That’s what different instances are for, although a lot of big instances do this kind of blanket ban. Maybe you just have to run your own instance.

Sync for Reddit and Sync for Lemmy are separate, so the license and all don’t transfer. You’ll see ads sooner or later if you didn’t do anything to block it.

Although I do not agree with your opinion above, but I think your opinion is valid and you don’t deserve the downvotes.

My opinion is that Sync and Lemmy are two different things with two different philosophies. Yes they are interconnected, but they are both separate entities, and it’s not like Sync is built off of Lemmy’s source code. The dev should get compensated for the time and resources he put into the source code of Sync, and if ads is a way to contribute to that, then so be it.

Uhm, then don’t pay? No one is forcing you to pay or even use Sync. I don’t think it’s worth it for me too at this moment to pay that much for an app to browse Lemmy (because in my opinion it’s still riding the hype train, it’s long term future is still to be determined). So I accept that I will have to see ads.

Sync is an app by a private developer, who has his own rights to set the price for something he produced. He can put the price at 100€ and still no one has the right to whine about it. If you think it’s not worth it, then don’t buy it. It’s not like you need this to survive.

What the fuck are you talking about? When did he ask you to pay anything before the app is released?

Yes. As with all too good to be true things, even if it’s true, people will abuse it and force to be not true anymore.

That’s not Lidarr’s fault though. Lidarr gets the data from MusicBrainz, and MusicBrainz is very community driven. So if no one adds data to it, they won’t have the data automatically.

Also, the music piracy scene is just not as standardised as movie and TV shows. It’s hard to automate when every releaser uses different naming format.

There’s a reason why they insist that you all get MATLAB, and it’s because of compatibility. Like you’ve mentioned in your story, there’s one function that wasn’t working on Octave. If they don’t standardise and let every student decide themselves which software they want to use, every different software will probably have different incompatibility and different functions will be broken on different software and a lot of resources would need to be spent on debugging for all the different softwares out there.

There’s no reason that standard should be MATLAB though.

It’s like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn’t control the platform.

You complain that I’m not comparing like to like, yet you’re taking Windows, a closed sourced operating system, as an analog to AOSP, an open sourced one?

This is both because of differentiation

But why are other OEMs allowed to differentiate, and Google is not?

Yes, Google has the “official control” of how Android should be, and not all OEM changes are in line with that. But contributing upstream is not the only way to make the Android ecosystem open.

Take for example, Galaxy Watch with WearOS. There are multiple features that the watch can do, ONLY IF ITS PAIRED WITH A GALAXY PHONE. I have a Galaxy Watch 4. It has ECG and Blood Pressure sensors. But I can’t use it (officially), because I don’t have a Galaxy phone. Why? Because Samsung is keeping that exclusive with a software lock that totally doesn’t have to be there. Measuring ECG and Blood Pressure doesn’t need anything from my phone, it’s all on the watch.

Another example also regarding using Galaxy Watch with a non Galaxy phone, which is even more absurd, is that if you’re using a Galaxy Watch with Galaxy phone, they will sync DND status between them, but if you’re not using a Galaxy phone, it’ll not sync. They literally added codes for it to not work on non Galaxy phone.

Also, the example you used in your original comment, the call screening feature, uses language models that Google paid for the development and trained. I think it’s fair for them to uses that technology that they invested in to help boost their own profit instead of just giving out for free.

Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.

Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don’t. Instead, they keep the features to their own devices. A lot of times when there’s a new feature on Android in general, more often than not you’ll see comments like “Samsung had this since years ago”.

So if other OEMs are allowed to have platform specific features, Google is allowed to have theirs too. Or in other words, if you want to hold Google responsible for holding back Android, you have to also hold other OEMs responsible too.