Yeah, that’s the reason I never fully used their mail. The bridge is a paid-only feature, and they don’t accept Monero for some reason, only Bitcoin.

I would never be able to afford Apple tech even if I somehow didn’t mind using a phone I cannot install arbitrary apps on. So yeah, no idea. I use RiMusic on my Android, but the downloads happen on the laptop with yt-dlp.

That is exactly what I do. A client on the phone for discovery on the go, later yt-dlp on the laptop and proper tagging.

I am doing just that. I indeed use Youtube Music for discovering and downloading new tracks, but alos yt-dlp every video I like. Because I am afraid Youtube might at some point be taken away, like loginwalled.

At least Youtube Music can be used with third-party clients.

Yeah, they’re kind of even doing the opposite with the control freak mindset, such as being hostile to third-party clients or even distribution outside of Play Store! (seriously, the apk download is hidden by a dark pattern)

Closed-source and not available on most people’s computers.

And what’s just as important - not as resilient.

I do use cash when possible indeed! But Monero is for things that you can’t physically receive in a store’s office, like a domain name. It’s not a lot, but it is necessary. Gift cards are not available everywhere, and the ones available somewhere would not necessarily work in other countries.

I think cash-like anonymity is something we do really need in online payments. For me personally it is not critical. But I would still not like my VPS and domain name KYCed to me, for example if, say, something like censorship evasion is prosecuted retrospectively.

That doesn’t have any of the privacy and anonymity features. I’d have to read more on this project, though - did hear about it before. Also, what’s relevant right now is that it’s not accepted as commonly as even Monero (which in itself is sadly not as common as Bitcoin).

Alternatives - like what? I understand the concerns but for now Monero is the closest we have to “digital cash”. Hope there would eventually be a more energy-efficient successor.

Yeah. Such as: blocking the playback until the user disabled their adblocker, making it impossible to access 18+ content without signing up, repeatedly breaking third-party clients and frontends, apparently blocking the playback if the user is behind a VPN… I am now afraid they might eventually demand a login just to use the site at all. Doing my part in downloading everything I like at least.

If the initial swap is from Bitcoin, there is Bisq - that’s been around for much longer than Haveno. Not tried myself, though.

yes

For me it’s pretty much mandatory because Youtube is normally blocked :/

To be fair, while Microsoft is absolutely vile for such restrictions, I think people overestimate how many people would switch computers just to get Windows 11. It’s probably a concern for big corporations indeed, but regular users? I don’t think so. Most people don’t see anything wrong with staying on an OS that doesn’t receive updates. A lot of them already do so - on their phones, because the support is so short! I am now in the process of switching my father to Linux, and it’s genuinely hard to explain him why he has to get used to a different OS: his reaction to “But Windows 10 would no longer receive security updates!” is “So what?”. Windows 7 probably would’ve still had a high market share if 10 had a similar system requirements change.

It is in Futo’s own F-Droid repo. But there have been license issues so that it is not actually open-source, and I prefer Newpipe (or, rather, Tubular now, because Sponsorblock) anyway.

Less likely to be blocked, both by the censors and by the target websites. Actual flexibility in what obfuscation method to use. Can be a convenient proxy rather than a full-device VPN. Can host other things there, or use it as a static IP to access things hosted at home.

Same, although I use a personal VPS rather than a VPN.

Rethink, for example. Also allows denying an app internet access, if your OS can’t do it by itself.