, I largely agree with you. Or use a website from a mobile browser. Different story in different countries where a smartphone might be the only compute the average person has, or where state services are tied to a mobile ID or bank app.

Not saying that should be the case, but if the choice is between running niche FOSS apps and removing yourself from societal benefits structures, I know what most people will pick. That’s the real danger of allowing one company to own an entire ecosystem and have enough power that they have conversations directly with governments about their people instead of with their people.

LLMs specifically are great for intermediate use cases. You had a campaign in mind, but needed help with visuals. I was designing a piece of jewelry and had a series of reference images. Fed all those into a VLM and got something closer to my imagination, but still worked with a jeweler to realize the final product.

These tools are best when you have a foundation of knowledge and need a little extra guidance, but fall off when you get to deep expertise. I’ve used them to troubleshoot my server but I already had a basic understanding of how a config should look. I also wouldn’t trust an LLM to properly configure something like crypto for it.

To me, the biggest ethical concerns surround the training and creation of LLMs - stealing artists’ work to train them, energy usage, etc. I suppose in using the models I’m creating ongoing demand for them, so I’m not sure the answer. The best I’ve seen so far is what Anthropic used to espouse, no new frontier models until we can guarantee safety. And I’d throw in “utility”. Train new models when people are actually using them and clamoring for new use cases, not because a bunch of private equity shows line go up.

Some VPNs can block trackers in a very narrow sense. If they are set up to prevent DNS leaks and provide an internal DNS service, that can blackhole ads and trackers just like PiHole, Adguard Home, et al.

There’s still a bunch of other ways to fingerprint people online, but I wouldn’t say using a VPN at home offers no benefits.

Well I’ll be got-damned, looks like Search Party is a feature native to the Ring Neighbors platform and separate from the whole Flock partnership. https://www.cnet.com/home/security/what-does-rings-search-party-ai-pet-tracking-do-to-your-privacy-i-got-the-details/

Specifically, this feature appears opt-out, so if someone does have a Ring camera, good idea to take a spin through the settings. Or, the easiest remediation was my original suggestion, chuck it in the bin (or responsibly dispose of it, if you can).

FWIW, Ring announced they were canceling their partnership with Flock a few days ago following the Superbowl ad where they were universally dragged. https://blog.ring.com/about-ring/ring-and-flock-cancel-partnership/

Do I think Ring is still running some sort of analytics on video feeds? Probably. Should you put anything from Amazon directly in the trash? Absolutely.

Silver lining I guess is that public pressure still works at least a little when companies try to go straight dystopian.