>Generally, how can society discover new products and services?
I'm surprised you can't imagine a society where the consumer would be the one recommending products and not the producer. Any entrepreneur can find one first consumer to test their new product. And that first consumer have access to a great communication network to recommend that products to their social network — it's called "the Internet". Social networks are a great platform for people to share interesting things to their friends, family, colleagues and also to people they don't actually know ("the Internet" can connect you to strangers). Such networks cost little to operate when the content is created by users, instead of producers and their intermediaries (people favors short, insightful written text instead of catchy commercial once detoxed).
Being born in the 1990s, I did experience that "Internet", when advertising networks didn't exist and when people intentionally interacted to make connections and actively look for information. They were happy to tell about things they discovered, with little to expect in return ("influencer", aka mercenary, wasn't a job yet).
Before the latest Russian election one of the parties opposed the war in Ukraine and was a bit too popular, so, well, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabloko :
Yabloko is the sole officially registered party to openly oppose the Russian war in Ukraine, openly calling "for peace and freedom". The party planned to partake in the 2026 Russian legislative election under their anti-war slogan.[29][30] However, in August 2026, the party was barred from running by the Supreme Court of Russia due to a lawsuit by Rodina.
Well, some decades ago if you were a school teacher, you were _asked_ to (1) vote "right" yourself (2) call all parents and ask them to vote "right". If you disobeyed, the school got problems and you got problems. Maybe not enough to make all people comply, but sufficient to get the right outcomes. Same goes for all government-funded workers.
Since then I think they simplified the system and just forge the results outright.
As to the widespreadness of the electoral fraud, it should suffice to know that Ela Pamfilova, the irremovable head of the Russian election circus, has recently proclaimed all video evidence of any fraud to be AI generated, and demonstrated a video where a casually-looking man throws a stack of doctored bulletins in, followed by several outright fictional characters.
tl;dr Other parties are Putin-like, and if/when a genuine alternative emerges, Putin deals with them ruthlessly. Example: Navalny was the charismatic leader of a small but popular rival party with anti-corruption policies. He was initially delegitimised (not allowed to partake in the 2018 elections due to [likely fake] charges of embezzlement), then poisoned (nearly died), then imprisoned, and then killed while in prison.
Consider the terrifying message that sends to would-be political rivals...
>Humanity isn't perfect but it's pretty awesome, and may ultimately be the only reason that the species that exist on this planet are able to continue to exist.
For now, the contrary seems most probable. It's humanity that's threatening most species on Earth right now.
That requires one to focus on the most narrow slice of time while ignoring both the past and the future. Species constantly go extinct. It's estimated that more than 99% of species that have ever existed are now gone. [1] And that's almost entirely long before humanity even existed. This planet is absolutely brutal on anything remotely like a long time frame. Most of every single animal that exists today will be extinct in one future. And that's a future that might be far closer than any of us could imagine - we are well overdue for a mass extinction event.
But we increasingly have the power to change this. That's a power and potential that no other species alive today has, or ever will ever have. And not only can we do it, but I think it's fairly certain that will we do it - if we are capable of it. Sometimes we go overboard on things and that can have very negative effects, but on the whole I think we've done great with our power. Think of what we have the ability to do, contrasted against what we have done.
I'm browsing from a Pixel 9 phone running GraphenOS phone, plugged into a 4K monitor, and paired with a bluetooth Logitech MX Vertical mouse and a MX Keys Mini keyboard. Works prefect. I don't miss my Macbook Air M5 much.
Get GrapheneOS. Install FOSS apps whenever possible, via Obtainium. Signal if need be. A RSS reader. No social networks. Get a Kagi subscription to ensure no ads and bias.
That targets a different thing IMO. You can aim for privacy or you can aim for the thing being slow and irritating to use to disrupt the habit. If tech companies spend money to make their apps smooth to use, you can aim for the opposite and inject friction and reduce the amount of high you get from it and making it slower to reach so you can have a chance to take back the executive control over the task.
I get no high from my phone/apps since there are no ads and no perverse incentives. I'm not the product of the services I pay for.
I'm happy Fastmail (made by a small company) is much better and faster than Gmail (made by a advertising behemoth). Idem with GrapheneOS vs Pixel OS. The less friction, the shortest time spent using the phone, the most time to enjoy spending time outside and with friends.
I mean, whatever satisfies your desire for inner peace. I mainly don't open news in the morning because my news feed is "/asshole country/ bombed a city again and 4 people died, one of them is a 2 year old child, the entire other city is starving to death eating grass and there is a budged deficit next year to strike back at them doing this shit and allies are a bunch of weak man bringing bad times"
Except it's impossible nowadays, since most apps require Google Play Integrity attestation and doesn't work on GrapheneOS.
And if it wasn't for these apps (for example banking apps, since someone decided that it's now impossible to use your homebanking from a PC since it's not secure enough) I would already use a Nokia 3310.
Not true. I'm a customer of 3 top French online banks and of two top global brokerage cie and the apps work great. I have no issue whatsoever except with one health insurance app but their Web app is better anyway.
Only thing missing is contactless payment but there are European banks that support GrapheneOS without Google Pay so alternatives exist. And I can use Garmin pay with my watch (and offline and without Garmin Connect thanks to the FOSS GadgetBridge appp) if that was necessary.
Loads of banking apps work fine on GrapheneOS, and the vast majority of non-banking apps require even less attestation and so work on GrapheneOS like on any other Android with Play Services present.
Glad to see more HN commenters challenging this false assertion
The false claims of "It won't work" in HN comments keep getting more bizarre
It's unclear if this is a myth, a misunderstanding or a deliberate falsehood but it's oft repeated
Here the original comment did not even make any claims about mobile banking
But it still triggered a reply with a false assertion about mobile banking
Mobile banking usage differs from country to country
Not every country is the same with respect to mobile banking usage, not to mention mobile usage in general
As for people who would use GrapheneOS, a small segment of conscientious mobile users, I wonder how many have or could end up with multiple phones as a result of planned obsolescence and forced "upgrades"
In such cases they might have one phone that runs a corporate mobile OS and "approved" apps and another that runs a non-corporate OS that runs "unapproved" apps
I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't yet run into an app that requires integrity attestation and doesn't work on Graphene. Even my bank works, although it flagged me as someone who probably stole my password, until I scanned my passport and face a few more times.
It will not slow to a crawl because popularity = power. Even if the the platforms themselves stop ads, the users will not, either for other or for themselves.
Ads are what allow these products to exist. Take away ads, and the platform cannot sustain its own server requirements. People won't pay for stuff like this; it's only mainstream because it's ad-supported.
This works perfectly for me. Couldn't be happier.
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