Great write up. It bothers me a lot when I see people suggest that supporting Ukraine is imperialist and therefore bad, and that Russia’s aggression should simply be accepted. Judging the actions of any entity based on what category you can put it into is dumb as hell when you can judge it on its merit instead.

Oi, just a heads up as you don’t seem to use it in a negative way, but

is considered a slur these days. Calling someone trans or transgendered is preferred.

History disagrees with you. The truth is that regular protests can be ignored, and voting may not always be very accessible (in non-democracies or because of voter suppression) or effective as a means to achieve change where you live (the US and similar countries because of first past the post voting systems). Direct action is absolutely a necessary and important tool for democracies to be functional whatsoever, and is in fact part of how we ensure good workplace conditions and good wages here in Norway (we have regular strikes as part of bargaining with businesses and the state). Hoping and waiting for things to improve is at best a recipe for nothing to happen.

It seems you think that disruptive protests need to be violent or damaging? Strikes are disruptive and harmless and very effective at changing things for the better.

Pretty sure each of the companies selling smart home systems like this want to become the dominant go to system, so focusing on earning profits doesn’t make much sense. You want to lure customers into your ecosystem and for your solution to become so dominant you become a monopoly, or at least so you don’t fall behind and let someone else become ubiquitous. I view it as amazon building infrastructure and supporting future endeavors.

I haven’t heard about piefed before, but I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as well. Thanks!

This sounds familiar! I think this is it! Thank you very much

Dunno? More moderation tools in general. Lemmy mods regularly complain about a lack of tools, but I’ve never moderated anything so I wouldn’t know. The project page probably describes what additional tools it has which is one of the things I’m interested in reading about.

Perhaps some moderators can chime in with what kinda stuff they miss or want?