Okay but seriously, what is this pedantry even? I wasn’t trying to put forth some all-encompassing thesis of every reason people might pirate, nor do I accept that “needs to be in on all the current memes” is some reason one is entitled to media. And neither point has anything to do with the discussion we’re having with OP.

Bizarre as heck tangent.

Hey man, I’m willing to be honest about what I do. I’m not entitled to consume that media just because it exists, and I’m not going to beat around the bush about that.

I don’t really understand why you’re comparing these two things? One is a group of people refraining from consumption of certain goods for personal reasons - health, ethics, climate impact, whatever. The other is a group of people consuming arguably more goods than they (we tbh) deserve since we’re not willing or able to pay for it for one reason or another.

A better analogy would be comparing piracy to… I don’t know, a veg-eater of whatever type who still enjoys the taste of bacon and resorts to stealing it because it’s better to hurt the meat industry than to pay? It’s a product that person really doesn’t really need and absolutely would have never paid for, yet the person still wants it and obtains it in a way that hurts the industry.

(The analogy doesn’t hold up since stealing physical goods has a different impact than distributing digital copies, but it’s the best I’ve got off the cuff)

E: okay, after reading your other comments, I’m both confident this didn’t address the point you wanted and confident I don’t really understand your deal well enough to do so. Both of these groups have some members who have a problem with industry practices and others who are into their chosen lifestyle for other reasons. It seems like you’ve made some odd decisions about which groups are most prevalent among each and are framing your premise around that, and I don’t think we’re going to see eye-to-eye on it when the premise is Like This.

Or are you trying to say veganism should be more widely accepted because “DRM is wrong” is roughly equivalent to “animal suffering is wrong” re: “industry bad”?

The key word is “disorder” though.

Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time, just like everyone has minor bouts of depression or invasive compulsions. Some non-disordered might even still experience them often.

Not everyone experiences these feelings pervasively to a degree it prevents them from socioeconomic success (making friends, going outside, finding and keeping a job, etc).

I can’t even tell most of you people apart.

Have you ever considered maybe that’s the point? Maybe people want to be judged for what they say instead of what image they had on hand when they signed up?

I uploaded a pic while playing with all the shiny features over here, but I was faceless on reddit for years after their introduction of profile pics, because I was there to have discussions, not build a profile. And the one I picked here? It tells you almost nothing about me unless you already know the character in the image, which only people who have a similar niche interest might.

This is like whining about women who don’t wear makeup, because “If you have the option why not just snazzy it up with a couple of images tiny bit of eyeshadow. I think it’s shows a bit of personality.” Sometimes the active decision not to bother with cosmetic features IS the personality you’re looking for.

Out of date tbh - It’s never a labyrinthine phone tree anymore, it’s a “natural speech” based menu that can never help with more than the most basic inquiries like “how much is my bill?” and still stubbornly refuses to put you in the queue for a real person.

The phrase “what’s stopping you” implies we’re all interested, but hesitant.

This is a really, really bad assumption.

I got tired of everything taking so much effort. I was almost always able to eventually wrangle what I wanted out of the OS, but every change I wanted to make and thing I wanted to try needed so much searching and learning. I wanted stuff that just worked, even if it was “dumber.”

That, and some parts of the community I ran into were really prickly. One that was especially memorable: I was asking for help on a big-ish project with a lot of followers and helpers and didn’t expect the lead dev to answer my question, but when he did, he felt the need to make a snide as hell comment about how I have no business being there if I’m going to forget to start a service. On top of the exhaustion I was already feeling, I had a massive moment of “okay my guy, I guess I’ll just fucking leave then.”

Anyway, it just feels better being a poweruser on windows. I know enough to keep it clean, safe, and slim (like using powershell to disable the bits they don’t expose to a settings UI, for example) – to truly admin my machine – without having to work so hard for it day in and day out.