I mean, you made me look at it again myself, as the multi-part rar files on Usenet are still very much a thing. The allowable “article” sizes for binary content are larger than for text articles, but still too small for video or high-quality audio.

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Pirated media(images, movies, ebooks, ROMs) uses binary posts, not text. There are different limits and retention policies for binary versus text articles, and most Usenet servers, particularly cheap or free ones, don’t host a lot of the categories a pirate would want at all.

Please don’t imply that all Usenet providers facilitate piracy.

Magical times before my own on Usenet.

Exactly this. I don’t need 1080P or 4k mp4 rips with 10bit audio, and I definitely don’t have the storage for it, but when that’s all that is seeding, its usually quicker to just download it and re-encode.

Downloading large files from Usenet was paid pretty early on. If the core functionality of Usenet is now paid, this is news to me.

For your second point, its not at all uncommon for previously-legit sites to go malicious. Age alone means nothing, nor does reputation after a few years.

Worth highlighting, Cadsketcher is parametric. https://youtu.be/1jNDLUDL0gc

You can buy add-ons for this to auto-generate standard gear-forms and threads/bolts/holes. It is also parametric.

https://youtu.be/1jNDLUDL0gc

The corpos’ owners’ own “need” for shell-corporations and such will torpedo this. The internet is going to suck for anyone that spends too much effort on playing by the rules, but that’s already true.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the inevitable impacts on advertisers’ bottom-lines and corpo-providers’ exposure to liability.

Basically, those who have the power who might toy with thinking or saying they want this, don’t really, and those who are most certain they want this have neither the power nor understanding to make it happen.

If I say “shut up”, odds are about 99% it’s because you’re right. That other 1% of the time though …

These projects collaborate and copy each-other’s work way more than you would think. When one stagnates, others pick up the slack, and when one pulls ahead, the others increase their efforts to catch-up. More potential solutions for the same problems is a good thing.

Two of my kids are working-age with their own debit cards, and have their amazon accounts linked to mine. My MIL’s credit card is attached to my account, so anything she wants to order, she just sends me a link. My wife just straight-up has all my logins when it comes to spending money.

… All that, and paying for it once is easier to explain/deal with versus every order having to be >$35 . It’s a pain to get my wife to actually order things she wants/needs as it is.

Basically, I would rather stop dealing with that company entirely, for ethical reasons, than put more thought into my dealings with them with each transaction.

This is why constant shit-posting is important. Poison it without trying.

I pirate what’s any good that I cannot find legally for streaming, as well as educational stuff that I want available should I and/or my family find ourselves without internet access.

Sometimes I’ll go so far as to pirate things that I cannot find without ads(even with premiums*), but mostly if it’ll let me see the first few minutes before playing an ad, I just live with it.

* The only reason I still have Amazon Prime is for the free shipping. I pay extra for no ads. I pay extra for HiDive. There appear to be things available on Prime with HiDive that aren’t available on just Prime or just HiDive. Magically, those shows(Ranma 1/2, for example) have ads. WTF?

None of these companies have ethics. Why should you get hung-up in ethics for a victimless crime?

Sending telemetry where? My phone? My server?

Oh no, overseas might know as much about me as my fascist government does!! Seriously, when I ditch the US, I might start worrying about China, but until then, I hope my FBI/NSA handler and CCP spy meet up for drinks on the regular to mock my shitposts.

It’s become clear that I will require a dumb phone with hotspot, 5G, and a massive battery in the near future. Throw in a good camera, and make it water-proof …

My favorite vice. Mountain Dew Code Red calms me like nothing, short of a cigarette by a campfire at sunrise while still reeling from Bourbon with friends the night before. Even then, Code Red makes it better.

Mind you, I otherwise don’t smoke, or drink for that matter.

I mean, extending it down to the individual level for every detail of law is a bit of a stretch, but my point was that the actions of government are a consequence of the actions or inaction of society-at-large. Individuals who want to distance themselves from the actions of a fascist government and still count themselves part of that jurisdiction’s society should take some sort of action, even anonymously.

If they are to be counted as victims, it serves no-one for them to pretend that main-stream society(or society beyond whatever group they identify with) is blameless or a solid ally versus that government.

“Society” as a concept is more prone to excluding those without power or influence; It de facto includes those with the means to steer government.