I use CalyxOS and keep airplane mode on when I’m not expecting any calls over the celluar network 🤷‍♂️ I suppose youre right that Ive never seen an ad for Discord, I also just haven’t seen ads in well over 5 years. I did assume they advertised so if Im wrong thats on me. I refuse to be a product and feel others should as well. If people want to sell themselves in exchange for a money-less service I suppose thats their own decision.

Phone number point is stupid to bring up because most public discord servers turn on the setting that prevents you from speaking until you’ve verified a phone number, and I’d trust signal with my number over discord any day of the week. I never said general users should jump ship, I said that the reason they DONT is because other platform dont have the advertising budget, nor the user base to make users jump ship. People act like they give a shit about features but as soon as they can only talk to their friends because they all left for one platform, even if its “worse” because of the feature set, they WILL follow or be left out. Its why I originally joined Discord, I didn’t want to leave Skype but thats where everyone was going. I am now taking the other side where I refuse to use discord. I use Signal and Matrix. if people want to talk to me, they talk to me on there or not at all, and ykno what. Ive gotten 20+ people to switch.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/discord-starts-down-the-dangerous-road-of-ads-this-week/

They definitely sell user data. There is no doubt in my mind about it. I think the idea that Signal can’t be used in the same way is down to the marketing, especially sense Discord is now trying to transition away from gaming https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/discord-is-pivoting-away-from-games-to-become-your-place-to-talk- Signal literally has the same features + more than discord. You dont have to reveal your phone number to strangers anymore. Usernames are there. 1k+ member group chats EXIST. (I’m in one for fight for the future), screen sharing exists in calls. Theres no reason to need discord unless thats just where everyone else is.

You can screen share on signal so that argument makes absolutely no sense. and people down voting me without explaining why are probably too stubborn to switch away from discord.

Genuine question who is still using snapchat. I deleted my account ages ago, not because I was on my privacy crusade like I am now, but because I noticed all of my friends stopped using it and everyone else on there was like 5 to 10 years my junior.

There are viable alteratives, but they aren’t making money and can’t advertise. Signal is a prime example, its an amazing platform with feature parity + more to Discord. Regardless of how well a platform is polished, you need users. People will use the shittiest platform ever if it has users (Twitter and Reddit come to mind).

The point was not the amount of money they are making, the point is that regardless you are being sold for profit. Any platform that is ad-driven should be avoided if you want any form of privacy.

Issue with this argument is that if you are found to have hacked their servers and stolen an API key you bet your ass theyre suing you for stealing their property. Their argument is “laws for thee not for me”. I agree with you if we are only talking about copyright law.

If you want Something you can set up and forget, use YUNOHOST, otherwise learn how to use docker containers and pick any server distro. Debian, Fedora Server, Ubuntu Server, MicroOS, hell OpenWrt will all do fine.

People shit on Ubuntu because its owned by a for profit corporation that hosts an app manager that isnt open source on the backend. Not sure why you heard hate for mint, its perfectly fine. As a beginner I’d definitely go for Mint. If you Genuinely want to try but feel like you need someone to hold your hand, I can add you on Matrix (or discord… ugh) if you want a person to reference.

Be Me, 2050 .

Having Cavity filled at Robodentist®️ by Meta-soft Alphabet

Robot Dentist (named Kevin) starts applying novacaine to my gums

Going well, teeth are now numb

Kevin starts borrowing into the cavity to apply filling

Fly lands on my eyebrow and causes me to flinch

OHSHIT.mkv

My tooth is now shattered and there is a drill where my gums used to be

mfw

this is the way

Until then I hope you get the issue solved! Best if luck friend :)

Have you tried OpenWrt? It works like a dream for this kind of stuff + the community is very helpful

Mega Man in the Mushroom Kingdom.ips has been sitting there for do long. One day

Thank you for such a nice response. It’s nice to know that people are still able to be rational and understanding of one another’s situations even if/when their current states in life are different. I hope you have a great rest of your day today. 🙂