Just like Invidious, Piped offers a free and privacy-friendly to YouTube.

The advantage of Piped is that it works with SponsorBlock, so you don't waste time putting up with sponsored parts of videos. I've only mentioned the features I find most useful; a more detailed list is available on the project page.

Some disadvantages compared to Invidious are that it does not allow you to sort the videos of a channel according to age or popularity, but simply shows the latest videos of the channel; there is no button to download videos and audio; you do not see a thumbnail of the frame when hovering the mouse over the timeline; the thumbnail of the video does not appear when sharing a link...

Keep reading YouTube privately with Piped

The Google business model is based on collecting personal data from users, selling it to third parties and serving ads. The company also enganges in surveillance programs, develops artificial intelligence programs for military purposes and exploits its users, among other things.

It is one of the most powerful companies on the planet. However, Google is a giant with feet of clay that can be annihilated.

Finish off its ad revenue

Google makes money by serving personalised ads based on the information it collects from its users. If people don't see ads, Google doesn't make money. Blocking ads is a way to prevent tracking and make Google lose money, but if you visit Google's pages, Google will still get information it can sell to advertisers. So the easiest thing to do is to block ads and avoid Google sites.

Another idea is to click on all ads with the AdNauseam extension, which also hides them from us so that we don't find them annoying. This method means that Google makes less money from ad clicks and that Google's servers have a little more workload (minimal, but it does add to their costs).

Filling Google's servers with crap

Google lets you upload almost anything to their servers (videos, files, etc.). If the content uploaded to its servers takes up a lot of space and is junk that scares people away from its services (videos with robot voices speaking nonsense, hundreds of videos with noise that take up gigabytes upon gigabytes), the cost of maintaining the servers increases and the company's profit is reduced.

If this is a globally coordinated effort by multiple users, Google would have to start restricting uploads, hiring people to find junk videos, blocking people and IP addresses, etc., which would increase its losses and reduce its profits.

For example, I can create 15-minute videos every hour and upload them to YouTube automatically or semi-automatically. The videos should take up a lot of space. The more resolution, the more colours, the more sound variety, the more frames per second, the more money YouTube will spend to keep those videos on its servers.

The video I show below was generated automatically with ffmpeg. It is only two seconds long, but it takes up 136 MB. A similar 15-minute video would take 61.2 GB.

Keep reading How to destroy Google

DuckDuckGo’s CEO said on Twitter:

Like so many others I am sickened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gigantic humanitarian crisis it continues to create. #StandWithUkraine️

At DuckDuckGo, we've been rolling out search updates that down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.

This decision is problematic for many users who want to decide by themselves what is misinformation and what is not. That’s the reason why many people unhappy with DuckDuckGo’s decision who are also privacy and free software advocates now recommend using search engines like Brave Seach and Searx.

There is a super bubble about to burst: housing prices have gone through the roof, stocks are way overvalued, food is more expensive, the price of oil has skyrocketed. What will happen when the bubble bursts?

Some say industrial society is collapsing; others think there will soon be a depression. To orient the system towards endless economic growth when we live on a planet with limited resources is absurd. Yet the capitalist system depends on this growth to stay afloat. Some propose colonising space to prevent the collapse of capitalism.

In the short term, poverty will increase. Those without wealth-generating property (assets) will have to sell their labour power at a lower price (that’s if they can find a job when unemployment rises further), steal or rely on handouts. Those who have capital or property on which to grow food, access to clean water and housing have it easier. Could this be an opportunity in the long run to foster other kinds of values?

Rising temperatures have already triggered feedback loops that lead to further temperature increases (which are increasing extreme weather events, sea levels, desertification, etc.). For example, as the poles melt, less solar radiation is reflected, so temperatures rise; as the ice cap dissolves, methane (a greenhouse gas) is released into the atmosphere; as forests and coral reefs disappear, less CO₂ is absorbed.

There are technologies that favour the accumulation of capital in a few hands and entail enormous energy costs, and there are decentralised, free and efficient technologies. The problems we have are far from being solely technological, but technology is adding to them. Will the bursting of the super bubble lead to technological, economic and social change?

Nothing lasts forever.

Image Coit Tower fresco - the stock crash by Zac Appleton.