For me it’s API usage for the most part.
When they locked the API, I was even fine with paying a bit, so I subscribed to Relay Pro. But now I got a degoogled phone, so I can’t use my play store subscription anymore, and don’t want to fiddle with cracked APKs or patching either.
The original reddit app is a nightmare to use so… that’s why I’m here lol

(Freedom, privacy and decentralization are awesome too, obviously. But I’m gonna be honest, I probably wouldn’t have switched - at least not fully - if it wasn’t for having an app that works well for me.)

The faxis

Will electronic stores accept either 100 or 200€ bills when purchasing an iPhone for 1500€ upon paying in cash?

Having worked in one - yes, it’s no problem at all. If it’s too much (I think 3k was the threshold), a manager has to come and do a second run in the counterfeit detection machine, so it might take a while.
(Answering for Germany though, might be different in France)

I work in a small store, we get about one to two customers a day paying with it.
When I worked in an electronics store, we had much more of them, but it was obviously still the lowest amount of all bills.

So I wouldn’t say they’re uncommon, but of course they’re the rarest one to get. Not only because ATMs don’t have them, but also because people rarely withdraw 200+€ on a regular basis in the first place.

Otherwise we’d all constantly smell like fart. Cause a fart is just opening that hole and pushing air out.
(… or maybe we do smell like fart constantly and just don’t know cause we don’t smell smells that constantly hit our nose)

Honestly, having to have the user type “I agree that I have verified the application i am trying to install is genuine and not a fraudulent app”

Yeah, this would be the most promising approach IMO. Whenever I was forced to write something, I did pay more attention to what that said than if I ticked a box next to it.

Maybe even have them write “I am not instructed to install this app by someone else. I am aware that following instructions to install an app this way often have fraudulent intentions”.

(Also if the language was changed recently, it should ask to write it in all languages that were set within the last 14 days or so. Otherwise the scammer will have them switch the language so they don’t understand what they’re writing)

Must’ve been the wind.

Yeah I get that but the way I experienced it is that ads can appear in a podcast in any of the following three instances:

• Podcaster themselves record the podcast, may or may not add advertisement (self-spoken in their language)
• Podcast network which the podcaster is a member of adds ad break time codes, in which later ads are inserted, dynamically based on the listener’s location (pre-spoken, usually in the local language of the listener’s location, sometimes personalized)
• The podcast player/platform (Spotify, Pocket casts, antennapod etc) adds advertisements (also pre-spoken and in local or app language, more often personalized)

The podcast player’s ads can not be distinguished from the podcast network’s ads, except that they have a higher tendency for personalized ads (given that personalization is enabled in the privacy settings) or if the player declares it as an advertisement in a place where the podcast can’t. Or if you know that a podcast is on an ad free network. Other than that, you don’t really know if it’s an ad by Spotify or the podcast’s network.

My point is that, unless your player is explicitly declaring an ad as such, you cannot diatinguish a podcast network’s ad from a player ad. The only proof I have to know it’s a network’s ad in my case is that my player is open source and ad free. If I used a closed source commercial player, I wouldn’t know from who the ad is coming when it’s in my local language.
I’m German too and got German ads on english podcasts, but I know that the player didn’t insert it, so you can never be too sure if it’s Spotify adding them either.

deleted by creator

TLDR: I know it because the ads were German but the podcast is in English.

That can still happen and happens to me too, despite using a no-ad FOSS player, so the ads are definitely from the podcast, not the player.
Dynamic ad insertion is absolutely a thing in podcasts. If you access/download the MP3 file on the server from a German IP address, a German ad will be put in at the specified ad break before you/your player downloads the file.

So a different language ad doesn’t mean it’s from Spotify.

(PS: By the way, using a VPN connected to a country where not many companies make podcast ads works basically like a podcast ad blocker. I route my podcast player through an Albania VPN and have like 80% less ads than before. The remainder is “classic” podcast ads that are inserted as a static part of the MP3 file, no way to get rid of those.)

I learned that Germany doesn’t have a state owned mail service anymore

It’s so dumb. We privatized all kinds of important infrastructure, then it became enshittified for revenue maximization and now it’s broken, shitty and expensive.

Some postal service, trains, telecommunication service, banks, airports & airlines etc have been government owned a few decades ago and worked so so much better.

Hmm I don’t know actually, but now I’m curious too. From quick search:

As the newspaper Handelsblatt explains, “angst about potential surveillance is rooted in Germany’s past.” The combined legacy of the Nazi Gestapo and the East German Stasi are thought to be part of the reason Germany has been a pioneer in data protection — with legislation dating back to the 1970’s.

https://www.codastory.com/surveillance-and-control/coronavirus-germany-privacy/

I’m probably quite biased being German myself, but I feel like that things like privacy and security tend to be more important to Germans than to other folks. And I don’t speak just about the tech bubble, it shows everywhere.

To give a random example, when a license plate has been blurred in a photo posted anywhere, chances are high it’s been posted by a German. Despite the fact that there is no license plate lookup (like carfax for US, finnik.nl for Netherlands, car.info for Sweden etc) so a license plate wouldn’t even reveal anything to anyone, yet we treat it like a secret on instinct. If you ask such a German why he blurred it, he probably won’t have a reasonable response, he just does it because he feels like it.
(Edit: Just look through the used cars here, most if not all will have their plates censored given they have plates on them lol)

Getting back to topic, this might not be the only explanation, but I’m pretty sure it’s a noticable factor why Germans are especially present on platforms like this, i.e. platforms that tend to respect the user’s privacy more than the big tech corporations.

Yeah, same. What a BS statement above lol

Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that!

It’s disabled on mine too, that’s why it asks first whether I want to open it in the store.
It still goes to the play store (website) when I refuse to open it in the play store (app), as can be seen in the video.

One example I know is Instagram, here’s an example. Can’t click anywhere without being redirected to the play store.
I don’t use it, it’s just the first that came to my mind, but in the rare cases someone sends me a link to it I can’t really view what they sent me because of this. And I surely won’t make an account just to see a meme or some shit.

as people get pretty fucking creepy about tracking you when you vote them down.

Can one see who voted on a comment here? Or is that just when it’s likely by logical assumption (like a reply on a 3 months old comment getting downvoted after 2 minutes -> has to be from the person whose comment was replied to)

The worst are the sites that just redirect you to the play/app store when visiting on mobile.
I’m surely NOT installing your fucking app after you give me a bad experience (by not showing me the content I’ve received a link to) while I’m a “guest visitor” to your site.

I guess I want a search engine that searches all the European online shops for the products I’m looking for, lets me browse and compare

Yes. This so much. I don’t want to search 100 different shops. I don’t want 100 different accounts, different accepted payment methods, different delivery methods. Something like Amazon, but not controlled by one huge corporation, would be so great.

The closest we have are price comparison sites, but once they are big enough they don’t list merchants that don’t pay them for that listing, so you often don’t find the lowest price there either.

I also want the companies to start selling their products through European online shops, instead of just Amazon.

Well in most cases, manufacturers don’t choose the vendors but the other way around. I’m sure most companies would love to be available at every single merchant existing, including European ones.

If you don’t need an item within a limited time frame, you should ask European sellers if they can get the item and sell it to you. Might not always be successful, but at the very least it helps them to know the customers’ demands better. European merchants aren’t Amazon-sized and can just store and offer every existing product so they need to know what we want.