One of my bigger concerns from all this is that reduced access to users to install apps might have chilling effects on app development. It’s great being able to get apps from Itch.io, GitHub, and FDroid, but will developers continue releasing there if the user base dries up? I guess apk-mirror will likely still continue, since they’re ripping from the Play store anyway.

Eh, for most things, sure. I’m right with you for most media, but there’s a lot to be said for confining content when it’s part of the cultural zeitgeist. Ain’t nobody talking about Game of Thrones now, and it’s only 6 years old, not even a decade.

With any sort of piracy setup, almost all mainstream media is incredibly easy to get within a few hours of release, and most “Long Tail” content can be found pretty easily, too. If it’s so obscure that you still can’t find it, then that’s likely a good indication that you’re solidly pushing into indie content that hardly earns any income, so they could really benefit from us paying for their content.

We do try to make sure indie content creators get paid, though. For example, Kindle Unlimited is pretty amazing for us. My wife and I share an account, and we read so voraciously that authors get paid out about 10× what we pay for the service. Maths out roughly like this: ~30 books/month, on average, at ~1¢/page (actual pages, not Kindle standardized e-reader pages, which are only half a page), at ~250-300 pages/book is $75-90/mo, and we pay for 2 years in advance at I think $7ish/mo.

But I’m totally with you on games. I spend lots on videogames, but almost entirely for indie game bundles at $1-2/game, typically. I have literally thousands of games I’d love to play going back decades, so I don’t need the latest releases unless it’s a game I’m super excited for.

I haven’t installed Linux on my desktop yet, but I was leaving toward CachyOS and this tool suggested Arch. So pretty close to what I was thinking, I think, considering this took doesn’t seem to include CachyOS as an option.

Well, votes misaligning beyond statistical possibility in one “category” of counties, with absolutely no statistical anomalies in another “category” of counties is irrefutable proof, mathematically, that something is wrong.

Ex: if specific counties that use a particular tool have a massive mismatch between presidential voting and senate voting, but there is absolutely no spread in similar-politically counties that use different election tools, then the only possible explanation is that the tools affected the results (i.e. “fraud”).

I believe that’s the evidence, from what I understand.

Now, there are people coming forward in large enough groups saying they all voted for a particular candidate in total numbers of people larger than the were total votes recorded t that candidate at that polling station, including reports of 0 votes for Kamela with voters reporting she wasn’t on the ballot for them. So that might give a new “lever” for investigation.

Regardless of election fraud, though, the election results are already certified; at this point, Trump is president, and even definitive proof of fraud won’t change that. What it could change, if the current Republican authoritarian government allows it (lol), is oversight and regulations at future elections.

Or, perhaps, the blatant corruption will lead to states seceding from the union.

American hegemony and global dominance is over, but how it falls apart is yet to be determined.

Not in general, no. Likely the opposite, I think, but there are so many complex interactions I wouldn’t trust anyone giving a definitive answer.

In general, undocumented immigrants do work that citizens are unwilling to do, and they’re generally paid so little that they produce a lot more value than they’re paid in wages. So, for example, produce prices will likely skyrocket when they can’t get undocumented immigrants picking their produce for cheap. This will squeeze wages up the entire supply chain and, due to inflation, real wages across the whole economy. This will also make American produce less competitive internationally, reducing exports.

The labour instability will also increase business uncertainty, which will reduce investment, which will further reduce economic growth.

Sure, there are a few people who might benefit, but mostly this will just mean there’s less total economic output. If people can’t hire a house cleaner, they’ll just have a messier house and get it cleaned less frequently (or do it themselves, potentially in lieu of doing other paid work). Are you or anyone you know going to move rural to pick lettuce? Or clean houses? Or sew clothing? (Etc. across all the “undesirable” jobs across the economy.)