Come to think of it, most of what I use is American :/ . They made importing so expensive now it’s tricky to boycott American as an American.

I did buy my safety razer from Fendrihan, which is a German company. I’ve had it for 12 years and it’s totally a buy it for life product. And I order shaving soap from the same company, the kind you lather with an old-timey brush, because it’s by far the cheapest option and I don’t like the feeling of shaving cream on my legs. That stuff lasts forever.

Good for you for boycotting American products, and best of luck finding products that work for you! The replies so far are great.

I would love to see less America doom and gloom on lemmy. Why should we be the center of everything? More European- and Canada-centric posts, please.

It seems like these news stories only get written when the victim is a cis person mistaken for being trans.

Conservatives spent at least two decades saying that queer acceptance is a slippery slope would lead to the normalization of incest, then bestiality, then pedophila, in that order. And then it turns out that being conservative was the thing that led to pedophila all along. So I’m left feeling like every accusation is a confession, and that homophobia is their way of covering their tracks.

Everyone seems to be telling me that there’s still new releases, but seemingly not for anything I’m interested in. The last Blu-Ray I’ve been able to pick up was WandaVision. There was a time where basically 100% of movies got physical releases and, acknowledging confirmation bias, it does feel like those times are gone.

Region zones do indeed suck, but I installed custom firmware on my PS3 to remove the DVD/Blu-Ray region lock, and now it’s a non-issue.

And I use disc binders for most of my collection, unless it’s something I really want to display. Long-term, once my collection is complete, I do plan to rip everything.

It’s just a shame that DVDs and Blu-Rays for new movies aren’t really made anymore. They’re just leaving money on the table at this point that bootleggers in Malaysia are getting instead.

But still, absolutely. DVD all the way. I fixed the cord I cut back in 2015 and I’m much better off for it.

Same thing with the idea of “use a monopoly growth model”. What is the alternative? Actively making a product worse because everyone else is? Because that is collusion.

This question really highlights the danger of the growth-at-all-costs model in forcing every company to race to the bottom when one company does. The future of the human race may one day depend on killing technological progress and emphasizing stability over profits.

A huge problem with America’s and many other economic systems is that companies are incentivized to undercut the competition, use a monopoly growth model, acquire or push out competitors, and then screw the customer when the competitors are either gone or irrelevant.

Without guardrails, the bubble will burst and some other “affordable solution” will just show up to replace streaming, and then we’ll start all over again before it enshittifies too. But there won’t be guardrails anytime soon, and most refuse or are unable to vote with their wallets, so we’re just screwed.

I don’t know what the solution is, but as a consumer, I’m exhausted. I wish there were options to just buy products, sometimes more expensive ones to keep a steady, sustainable business model, for piece of mind that the company won’t stab me in the back someday.

Instead of trying to get Google money, I actually wish they would offer a monthly/annual/lifetime membership as the cost of not enshittifying to stay in business. And then severing ties with Google as a company.

A lot of tech companies are holding onto unsustainable business models from 10 years ago to make their products at a loss or “free,” and it’s forcing them into AI, oligarchy, or being beholden to oligarchs. End users paying a fair price to own the products they use is a better alternative than this because it puts the power back in our hands as opposed to tech bros and shareholders.

I’ve tried the following method in a big city and a smaller city, and it’s worked both times, just with one outcome being less direct than the other. I live in a purple state.

Basically, I just called my local clinic and said, “I’m looking for a primary care physician with experience in trans healthcare.” Simple as that. Back at the smaller city, there wasn’t one, so I was given a primary with a referral to an endochronologist. They had access to each others’ medical records, so the primary was kept in the loop. After moving to a larger city, I was paired with a doctor with trans healthcare experience.

Medical gatekeeping might exist. If you’re able to and your insurance allows, don’t be afraid to travel to another city to get the care you need. Also, if it gives you peace of mind, you could go to a therapist for at least six months and get a referral from them. That’s what I did, although I didn’t end up needing it to get my meds. Did wonders for my mental health, though.

I’m sorry. I suppose I should have said “I don’t need the internet outside of work.”

No one needs the internet outside of work. The moment I’m forced to show my ID or get my face scanned, I’m done for good.

Physical these days is mostly dead, so long-term I’ve been going for DRM-free digital. GOG, 7digital or ripping via Foobar2000 for music, ebooks.com plus Calibre, and MakeMKV for DVDs. Steam’s DRM, when not paired with other DRM, is lenient enough where I’m okay with using that when no other options are available.

I do still like physical for some things. I prefer physical for PS3 games versus digital because most games read straight from the disc, and install sizes a significantly smaller if you go that route. That generation of gaming really respected your hard drive. I don’t like buying a disc and then still having to install 100 GB to my hard drive – at that point, why bother?

And I like getting consoles and flashcarts physical, but not the games themselves. There’s nothing as cozy and nostalgic as playing 3DS games on the original hardware, but I don’t need all the cartriges. Everdrive with the Genesis Model 1 is also my preferred way of playing that console so I can experience the original music through the built-in headphone jack.

The exception to that is I’m a sucker for physical game media that has connectivity with other media. So I have a physical copy of Pokemon HeartGold with the Poke Walker, and too many DDR dance pads. I really want that GBA game Kojima made where the cart has a solar panel and you build up energy to defeat vampires by going outside.

Unfortunately, this has been one of the better responses among the Democrats. At least he advocates for keeping the government out of this issue and that it should be determined by experts in the field, and that we shouldn’t put blanket bans on sports because chess is obviously different than football.

Frankly, though, I have little to no faith in either party to protect my rights. I can’t shake the feeling that whether a Republican or a Democrat wins 2028 that our heads will still be on the chopping block.

Looking at history, I don’t think this will end up like the Civil Rights movement. I think our curse is that every 100 years, we have about 10-ish good years and come just shy of reaching social acceptance, then get successfully forced back into the closet and/or genocided with all our history erased, and then start to “reappear” in the public consciousness 75 to 100 years later to a public that thinks we’re this new group that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. We simply don’t have enough numbers to defend ourselves and no other groups will ever meaningfully try to defend us.

There was a few years where I pretty much only used Flatpaks because I was scared of the terminal. But now that I’ve learned how to use the terminal, it’s so much more convenient because I can quickly update all my applications all in one place without having to open a separate app. Plus, some Flatpaks can fall really behind on software updates.

There might be a Linux userbase someday where no one other than developers actually knows how to use the terminal, because users can run everything they want without a command line, but maybe that’s actually a good thing because it’ll drive up how many people use a Linux distro.

With Windows and Mac, there’s a shareholder incentive to enshittify. With Linux, if a distro goes bad and gets commercialized, there’s always another distro people can move to, not to mention there’s no financial incentive. The more people get on Linux, the less power these tech companies have. Personally, that and privacy are what drew me to Linux much more so than being able to tinker or fine-tune my experience.