Bright Spark

Bubble Bobble Intro, but RPG

Oh, I know that one!

I actually started giving my home Mastodon instance 8 bucks a month as a little “thank you” for hosting and maintaining it, because I think they’re doing a solid job at keeping the place wholesome and curbstomping less wholesome instances, and keeping it up and running.

Also, I pay the subscription for Home Assistant/Nabu Casa, because I think it’s worth for having a locally-hosted home automation platform that is completely independant from any cloud provider, but can make use of cloud features if need be. Yes, I could set up my own SSL certificate for the instance, and set up the connection to Google Home manually, and run a completely local TTS (which I actually have as a backup in case the connection drops), but there, I pay for the convenience on top of supporting the developers a little bit.

And before I switched to Jellyfin, I was happily using Plex and paid for the Plex Pass.

Well, it requires some more work, but you can also in theory set up a Linux box (or, heck, also a Windows one if you are so inclined) and use something like Electron Player (https://github.com/oscartbeaumont/ElectronPlayer) as a “frontend” for YouTube TV, Amazon Prime, Netflix,…

…or you tell Netflix Amazon and co. to stuff it, buy BluRays, rip them onto a media server, and set up Jellyfin, Emby, Plex… or, heck, just a fileshare and play the files using Kodi or something.

…nah.

The Metaverse is just a buzzword, with my favorite example of the new Tamagotchis just slapping it onto their newest line of virtual critter to mean “Yeah, it has basic online functionalities”. NFTs can go shove it. It’s for money laundering at best, and scam artists enriching themselves with minimal effort at worst. Cryptocurrencies may have a use in theory, but not for the environmental impact they cause. Same with the blockchain.

The future - I personally believe/hope - belongs to free, decentralized online services that anyone can host themselves if they so please and have the skills.

That is what Web 3.0 should be. None of that artificial scarcity bullcrap.

I think sometimes they just disappear for a bit. Have you checked for them underground yet? They hang around there sometimes.