Lol, Diesel can on average only be stored for 6 to 12 months before degrading. Good luck with that.
If a collapse ever happens I’d rather have solar panels and an EV. Fuel production and transport would instantly grind to a halt and the existing fuel goes bad soon after.
Damn, they are getting younger and younger. Just recently a 13 year old drilled into a patient during brain surgery in Austria /s
Facebook doesn’t make phones.
Oh, I fully understand you, I just hate the idea.
Yes, they could work out a pretense of “One China” while staying separate and just adding a trade deal on top. Just as Ukraine agreed to be independent, give up their nuclear weapons and live in peace with Russia, having guarantees they wouldn’t be attacked.
Sorry, but the only thing I’d accept is China declaring Taiwan as its own independent country. They can add a trade deal on top or whatever else they want to sweeten the deal, but that’s what it takes. As long as China keeps up the idea that Taiwan belongs to them this is never going to work out.
“One Country, Two Systems”: Hong Kong, along with Macau, are the only territories in the People’s Republic of China to supposedly enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” and freedom under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle as guaranteed by the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law.
Hong Kong even has their own government (which was undermined by the CCP), of course it’s relevant.
Taiwan would first become a puppet of China, then forcefully gets fully integrated. There won’t be any independence, especially not economic independence as China wants the chip factories.
How well the diplomatic solution of “One China, while keeping their autonomy” works could be seen with Hong Kong. Lol.
Free Hong Kong, fuck the CCP.
Taiwan should be an independent country, full stop.
It already reduced the services severely. The included Amazon Music sucks if you don’t pay extra. The included Amazon Video has ads now. And Prime gaming has reduced the offers.
While YouTube premium gives you full access to YouTube music and 1080p Enhanced Bitrate video quality. I only got it for the music, no ads on TVs is a bonus (Already had an adblocker for phone/PC).
Amazon has around 310 million active users. Amazon has 230 million Prime subscribers, even though it costs up to $15 a month. Yes, those include cheaper student subscriptions of course, but still.
Of course 30% is optimistic, but the average people I know happily watch those fucking ads. And don’t even complain about unskipable double ads. They don’t like them, they’re still too lazy to install an ad blocker as long as they get their content. Each one of them would absolutely shell out 5 bucks to continue watching (it’s less than a single beer when you go out).
There is no diplomatic solution except one: China recognizes Taiwan as an independent country.
That’s it, done, this is the only solution to this whole fuckery. If that happens the US could just bugger off (well, if we hope China keeps its word and doesn’t suddenly attack afterwards). What other damn solution is there?
You underestimate how addicted people are to YouTube. There is no alternative to it.
Twitch is streaming focused, the vods absolutely suck. Kick? Same.
What else is there? TikTok? Instagram? Neither of which provide long high quality videos.
After all we are talking about YouTube literally blocking everyone and putting up a banner: $5 a month or you’re out of luck. If someone already happily pays $18 a month for Netflix, what is 5 bucks?
It would be a huge gamble, but it could pay off. Seriously, how many people are watching YouTube every day? Hours of their favorite content creators.
Imagine a rug pull, YouTube is now a pay only service. No ads, but everyone has to pay $5 a month to access. I’d bet with you that a surprising amount of people would just pay that to continue using it.
How many? Nobody knows, but it would certainly be 30% or higher. Now imagine 30% of users paying just $5 a month how much money that would be.
It can be done, YouTube just doesn’t do it right now as they still earn plenty with ads. If suddenly everyone started to use an ad blocker then things would change very quickly.
Collapse what exactly? It would actually reduce strain on their servers and provide a better experience for paying users. Obviously they won’t do it because there’s a ton of users who watch ads (think of the average guy who plays YouTube on their phone or TV, with zero adblocking).
The US is only there because Taiwan wants them there. If they have an election and elect a party who is against US involvement they can mostly just kick them out. But right now they are pro US.
Dude, they have their fucking chip factories rigged to self-destruct in case China invades. They don’t trust China even a tiny bit, peaceful solution my ass.
Just the way I described, I’m a software developer, it would be easy as hell.
Your browser requests the video, YouTube decides you have to watch an ad. The ad has 15 seconds unskipable. So the easiest thing they could do is not send you video data for 14 seconds (add a spare second for buffering to not piss off users who do watch ads).
Doesn’t matter if you call some endpoint, load the ad data, whatever. You’re not receiving any video for a while, which would piss people off enough to leave.
I still hold the opinion that they could absolutely block you out. I use uBlock Origin and there was actually a time where I got blocked/warnings every day. Even with upgrading my plugin / refreshing all block lists.
At some point I finally gave in and grabbed YouTube Premium, not because of the ads (I’d rather stop watching than watch with ads), but because I needed their music service (Used Amazon Music before, the app sucked. Music quality was the highest out there though. Also cancelled Prime for a double whammy).
For example the moment an ad gets triggered they could just refuse to send you video data. And if the ad is an unskipable 15 seconds, block playback for 15 seconds. Done. Even if you block this, you get 15 seconds of nothing and will soon be pissed off enough to either start watching ads, buy Premium or leave (no longer costing them bandwidth).
Against it, Israel behaves like a Nazi state (and I say that as an Austrian). The whole situation there is ultra fucked though. Like having someone on live TV say they are okay with raping prisoners (“they deserve it”), their only problem with it is that it’s not put into law that torturing and raping them is okay.
Israel wants the land for themselves, so they’ll only be satisfied by killing or moving everyone away (and they are going at it like absolute bastards).
Palestinians just want to be left alone / get seen as a valid state with rights. And have secured water/food/power.
Here is the problem: Israel has done so much shit, even if they stop immediately, open borders, agree Palestine is its own country with rights, … there are so many Palestinians out for blood who want revenge. So what will happen? Someone in Hamas lashes out, new terror act, back to square one. Hamas is useful for Israel, receive one terror act, return by bombing half a city block, it’s a nice excuse.
Obviously I don’t have a solution for it, but stopping to give Israel money/weapons would be a good step.
Totally fine by me! But by your logic you can’t get mad at them if they block you from watching due to using an ad blocker. Which brings us back to square one?
That’s a weird way to look at it, obviously you’re watching the content.
I’d rather see it like this:
Free tier with ads
Subscription without ads (and better quality)
You are currently on the free tier. Yes, you can block ads (just like you can pirate movies), but that’s not the deal you were offered. I’m using an ad blocker myself, but I can understand the corporate side too.
They absolutely could add a hard paywall, but why should they if there are plenty of users who want to watch for free by paying with ads?
China sees Taiwan as China. There are no “diplomatic solutions”. China is only satisfied when Taiwan belongs to them.
This is the same moronic bullshit like not wanting to deliver weapons to Ukraine because war is bad, it raises tensions or whatever.
The way to lower tensions is for Russia to stop their attack war, if Ukraine gives in there will be no Ukraine afterwards.
If China wants reduced tensions all they have to do is forfeit their claim that Taiwan belongs to them. If Taiwan gives in there won’t be any Taiwan afterwards.
Is this so difficult to understand?
The US backs Taiwan because you’d have no more computers (without Chinese backdoors) otherwise.
Mate, we are talking about a societal collapse. You won’t have oil available and you won’t be able to refine your own diesel at home (especially without energy).
Your argument about solar panels being difficult to produce is utterly out of place. Your diesel generator and your car are more difficult to produce, but you already own them from before the downfall. So if you own an EV and you own solar panels then it doesn’t matter how difficult those are to produce when you’re just using them.