I get you. I used to buy Nexus devices as well as some of the first Pixels, until at some point the prices shot up to ridiculous levels for a phone and I went with other brands.
Last year though the Pixel 8a was selling for 350€ and I got one. Luckily, given the recent developments. Will be installing GrapheneOS.
Same. I've been working with and managing thousands of WP sites for over a decade and the only issues I've had have been with sites acquired from 3rd parties with random themes and plugins (and old WP versions) that break if you update something. Those have gotten hacked and have caused many headaches.
Basically no issues with sites built in-house. As you say, only reputable 3rd party plugins (like for SEO, caching, multilang) most others made in-house.
> Or you could pass an EU Constitution that enshrines basic rights including privacy
That, and (somehow) enforce the basic principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which they are supposed to do already. That would go a long way towards not misusing that centralized power.
I will have to read up on that 2005 event, sounds weird to me that countries would complain about there being constitutional rights at the EU level. Not sure how those rights would conflict with local ones. Unless there were positive rights, like "the right to internet" or the like, which would be ridiculous and not what I'm proposing (just basic negative rights).
> Sensationalist framing aside, how does any government become a body that decides anything?
Powerful people get together and decide that they know what's best for people. Then they claim that there is "consent" because people are given the right to vote and that there is a "social contract" that no one actually has signed, which everyone should still abide by.
What you're describing is how the process in the EU works. So in essence it is "the EU".
It doesn't seem to have any limits or restrictions on what it can do as an institution. It forced idiotic bottlecaps on all of us for shit's sake... and it has little consideration for privacy laws or constitutions of individuals, otherwise this proposal would've been thrown out automatically each time, if there was anything resembling constitutional values governing the EU's mandates.
It's like being governed by a neurotic unhinged monarch.
Problem is that once you've gotten this thing through to begin with it's comparatively easy to make slight amendments later, also of course with the justification of "protecting the children".
It doesn't change anything with their higher tier sales. Those are bought for a reason that a lower tier device cannot satisfy.
My worry (from Apple's POV) is that all the people who buy the cheapest Mac (currently for $1k) will instead go for this new "base model". And I suspect there's a large cohort of people who "just want a Mac".
And so it's just a bill away from the data is suddenly being available for any purpose. For public safety of course. The same people who want Chat Control to scan our messages for sure want to scan and raise alarms for suspicious behaviors in public places too. They just can't implement it all at once or there'd be an uproar. But if it happens slowly like this, bit by bit... frogs getting boiled in the UK (and elsewhere too).
Indeed. The more powerful tools there are available, the worse kind of people get drawn to them. And the more it corrupts those with initially good intentions.
People seem to be longing for a God of sorts in their aspirations towards authoritarian governments (naively believing that those with the power will be (and remain) benevolent and act in their best interests and with fairness).
I love having the fingerprint reader behind the screen on my Pixel 8a. It has a clear benefit vs. the back; you can unlock it while it's sitting on the table, without lifting it up.
Hey, I've been looking for a tool that can do reverse NS lookup for a nameserver pairs (ie. which domains have nameservers ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com) but all the services out there that I've found can only do one. Is this something you would consider implementing?
Last year though the Pixel 8a was selling for 350€ and I got one. Luckily, given the recent developments. Will be installing GrapheneOS.