For me, it depends on the website.

Twitter to Mastodon is easy. I’ve never understood short form text social media. I never made a Twitter account but I have a Mastodon account so I guess that says something. But I still don’t use it.

Instagram to Pixelfed has been a hard sell. I enjoy photography but have hated Meta. I hated Instagram and ended up making one just because it’s the only real active community, even though it’s compression, resolution, and aspect ratio garbage are all awful for actual photography. I’ve tried 500px, Flickr, Vero, and a bunch of others and they all have problems. Pixelfeds UI and community just both aren’t great so I can’t buy in yet. And I’m not even using Instagram much these days anyway.

Does YouTube count? I don’t comment/post much, but I have very little faith in PeerTube or any of the others ever gaining reasonable traction. So many other attempts at this have failed and the content is too important.

Reddit to Lemmy has been a mix. I completely axed Reddit apps and don’t check it daily and instead use Lemmy. Been having a hard time filling the content void. And when I want hive mind type feedback on obscure things / recommendations / tech problems, you just can’t beat reddits 15 year history of content and opinions. But I am actively posting/browsing on Lemmy instead.

The official one doesn’t. I’ve used a couple others that didn’t.

Ahh, that’s where that went… I couldn’t find it in my apps and figured I’d removed it.

There are a slew of Android TV remote apps that do all this and more, like including home/back buttons, integrated search etc. They also pair easier. The first party Google TV app covers this smoother than a BT keyboard/mouse app.

Google is dead as a company now that AI is taking over the search process

That’s some copium right there. The company has been doing AI for years and they are synonymous with search. Their primary income is advertising where they’re basically unrivaled. You’re kidding yourself if you think they’re going anywhere.

As someone pursuing a career in health care I became more and more concerned because some store patient files and notes in unsecured text files/apps like notion, google docs and even excel.

This is just the beginning - the medical space is notoriously awful and also a place where you probably really care about privacy. But using secure alternatives is too annoying for most medical staff and they just see it as ankther hurdle. Actually getting people to use secure software that’s not the software they’re already used to is way harder than it should be.

People just don’t understand or don’t care. Convenience is way more important to people than anything else.

How is Apple “independent”? You’re just trading one mega corporation for another.

It’s not Chromium specifically, but it has basically the same issues.

IMO the thing is that people don’t care about their privacy. Sure, some people around here do, but your average person owns an Alexa, has a FB/Instagram account and constantly posts their location, uses the same password on many sites, uses TikTok, doesn’t block cookies, etc etc etc.

Most people don’t actually care. Some claim they do, but then can’t even be bothered to stop using Instagram etc because of the “inconvenience”… So do they really care?

Some companies (Apple, etc) push their products under a narrative around safety and security, and people will repeat that point as a way to justify a decision they already made, but if they actually cared, they would be doing other things too. But they don’t.

The number of us who do actually care about privacy and security is actually very small.

I’ve seen YouTubers also say “nothing else has any users”. I think this is generally the public sentiment and the reason people stick around. I would say that even if there’s no alternative, just leave but… Unfortunately people feel like they “need” Twitter.

And people say social media isn’t addicting.

Yeah, my main problem so far has been finding communities actually worth following/joining/contributing to.

If suddenly tons of average people join, they won’t really find communities, they’ll deem that their analysis of Lemmy, and leave with tiny chances of a second chance. It’ll just boom and bust in it’s current state. Most people aren’t interested in starting or growing a small community.

Meanwhile, if we stay at this size for a while, communities may form/grow, and as people trickle in, they’ll grow bit by bit.

My point is these are just making you feel better at best. Even a perfectly efficient split system running off a perfectly efficient power source which was manufactured out of thin air without having any effect on climate change is still moving heat around. None of these address the core problem with the climate. Even at perfect efficiency they’re just building you a small bubble to feel better in.

Or, put another way, this is the coldest summer in the entire remainder of your life.

Together we can fight at least 1% of the carbon emissions from top 100 corporations in the world :)

I wish our choices had a 1% impact… That seems extremely generous.

Aircon plus solar panels for the win? Other than the initial manufacturing cost, it’s a fairly good solution.

Can’t tell if you’re thinking this is anything more than an emergency stopgap for people that can’t bear living in their home, but… All A/C does is spend energy to move the heat back outside, and also produce some more heat on the side. So it isn’t a sustainable solution or fix, even if your energy generation is somehow perfect.

And swamp boxes are basically just a fan with extra steps that puts a miniscule amount of heat into the water. They feel a tiny bit better, but they’re not really fixing anything either. That warm water still needs to go somewhere etc.

It’s closer to the hardware. Generally harder to update. It’s less frequently updated. And it’s less fault tolerant.

Idk, sure, it’s technically software. But it’s pretty clearly at least a distinct subsection that deserves it’s own moniker.

with newer, faster, better tech being available year after year

Let’s be real here - this hasn’t been the case for smartphones like 5 years at this point. Barely anything has changed in that time frame besides like a “telephoto” lens and foldables.

People are just sold on the idea that things are changing.

Your battery doesn’t drop from 80 to zero instantly. If you’re going to be “playing a game” or “watching a video” for over an hour and your battery is already at like 40 percent, you can just swap it before you start. If you’re burning through a full battery and can’t be interrupted…

The reboot takes like 20. Swapping the battery with a full door does literally take 15. So yeah, maybe like 45 seconds? Is that really such an inconvenience?

And sure, a spare battery is a box. But a charging brick is a bigger box. And it needs a cable.

Apple: Your honor, everyone has an iScrew and a MagicHeat and an iOpener and a MagicPryer. And if they don’t, we even offer a full bundle for only $300! These are very common tools.

I would much prefer having smaller/fewer things to carry and not having to keep my phone tethered to an extra box over having to wait like 15 seconds. How is 15 seconds without a phone a problem?

People who don’t even use tiktok are scared of it? Goodness gracious.

I mean… If you’re scared of something, why would you use it?