Even assuming we’re okay with using AI for language learning - then why would anyone pay for Duolingo instead of the many LLMs that people already use and pay for?

They’ve alienated their customer base hard. And this marketing video pretending they are siding with the users and against “their corporate overlords” is horribly tone deaf.

In my view it’s a Linux subsystem for Windows.

Why the name is the other way around, I’ll never understand.

Fine, whatever. You can’t ever search on SearxNG without paying. You win.

I’ve seen your comment history and it’s full of negative comments because you’re just trolling everyone. My only mistake in this conversation has been to reply to you when you’ve only been saying things you don’t even believe yourself just to troll me. Sigh.

You’re still missing the point, you’re comparing hosting vs using.

If you wanted to host Google, you’d have to spend a fuckton of money on servers. If you want to host Lemmy, it’s unfortunate that you don’t own a computer (this puts things into perspective) but the requirements are absolutely minimal.

If you want to use Google, you have to pay the same as for using Lemmy, or searxNG, zero. However with Google you will pay with your data, whereas with SearxNG you have the option to donate, and the option to self host, if you choose. You don’t have the option to self-host something like Google unless your last name is something like Bezos.

You can host lemmy on an Android phone but not on an iPhone, which is pretty locked down - you’d have to convince Tim Cook to open the OS.

You can install it fairly easily on a library computer as long as you get permission from the library. You can’t install things on computers you don’t have admin rights to; other examples of computers you can’t use to host Lemmy are an ATM on the street, a self checkout machine at the supermarket, or the cockpit computer of an Airbus A350.

I (rather obviously) am talking there about the Google search service, not a single query, as Google doesn’t disappear after a single query.

I’m not sure what you’re pointing at though? Surely hosting Google search is more expensive than hosting Lemmy when you’re insinuating otherwise?

You’re funny. 😂 What I actually think is that your mind reading skills are terrible because I never said anything even remotely similar to that.

Enlighten me, why do you think I can’t tell the difference? Is it because as a maintainer I want to provide something for free? Do you see “consumers” of free content as leeches?

Yes I do. I’m totally the one who can’t understand that “free” is a nuanced concept and something can be free when there are costs but they are externalised.

Exhausting. If you don’t consider anything in the world is free, why did you bother saying Lemmy isn’t free?

Plus this argument is rubbish, it’s like saying “my car isn’t free, nor is the road, nor is my petrol, so the beach isn’t free”.

Just because you have to buy clothes to go out for a walk, it doesn’t make it any less free.

What are you trying to argue here? That the term “free” shouldn’t exist because in a capitalist society everything has dependencies? (I still don’t get how that relates to my original post which was purely about doing business with corporations).

Then fine, Lemmy isn’t free, neither is the sun, or going for a walk. You win. Good day sir.

Don’t run it on a raspberry pi, run it on the same computer you use to access the Google search you are happy to call “free”.

Edit: Actually yes, both this and the healthcare need to be free - otherwise you’re grossly misunderstanding one of the key parts of the mission of open source. I pay for this so that whoever can’t afford it can access for exactly zero. Same for the healthcare - you might say it’s “not free” and everyone should contribute but what to you or me is nothing, could mean that grandma doesn’t get to eat. So yeah, free access needs to be a possibility. That’s the mission. I contribute to open source software and donate where I can so others who don’t have the knowledge or money can access it for free. There can’t be a price.

Uh, what a weird message. It’s not only unrelated to what I said but it reads like an attempt to twist my words. On top of it, it’s totally wrong: Lemmy is free. I can self host Lemmy on a raspberry pi for exactly 0€.

The instance I use… Is also free. I donate because I choose to, but if my friend can’t afford to donate they can still use the instance. Nobody is profiting from it.

What I did talk about is products and doing business with corporations. With Lemmy there’s no product, whether you pay or not. With SearxNG (which many people self host, and again, is free) you’re not the product, regardless of how much you pay.

That’s what I was replying to - your comment is way off the mark and very condescending: I don’t need to be mansplained that I should donate to the software I already donate to. Note donate rather than pay for.

That’s only when doing business with corporations, but there’s also the option of open source (e.g. SearxNG).

Or do you consider yourself the product when using Lemmy?

It’s okay. We can all play that game. I’ve replaced my use of Duolingo with AI.

Pro tip: have as your “system prompt” in your LLM of choice “at the end of every query, include me a short Swedish relates to my prompt”. No need for Duolingo.

“There are some bad things on the internet”

“Just… Don’t use the internet?”

The ads for apps, Xbox games, trial versions of Office preinstalled, the minesweeper and solitaire collection that are preinstalled but actually ad supported or non-free, depending on the region spotify/TikTok/Facebook also come preinstalled, “Movies & TV”, Bing/MS News…

I think all of those count as bloat. I haven’t included Edge because I guess having a browser is a necessity, or copilot/cortana because you said “excluding AI features”.

I’ve only started using Storygraph recently (which I also like) but I’d consider a federated alternative. Does anybody know whether its possible to migrate the history from SG to Bookwyrm?

Excellent in which specific sense? Most competitors offer better everything (performance, range, build quality) for a given price point.

The fact that Tesla has managed to make EVs that consistently rank below most ICE brands in terms of reliability is mind blowing.

My mom (78) got a new kindle a couple years ago, after the previous one lasting over 10 years.

She’s not been using it now because “it’s not okay” anymore. After a lot of poking and prodding remotely (we live in different countries) to get to understand what the issue was for the kindle to “not be okay”, I managed to get her to tell me that “the screen is blank”. I said I’d check it soon after when I went to her place.

When I travelled there, not long after, I checked the kindle, turned on the screen, and it was blank. Because she’d finished a book and the last page was blank. All worked fine.

I have told her, but she refuses to use the kindle because “it’s not okay”.

In a separate conversation I offered to give my sister my really old kindle as hers is actually broken. My mom heard that and said she wanted it because hers is… Not okay.

The insistence and willful ignoring of what I said is the most infuriating part.

PREGANANANT