Both of you are wrong: patents, patent law, and other forms of state-granted monopoly don't really have much to do with capitalism at all. They are examples of state intervention in the economy, and if anything, they are more aligned with socialist policies typical of a mixed market. (Although in a 'true' socialist country, the monopoly would be granted to the state itself, so arguably patents are not socialist either). Perhaps calling them "statist" would be the most accurate description.

At any rate, I think there are certainly some positives to such legally enforced monopolies. However, there are many glaring problems that you don't have to look far to find.

The biggest issue for me is the belief that someone is capable of 'owning' an idea/thought. I find this to be completely ridiculous and in direct contradiction with free speech, free expression, and actual physical property rights.

I also find the idea that nobody would innovate or create if they couldn't apply for a state-sponsored monopoly completely laughable. You are using a platform right now that intentionally does not use any of these powers and actually goes as far as to give a free license to anybody to use, modify, copy, and redistribute their design, which they openly publish.

Of course, not all businesses would have to follow this model. In a world free of patents and IP restrictions, businesses and individuals would simply have to take their own information security more seriously, ensuring not to leak sensitive data and using legal tools like NDA's to protect themselves when seeking funding or collaborating with other businesses, etc.

Once the product goes to market, it's fair game for others to inspect, copy, and improve on the design. I think this is completely reasonable and the only ethical solution.

The idea that you could be granted a total monopoly, protected by state violence, on any idea, let alone a life-saving medication or an important safety feature, is just bizarre and abhorrent to me.

I think lots of boomers and gen-x do care. (At least the ones I know). They just aren't tech literate enough to do anything about it.

I think we need more privacy oriented devices and software with simple ux, and advertising that isn't targetted at the tech community.

Run some TV ads for a privacy enabled smartphone, and play up how it works just the same as your current phone but doesn't spy on you. Shit like that.

If you have a desktop computer, you could run a Jellyfin mediaserver.

Torrent media and run your own personal Netflix.

Look into apps like radarr, sonarr, prowlarr etc, there are lots of guides online.

Soulseekqt for pirating music and host your own Spotify with navidrome. (Or use jellyfin has a music player as well).

If you want to selfhost a full jellyfin webserver on the wider internet and not just your local network, you can look into cloudflared Argo Tunnels, which will allow you to selfhost even if you have a dynamic IP.

This is a little more advanced than just local hosting, but feels pretty epic when your friends and family all cancel Netflix and start using your Jellyfin server instead.

Grats on going degoogled, btw. It's a tough bandaid to rip off, but so worth it.

Debrid is scummy, it hit and runs torrents without seeding. It makes torrenting worse for everybody. Only 1 debrid service I know of seeds, and it only does it for 72 hours.

This is yet another reason why public trackers are getting worse and worse.

Torrenting only works if people seed after downloading. Please consider getting a VPN with port forwarding (I use proton), and seed your torrents. (Depending on your country you probably don't even need a VPN, but it's wise to use one anyway).

If you want to direct download, consider a seedbox instead. There are probably good options for streaming directly from your seedbox too, but I haven't investigated.

I don't know what to tell you mate. Have you tried microG recently?

I'm running my banking app, social media apps, a bunch of games, mail app etc, all without play services.

https://community.e.foundation/t/list-apps-that-work-or-do-not-work-with-microg/21151

Paid apps are harder to get working, but I've had some success patching them with luckypatcher.

Honestly though, the biggest surprise to me was how little I needed those proprietary apps. Usually with a bit of digging I was able to find great open source alternatives.

I highly recommend lineageOS, or better yet lineageOS with microg.

Running a completely degoogled android phone right now, and it feels smooth as butter. Microg has gotten so good, the vast majority of playstore apps work completely fine even without Google services, including things like my banking apps.

Feels liberating as fuck, not gonna lie.

Only apps that don't work for me are ones that require IaP's. About 30% of those I can crack with LuckyPatcher. I can also crack other paid apps with license protection.

Mostly I havent needed to do any of that though, because I've found that there are so many great open source apps that do the things I need.

I have used a browser extension for this in the past, I can't remember what one it was but I just did a search and found this one which looks promising:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hohser/

You could give Odysee a try. I was pleasently surprised at how well it works, and how nice the UI/UX is. Especially considering it is a decentralized platform.

It's missing a lot of the content that youtube has. Especially if you trying to look up a specific video or niche topic. But there's still a lot of great content available if you are happy to browse.

Odysee is a great, decentralised alternative if you are looking to jump ship.

If you do end up sticking with youtube, ReVanced is good. Smart Tube Next is good for TVs, and firefox + ublock origin on desktop.

Check out Odysee. Open source, decentralized, great interface. It' s a great youtube alternative but is unfortunately still a little lacking in content.

Hopefully youtube continuing to pull shit like this will drive users there, much like reddit has driven users here.

Google is an ad company. To them, a web browser is nothing more than a tool for collecting user data and delivering ads.

When you use a chromium based browser you are allowing google, an ad company, to decide what the future of web browsing should look like. And this is the result.

Firefox is the ONLY browser which is genuinely competing with google. Do you think ad and tracking blockers are going to get better or worse once they die out, and literally every major browser is running on chromium?

Use firefox and u-block origin. Enjoy a superior, ad free, browsing experience, and support the future of an open web.

I'm bookmarking this one