This is horrible, tragic news for Germany and it’s people. I hope the citizens of this country vote these people out of office before they allow their country to be destroyed.

If one or more of the guys making the most money at proton is pro-trump and makes donations, isn’t that the same thing as the company doing it? Like if Willy Wonka funded rainforest restoration, buying his chocolate is directly supporting the rainforest regardless of if it’s the factory or the CEO doing it.

In an age where corporations and the rich are literally destroying the world, I think it’s reasonable for people to greatly weigh the political byproduct of their purchases. Proton doesn’t seem to care about privacy or improving the world or being a good company, they seemingly just care about making enough money through catering to the privacy crowd. For me, going non-google isn’t to hurt Google it’s to support smaller owned businesses who also want to support smaller owned businesses and their community.

This comment makes no sense in relation to this topic. This is a picture of a winter market in a German city (theoretically, I’m not verifying it but it looks legit). The size of the country as a whole or even really the population makes no difference when comparing this to the US and it’s cities. As someone who’s lived in multiple cities in both countries and visited far more, the population density is the only distinction and that can be designed for. Kansas city is urban sprawled to hell by design and Berlin isn’t all that different, except Berlin has trains galore.

Actually looking up the data on where I live right now, Mannheim, and where I just came from, Kansas City this point is easily driven home.

KC:

• 825 km2 area
• 508k people
• 623 people/km2 density
• 2.2 mil metro

Mannheim:

• 145 km2 area
• 316k people
• 2186 people/km2 density
• 2.3 metro

America is the home of the car. Germany isn’t even considered to have the best public transit and yet any country with that as a priority thrives in human centric metrics.

It was a nightmare to drive downtown in KC, find parking, visit a handful of shops, and drive home. It took time and money and was generally dangerous.

Going anywhere in the entire metropolitan area of Mannheim takes me max 30 minutes, and that’s by tram. I walk most places and that’s 1-10 mins of walking for all my needs. I can walk a block to my nearest Christmas market, 5 blocks to the next and something like 10 to the next. Nothing even remotely as communal or friendly in my suburban neighborhood in KC.

I swapped a laptop over maybe 5 years back at this point and bricked it within a week. I tried a total of 2 or 3 times and something always went wrong (this was Arch btw). I converted it to Mint maybe a year later and it was stable but I wasn’t convinced it was stable enough for my main computer.

I’m also pretty sure before that majority of games were not easily compatible like they are today.

Even as we speak Steam is not constantly resetting my keyboard as of some recent patch and I’m positive this wouldn’t happen on windows. Like Linux is great, it’s come a long way, and I would say it’s mature enough for most of friends to pop over without issue - but there are still clearly situations where I’m fighting the OS’s minority status or hodgepodge structure.

I love it, but claiming it was better than windows for the past 20 years is a bit of a bubble. You must not game, because 20 years ago it would have been worse - to name the one niche I care to point out right now.

I mean I can imagine, but I think it’s fair to say there’s been significant gaming progress and user friendliness to happen over the the past <5 years. It was unthinkable to switch over a decade ago and now it’s practically no different than windows. To me that means a different bar for what maturity is i guess.

I swapped over to Arch early this year. Very little issues, rather simple compared to the online stigma. Maybe it’s because I have up to date hardware, idk.

Made a guide for friends, one has swapped over and a couple others have voiced interest. It’s only a matter of time with the windows BS and as Linux continues to mature.

I think a ceiling would actually be healthy. I don’t love that we’re still pandering to the rich even with this summary. Still, it’s good to push any healthy message. I’m just saying it could be better. No one in the entire world needs more than 20 million dollars. No one. That should be the highest we allow, and even lower would be better.

I worked for a company in both countries - so I was fortunate enough to use the Blue Card visa. If you can make that work, that lets you work anywhere in the EU which is great for back up.

Path to permanent residency in Germany takes 3 years, low language skill, and a civic test. Will be doing that in 2026.

Citizenship takes 5 years and medium language skill. I’m a bit away from that.

Generally, I think the path to citizenship is fair but the easier they make it the better the country will be (to a point I guess).

Moved to Germany. I feel very welcome here. Theres a very similar political problem growing in Germany, several large political parties that either want things to get only slightly better or a lot worse, and a growing fascist party that wants to enrich themselves by hurting other people. But it doesn’t feel close to the tipping point like the US is, so I still recommend it.

I always feel welcome, except for a drunk white German here and there yelling at me for not knowing the language (I’m working on it, but languages have always been hard for me).

There’s a housing crisis everywhere and immigrants are not the problem, it’s the fact that housing is a financial investment vehicle and the wealthy are only getting wealthier while most everyone else is getting poorer. You’re not oppressing people by moving to their country and paying taxes. You’re the villain if you dodge taxes, are a landlord (and aren’t fighting to tear down the current housing system), or have 5 million+ and aren’t fighting to help people and fix the system.

