2/19/2026 at 8:39:31 PM
It seems crazy and impossible now, but imagine this notion: Software should serve the needs of the user.Software that does things the user doesn't want, like try to trick money out of him, waste his bandwidth, or fill his screen with unwanted ads used to have a name: Malware. We've redefined that term to mean when a non-BigTech firm does those things, but the definition used to be functional, not attributional.
RMS warned us of this day, and now it is here. You don't control your data or the code that operates upon it. That would've sucked in 1990, but since then, we've migrated our entire lives into that code/data. The degree to which it embodies your very existence is the degree to which you have lost control over your life, which for most of us is total. You lost that control but it didn't disappear; it is now owned by someone else, commoditized and exchanged, redirected and engineered. Enjoy the ride if you can, because you're just in the passenger seat.
by bm3719
2/19/2026 at 9:46:26 PM
Recently they removed the ability to search by date. And on Maps they drastically reduced the info shown to non-logged in users.by cachius
2/19/2026 at 8:43:50 PM
Would it be better if youtube removed the free, ad supported version entirely, and only allowed paid users?by jagraff
2/19/2026 at 10:10:17 PM
There is no free Google product. You pay for all of them with your data, your privacy, and your attention.Your data is worth far more to them than a $13/month subscription fee. In fact, if you do pay it, the data becomes even more valuable, because you're now guaranteed to always be logged in. You're also likely to use it more to get more "value" out of your purchase, generating even more value (for them). Finally, you've also identified yourself as the kind of person that pays for things that should be actually free.
Worse than all of this, when you use Google (or any of these malware/spyware companies), thanks to network effects, you don't just pay for it with your freedom, you pay for it with some of everyone else's too.
by bm3719
2/19/2026 at 9:25:05 PM
yeah, as it would open up the marketby blibble
2/19/2026 at 8:49:12 PM
It would be better if there was a better value proposition, instead of “pay to get what we removed”.It’s not as though free users listening with the app in the background is somehow an additional marginal expense as opposed to them listening with the app in the foreground.
by nkrisc
2/19/2026 at 9:20:27 PM
It actually is a marginal expense. There are two main reasons.For music videos there are different licensing terms for listening vs music videos. So if they don't appease the licenser than their contract will be less favourable.
And of course ads will pay less for people who aren't looking (although his is technically lost revenue, not an expense).
by kevincox
2/19/2026 at 9:38:16 PM
It actually is an addition marginal expense. They have to pay for infrastructure and possibly licensing fees.by rmah