The article also quotes

to “cheat” the system

As if people working two jobs are stealing and not working in exchange for proper value of money.

What kind of illogical comment is that? First, you bring in Microsoft to a discussion it is not a part of; second, just because Microsoft does it wrong, it doesn’t give Apple a license to do things the convoluted way too.

I used most of the stuff you listed though I usually switched to mpv instead of VLC. On Linux, I used Strawberry for quite some time though I use foobar2000 on Windows. Deadbeef is a good lightweight alternative to that on Linux but always seems to play catch up to it’s elder cousin.

Oh, I understand now, especially the second one. The only thing from Amazon’s product line worth using to me is the Prime delivery service. I can’t give two hoots about their Prime Music( which I lost respect for after it denied to run for me on any browser on Linux for some reason) or Prime Video.

IIRC, YouTube Music is also offered as a standalone service, Atleast in some countries. However, the difference b/w YouTube Premium and just the Music service comes out to be miniscule, so folks just pay for the former.

True, geographic diversity is a thing. Smaller phones like iPhone mini or Zenfone didn’t caught up in the Indian market. But, should demand exist for them, atleast some companies ought to be making them in some parts of the world. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be happening and that presents one less choice to the customer.

India has the largest population of English speaking folks anywhere in the developing world, I assume. That combined with the fact that it already has a base of IT workers trained in this sector. (after all, outsourcing some kind of jobs to India has become the norm, not the exception).

Also, this is hardly a political issue. As a developing country, India rightly has many more pressing issues to deal with and people here often tend to skew towards that. This tends to put these scamsters on the back burner and seldom, action takes place. I, myself, was almost taken in by such a scam where they almost beguiled me into sideloading a malicious apk. Despite this, I cannot do much since proving cybercrime is much tougher here(especially when someone just attempted it, but was not completely successful).

You see so many people asking for smaller phones in the forums and places you frequent.

They do not necessarily represent the views of the common public. I personally could do with a slightly smaller phone because the compact size allows for easier holding with single hands. But, sadly, I have not seen folks around me deciding which phone to buy based on their screen size. Neither is that a priority for them. Simply put, our Venn diagrams do not fully overlap.

It’s alright. I can relate with the sentiments of these posts. It wasn’t a change that folks were expecting which Google is rolling out [is it still in A/B testing or slowly everyone is getting countrywise] and since people’s primary email account is often linked to GMail, there is always a fear that too much overriding might cause a ban[ though Google hasn’t done so in the past till now ].

Some months ago, in email transcripts between Apple employees from years ago, they were discussing about the possibility of bringing iMessage to Android but ultimately decided against it because it was the product that kept users locked in to their iPhones. It isn’t a technological problem to bring iMessage but a corporation-al one.

That is true. I hate Shorts and have to block it via uBlock filters. Also, I hate their mobile app. I can’t select a precise app wide video quality. There are only two options: High and Low in the settings. I need to go to Advanced settings upon playing each video to manually set a precise video quality, say 720p. This experience is sub par and below what NewPipe used to provide. I mainly use YouTube Music as a service but they bundle YouTube Premium for little onto it.

Anyone who pays for premium is a fucking loser.

What a subtle take. Anyone who doesn’t conform to my view points must be inferior.

Everyone actively working at the google enshittification should honestly consider jumping off a fucking bridge. You’re an awful person and you make the world a worse place to be in.

Yes, inciting people to kill themselves, sure. You do know there are many corporations (cue the oil and gas industry) which are monstrously worse than Google.

Anyone who really thinks that Google right now is the main thing making the world a worse place sure lives in a bubble. But then, these YouTube bad posts I have been seeing since almost over a month ever since this thing started rolling out. I get it, it is bad but would you stop harping over it like it is the end of the world? There is more to tech than just posting Google bad every alternate day.

they have brand loyalty

Oh, they have some brand loyalty atleast. In my country, Apple has a miniscule market share across all domains[ laptops or phones included ]. They recently launched 2 Apple Stores in a bid to slowly extend themselves inside the market. Quoting from a news article

Another Apple loyalist, Vivek, who waited in the queue for 17 hours to get his iPhone said, "I have been here since 3 p.m. yesterday. I waited in the queue for 17 hours to get the first iPhone at India’s first Apple store.

Err, going through threads of conversations on both reddit and lemmy regarding YouTube, one would assume ad free access is the norm and Google even daring to offer Youtube Premium is a bad thing.