I think that’s the surface level, rational reading, but I think the realistic reading is it was simply a kickback to fortune 500 companies that got these politicians elected. Haven’t we already funded at least one factory that ended up being smoke and mirrors?

I mean I don’t have a laundry list but like:

• all day battery, doesn’t seem Fairphone hits this exactly. When I’m vacationing I’m using my phone constantly to map and translate and record so it’s the single biggest thing I want in a phone.
• a great camera, until I get a standalone shooter this is what I got. This is a great argument for a Fairphone because it’s on the cheaper side.
• a large screen, ideally the largest I can possibly get. I joke that I won’t be happy until I can unfold a 72 inch OLED from my pocket. So bright, colorful, OLED, fast refresh and variable refresh, and big.
• wireless charging. I really like the idea of the pixel snap feature. That would be a big selling point for me.
• great processor. I don’t play phone games a ton but my current phone turns into a toaster on an idle game and that’s unacceptable. Would like to not worry about performance.
• USB C, think everything has this these days.
• dual speakers, I listen to things when cooking so good speakers are actually nice. All the casting that used to be so easy seems like it’s gotten harder these days.
• if someone other than apple would offer the lidar camera setup they’ve got, or whatever allows them to get a good topographical scan that would be a big selling point.

Again, not really exhaustive, but I’d consider myself a pretty normal consumer with a larger budget and a recognition that I use my phone more than any other device in my life so I might as well make it good.

Fair phone is compelling, especially compared to getting an expensive folding phone, but I’m not sold yet. You guys have definitely given me something to think about though as my screen continues to dim.

Screen is dying, can’t wait for their supposed deal in 26/27 that sounds exciting.

They could have also reread my original message. They could have also commented something meaningful even with the wrong initial reading. They could have asked for clarification, additional context, or anything else useful.

Instead their comment was… Idk how I would describe it. An attempt to insult? An unhelpful observation?

Its the opposite of being an ally, of helping people break from their chains, to misread their position and then write something snarky. Idk, I think people who make online spaces exhausting or worse deserve a few more insults in their life. Especially if they’re not being helpful.

That’s great to hear! Google is a PoS for doing that.

It’s comments like this that make me worried about literacy rates and reading comprehension.

I want to replace my Pixel with a cutting edge phone that is user friendly, repairable, highly private, has all the features I like, and whose company is owned by its workers and not evil.

That phone doesn’t exist.

So now we talk priorities. With Google looking to close down android, I want something more open than stock android. My options are very limited. Graphene only works on the pixel line and not even the newest pixels, which are very underwhelming, so that’s not a great fit. LineageOS doesn’t seem to support any new phones albeit I didn’t cross reference every phone. The nothing phone, and every other competitor, seems lackluster as well.

So I’ve resigned to settling for any phone that’s cutting edge. If this is going to hopefully be my last mega evil corpo phone, I’ve been flirting with going with multiple screens because I doubt in 3 years there will be a non-corpo folding phone option if the normal slabs are still struggling. Samsung only “comes to mind”, and this might surprise or confound you, because we’re commenting on a thread about a Samsung phone.

If anyone has better recommendations for a last corpo phone out now or on the horizon, I’m all ears. And if someone wants to try and convince me there’s a great phone out there that can run a non-stock OS and still be a largely enjoyable experience I’m also ready to be wow’ed. But I’ve looked around a bit and failed to find anything.

I mean I’d love to buddy. When someone releases a phone with all the modern features I want and the best processor and a repairable battery (or any other of the consumer friendly practices we all want) I’ll buy it. But don’t act like I’m choosing to not get the ideal phone when it doesn’t exist. It’s compromises everywhere.

No word on if it’s coming to the EU :(

My pixel 6 is dying and I’d like to get something for graphene or another less monopolized distro but there’s no support for phones released this year as far as I can tell from most distros so I’m looking for one more normal phone until hopefully that ecosystem is better off.

Even the new pixels look weak from several angles It was hard to get want them after all the reviews came in.

Why make this comment encouraging bad behavior? This feels like injected negativity for negativity sake. Idk man, be the change you want to see in your community.

It says there are 200 comments but I can see 2. So my 2 cents, jump onto the easiest instance you can. For me, that was .world. Get on the boat, then reassess when you have more time.

The first jump, reddit to Lemmy, is the hardest. The second is super easy in comparison.

Would also highly recommend kombucha.

Cold, fizzy, relatively healthy as it’s mostly tea by default with probiotics, and you can change up the flavor. The default is kinda tart and vinegary, but then you add (or buy) fruit or herb flavors and you can really find what you personally love.