Libb

My bank offers both an app and a website which is nice, but the app is mandatory for doing any kind of operation involving money (which is not that uncommon when logged-in in your bank accounts ;) even when connecting through their website, as the app is used for some ID-ing process.

Then, there are a few not-mandatory but such-an-effing-pain-to-not-use apps, say to ID oneself with some (public) services.

I use a dumbed down iPhone (like, really: no social, no games, no whatever not even email is configured on it) just so I can access those few apps.

I’ve seen this in various threads on Lemmy. I’m sure Kagi has some cool features, but I don’t know how any search engine can overcome the walled garden effect that is plaguing the internet today. The data just isn’t out there to be curated anymore, it’s locked behind the hedges of the different sites.

I think search might have been killed.

I 'm pretty sure you’re 100% right and that’s where we’re heading. It has already started but we’re not there, yet.

I’m convinced too that in a not too distant future I’ll be witnessing (and I’m 50+ year-old) almost all content will be put behind pretty and comfy walls but walls nonetheless, with doors and locks on them we wont own the keys (btw, that’s the reason why I completely quit posting on reddit, as I explained here I refuse them putting any walls around the only valuable stuff they have ever owned, our content). But we’re not there, yet. I mean, the Web is still not that walled garden and, so far, Kagi has also been working more than fine (they even try promoting an alternative, for example with their ‘small web’ feature).

How it is working now is the reason why I’m (was paying? As I’ve yet to decide to renew, in less than two days). I pay for how fine kagi is working today, not how it will be working in the future. The day they stop being relevant, I’ll stop using them (like I quit using Google search many years ago). Will I be sad? No idea, what I know is that I’ll be a lot more sad for what the Web will have finally turned into.

Imho, as of now, Kagi is simply too small for the big sites or for the other engines to be worth worrying with them.

At this time there are less than 35k paying members/users (they publish their stats but seeing how some people can be jerk when one is mentioning their appreciation for a paid product I think it’s safer to not share a link. It should be easy to find, though). Considering their size, I imagine it’s not like they represent a threat to anyone’s business. They’re just a tiny, tiny alternative, and a paying one at that! Something that will not help them grow fast, if at all.

The OP asked:

How to You Research Vet Products on the Post AI internet?

That is was what I answered to. That said, I agree my answer is not ‘Vet’ specific. So, maybe I was wrong in explaining why I decided to use a paid search engine in order to get usable, quick, not AI-infested and as topic specific as I want them to be results? I don’t think so, but anyone is welcome to disagree.

Also, not being native English speaker I considered the OP ‘Vet Products’ was referring to ‘veterinany products’ (something I could ignore in my suggestion as being a tad too specific), was I wrong?

That being said, I sincerely want to thank you for taking the time to tell me your point of view as, since I posted my comment earlier I was a bit perplexed by the few downvotes it received. Now, I get it or maybe I still don’t, but at the very least I have some clue why it’s happening :)

Edit: rephrased the first sentence in a more correct English. Hopefully.

Would upvote this suggestion more tan once, if I could.

Oh, thx a lot for the tip. I was not aware of that at all.

I just rechecked and I can now see those two posts too, without subscribing myself: probably someone else from here had subscribed first ;)

Reddit, and hopefully Lemmy will get there too ;)

Also, I quite like using Kagi search engine (paid) for its neat features. Things like

• No Ads and no SEO to ruin the results.
• Blocking/Lowering/Raising certain domains from the search results. So, I never have to even see the name of those turd websites that specialise in SEO-optimized or AI-vomited non-content.
• Small Web, which only search small websites
• Lenses (to focus search on certain type of content/websites)
• Bangs and a few other more usual stuff one may also find in other search engines.
• They also have optional AI-stuff, if that is your thing.

I’ve been using Kagi for almost a full year (it is supposed to renew in a couple days) and I’ve been loving every instant using it. Like really.

