Cool project, though I personally want to pick my gear in a car and on my bike.
I don't like using cashless anything because I know part of the cost is my privacy. Having said that, convenience is a powerful draw and cash can be a pain, especially when you have to find a spot for small coins.
I had a Google GSuite account from back when they advertised it as a free for life solution for families who wanted to use their own domain. They stopped offering this a long time ago, but kept us around. A few years ago, they tried to end it, but walked that back after facing resistance. We were among the earliest adopters and many of us shilled pretty hard for gmail over the years. Not only would they have gone back on their word, but my app and media purchases would be tied to a crippled no-email account (identity only) because they didn't have a migration path to normal gmail. That means multiple logins. Also, the gsuite inbox doesn't have the inline ads or anything while the regular one does. I've been working to move away from google because I imagine they'll try to end this again later, but also just because we understand better who google really is.
The site the greedy little pigboy runs was instrumental to the resistance but since it's enshittified, we may not be able to resist again. Its fine to say something is for a lifetime, but you have to honor that or you've been dishonest and no one can trusts thing you say.
The only reason I still have google around is android. When we finally get a linux daily driver phone that meets my minimum needs, I'm migrating the remainder of my stuff. I'll happily give up some functionality to do it. I just hope they can keep their free for life promise until then.
At one point in the pandemic I worked for a sizeable tech company that was similar. They sent out an Zionism apologist email about how much the company supports Israel. STFU! We are the company, you wouldn't have shit if we didn't come to work. I know my colleagues well enough to know they are mostly NOT Neocons and Zionists. I was pretty pissed that they would say something political because it throws me into the position of having to address it because the "we" they used in the email makes it sound like I'm involved. I just work here. I don't want any part of your corporate politics and I want you to know that when we seize the means of production (and your ill-begotton fruits of others labor) we're gonna donate your yachts and bank accounts to help victims of Zionism and Imperialism.
Good luck to the creator. Pixelfed works well for me, despite being a bit empty, both on my instance and globally. The bones are there though and I personally prefer the way it works over Mastadon's Twitterish format. I wish I could use Mastadon more because that's where the mist fediverse users seem to be, but even decades later, Twitter style interfaces do not make sense to me. I'm a smart, nerdy, millennial, who grew up with computers. I can make sense of the IRS's 1040 form without using turbo tax, but for some reason I can't make sense of this horrible illogical interface that millions of people love.
In regards to the tiktok tok style app, I think it'll have a good chance of success simply because it is TikTok's less assholey cousin and even though many people will trade privacy for functionality, tiktok is about due to become a lame, cringe app for old folks.
Every time I see that stupid little alien, I change my mind about visiting. I see Spez's smug grin on that stupid little goo blob avatar and it just makes me want to find my info anywhere else.
With MS enshitifying Windows at an ever increasing pace and the hard work of open source developers, volunteers, advocates, to make Linux better and more approachable, I won't be surprised at all to see that percentage move up.
"You mean its free and doesn't try to sell me other products the whole time I'm using it?"
At this point its pretty much a moral transgression to buy music from any labels, organizations, or groups filing these lawsuits. If no one bought their music, they'd have to join a mock trial team or debate club and we might finally be able to straighten out the mess that is copyright law. :-D
So sick of all the feedback, rate us, try this feature, what's new, turn on feature x, etc. that seems to be a part of everything nowadays, even Linux apps. Linux wasn't this bad only a few years ago and mobile OSs cranked this up to 10.
Everything that can be seen from the default view should 100% revolve around fulfilling the function of the app for the user. Human attention is a finite thing and we shouldn't be wasting it on shit like this.
My 2015 Subaru Impreza has a shitty entertainment system. At least it still connects via BT, but they removed the screen mirroring really early on and the app had ~1 star on Google Play for a long time (probably still does). Thankfully it's not integrated with the features of the car in any meaningful way. I could swap it for any other head unit. No sure how that will work with modern cars where the AC, lane departure, and everything else goes to the stereo.
The real issue, as you point out, is there is nothing to force them to continue supporting it or maintain its features once us poor suckers have bought it.
I'm late to comment, so I may be typing into the void.
I understand the admin's decision to limit their exposure to legal risk. I had similar experiences as a small business owner and you would be surprised how quickly most people's idealism is tempered by the risk of potential legal action. It's totally possible to believe strongly in the legality of something and its benefit to society (in this case piracy) and still choose to limit your own legal exposure. As far as I know, none of us paid to be here, so the polite thing to do is say "thank you for hosting us" and move on if it's not your thing (or just make a second account).
I believe our current copyright/intellectual property scheme is broken at best, and designed to fuck us out of every bit of culture that has ever existed, at worst. Piracy exists because the system is broken and the industry is entrenched and refuses to adapt to customer demands. It screws music fans, artists, and probably the individual low-level employees of many music industry companies and organizations.
So I rode it from Waterpark to Wesfield and later from Broad Ripple to White River Park and the trail was 99% non-sketchy in the daytime in my assessment. I could see some sketchy areas one or two blocks back from the trail, but the trail has seemingly gentrified the blocks immediately adjacent in a lot of spots. The area just before Mass Ave where it runs next to the freeway is in need of some landscaping work but also didn't feel sketch.
My biggest takeaway is that Indy traffic engineers slept through the lesson on right of way. The signs say to stop, but the cars usually stop for you. It's ambiguous and dangerous and I think there is potential for improvement.
Thanks for weighing in so I didn't go in blind.