as a person coming from a totalitarian country, I would still prefer dealing with a single gang which also has its own welfare obligations can be corrected or overthrown when needed, than several mafia-like cartels which only care about extorting money from me providing nothing to both me and the society as a whole.

governments have responsibility, too, it’s just some don’t accept it

tbh, in this interpretation, it sounds like extortion, sort of what gangs usually do to minor business owners

tax is tax, it’s a mandatory contribution to society you morally and legally obliged to do, not a payment for not being killed

After a long-running blogpost holywar between Telegram and Signal, I perceive these “security experts” as Signal/Telegram shills depending on their stance

To be serious, nobody would use that platform even there hadn’t been any ads, because competing with YouTube is not an easy feat.

I should probably be happy that Rutube and VK Video gain popularity as the regional alternatives to the monopolist which gets more aggressive each day… if not that popularity has just been inflated by bought-out bloggers and comics from Putin’s oligarch owned channels like TNT being directed to cease their YouTube presence, just so the government could have their own “YouTube without team Navalny”.

but yeah, being more shitty than YouTube at delivering ads is not an easy feat, too!

Humans: ooh, a new MacOS wallpaper

A Russian video hosting Rutube (which was totally dead until the govt decided to detract Russians from using YouTube, which made the platform semi-dead) actually tried to do that, having a quiz after each ad break, asking questions such as “what TV channel has been advertised in this ad?” and repeating the ad video if answered wrong

Should be more than baby grapes!

Not sure about other countries, but the Russian branch of Burger King had some uniquely bad sense of humor when it came to their ads. The most known as was a wordplay between “Don’t get too spicy” and “Don’t shit yourself”, but there was another ad of chicken nuggets with a little chick in the corner saying something like “6 nuggets for 99 rubles!”. I found it hilarious to see a chick advertising their mom.

…and refrain from drinking Kool-Aid and punch, just in case

Local 58 “Contingency” flashbacks

Russians having their flashbacks of the main war propaganda network in their homeland