That said, it’s not cheap. Here in Europe (I live in France), it’s 130€ a year (tax-included) for their second-best plan, and I have not yet decided to renew because of that cost. So, the last couple weeks I’ve been forcing myself to use the search engines I used before Kagi to see how well it went (startpage & qwant, mainly). And, yeah, I already miss Kagi a lot ;)

Just had a look, there is no post at all for the moment?

Edit a bit later: there are a few posts already, see @threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works answer just below my comment.

(and I subbed ;))

Maybe you should post something(s) right now and not wait until January if you want people to sub or, like you mentioned, to start suggesting ideas.

Imho, the perspective of facing an empty community with zero discussion going on until next January will not encourage participation.

Simplified and with a lot of user power and user freedom abdicated to a few companies, or to a few groups of developers working together, in order to make things much simpler and much more optimised for the average user.

I mean, suffice to see how often people can be completely lost when they’re asked to decide between clicking either the OK or the Cancel button, or use a simple drop down menu, or decide if they should even be bothered with their privacy at all when using any app as long as it is free and shiny… As it is, Linux stands no-chance against that with its many quirks, workarounds, with its sudo pacman -s or sudo apt install, and with its focus on freedom and privacy. No matter how excellent those tools can be, and no matter how important freedom and privacy should be.

As a non-US user myself, beside the lack of participation on Lemmy, I think the kind of replies and the instant escalation to this comment, in this very thread is a great example of why Lemmy can suck, hard.

The world, exactly like the Internet, does not end at the US borders.

And yep, even though many US citizens seem to be on the verge of slicing each other throats, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world should behave the same. Lemmy users should still be able to discuss freely even between people of varying opinions, or even of completely opposite opinions.

Unfortunately, calling police in America may put you in danger. It’s one of the many, many reasons I’ve left. I don’t think people quite understand what it does until they’ve lived in other, safer places.

That is not how the system is supposed to work. I never went to the USA and probably never will (there are a lot of reasons and people that would make me want to go mind you, but there are also way too many things I’m just not OK with). So, like I said I really can’t tell but if that is like you say, that’s very problematic.

I mean, there must be some legal authority to call for help. Self-defence, adding violence to already too much violence, can’t be the only solution a State has to offer to threatened citizens. If that was, what use would there be in such a State?

Real Marseille soap (savon de Marseille, as we say here in France) is a great 100% natural soap that is not agressive to the skin. But beware if you try to buy some, as there is a vast majority of cheap knock-off edit: that aren’t Marseille soap at all.

I don’t know how things go in the USA but in my country if anyone was to threaten to kill me, like a real threat not some shit talk, I would call the police and they would deal with that. Even more so if I told them I have a disability of some sort and can’t defend myself.

Also, you need to contact a social assistance office, or whatever you may have like that in your town/region/state, because you need to get away from them and be able to sustain yourself. A change that will most certainly take a lot of your energy and focus — one more reason to let the police deal with the death threat.

And in the walking vein, good shoes are essential. If you can’t afford new shoes then good insoles are the next best thing

100%. And I should have mentioned it as, back when I started to walk daily, I almost gave up because of the shit shoes I was using. They were hurting my feet and my back and they were reducing my endurance, like really. Investing in decent shoes (and orthopaedic insoles made for my feet) changed everything. I probably would never have started walking as much as I do without those. Money very well spend, in both case.

I don’t care about making money with my hobbies, I do them to help me feel better and have some good time. As a whole we’re all already way too focused on making money, at least that’s what I think.

• Long walks. Daily. This is the (second) best change I ever made into my life. I would encourage anyone, even more anyone that is like I was (in a very bad physical and mental shape) to give steady walks a go. Start small but don’t give up even though It’s hard to begin with, and slowly increase the distance you walk and your steadiness. It’s so much worth it. I was a potato couch but nowadays I could not not go out for a few miles walk at least once a day (as much as possible I’ll go everywhere I can by walking instead of using any mean of transportation). It also helps in the head, immensely as far as I’m concerned.
• Writing &
• Reading. Reading and writing should never go without the other as far as I’m concerned. Read (like you write) widely, don’t be afraid to read stuff you don’t normally read, or stuff/author you don’t like (there is a lot to be learned when confronting your own thought to those of people you don’t agree with), or read unpopular stuff.
• Sketching/painting. I’m not an artist, I don’t care I just enjoy doing it. I try to do more of that outdoor, while I’m out walking)
• DIY, making stuff with my hands (book binding, woodworking,… those come and go along the years) & also
• Fixing stuff. Reducing the amount of waste we create by making our stuff last a little longer.
• I had to quit model making, but I liked that a lot.
• Music.

Shower & soap (savon de Marseille) with a washcloth thingy that is not too soft. Natural deodorant (pierre d’alun). End of the process.

Unless one should also consider making faces in front of the mirror part of the daily routine, say while one is shaving or brushing one’s teeth? Asking for a friend that, quite obviously, is not as adult and as serious as I am.

iPhone SE. I would use a smaller model of iPhone, if there was one. I need a phone I can easily take with me, not some aircraft-carrier sized high-tech device ;)

I think it’s already very hard to change our own habits. I would not hope to change other people’s own habits.

I would like Lemmy to grow if only for one reason: I don’t care being part of any niche (no more than I care being part of not highly popular communities, mind you). I enjoy exchanging ideas and chatting with interesting people much more than I need to feel ‘smart’ myself because of the tools I’m using and for any chat to happen one first have to meet people. So, the bigger Lemmy, the better for me ;)

I joined Lemmy/I left reddit only because I realised I was not OK with the way reddit changed policy (the way they control our content) and because I was not happy in the way they made their website evolve. That said, I do miss the few subs I was following and participating in on Reddit. I miss them a lot, as they were/are often very interesting and rich… of their participants.

Can Lemmy become comparable? I don’t know, I have some doubts but I also have very little intention to come back to Reddit, at least not until they change a few things.

After I announced I would not be posting on those subs anymore, a few months ago, two people contacted me to tell me that would be some kind of a loss and they were sad to see me go, asking me to reconsider. As far as I know, none have created an account here on Lemmy so we could keep on discussing stuff. Of course, I can’t be sure of that but to be 100% honest the opposite would have surprised me a lot more. I had the same lack of reaction a few years ago when I quit Twitter and the likes. That’s fine.

Changing habits is hard. Even more so online, I reckon.

Taxes. They have an incredible talent to raise new taxes.

And, more seriously, like already mentioned in another comment: destroying public services. which is a real sad thing to see happening, if you ask me.

I refrain from participating in and even from looking at any community that generates anxiety and/or anger, or that encourage or don’t oppose what I consider destructive or hostile behaviors. I consider time too precious to waste mine with the kind of persons who enjoy those things.

It is not related to any specific place, though. It’s mostly a question of the persons participating and of the moderators.

100% with you.

I’m 50+, I’m not a geek and for the last 35 years or so I mostly was an happy Apple customer/user (I only used Windows for a couple games and, recently, on a PC laptop). I was happy using Apple and even earned decent money doing so but, a few years ago, I grew tired of seeing Apple acting like a dick — more and more greenwashing while at the same time making it impossible to upgrade or fix hardware, and then they released the turdiest keyboard ever created on this planet (yep, looking at you Butterfly keyboard) and insisted on using it for years, despite so many of us complaining. So, I decided it was time to try something else. Windows did not impress me much. Then, I tried Linux and was so impressed how simple it was to use (I don’t do fancy stuff on my computer, I write) and how I could (more or less simply, but quite often it’s simple) tweak it to do exactly what I wanted, and how nice it was to run even on very old hardware (making for less e-waste, which is a good thing), I was sold. Plus, I won’t lie, the whole freedom and privacy considerations, the GNU philosophy, were becoming an important factor too as I realized how we were increasingly deprived of those.

I still own a Mac today but, unless there is some kind of revolution at Apple’s HQ, I don’t see myself buying a new Mac after this one dies of old age. My main computer is now my Linux machine. I keep the Mac out of laziness and habits… Also because I would miss one specific app: Scrivener, a writing app I’ve been using probably for the last 15 years, if not more. And, yep, I’ve tried many alternatives available under Linux and they don’t cut it for me.