I don't think that's how most pirates, myself included, see it. It's not about "needing" to see the mandalorian, it's simply about wanting to see it, but if the only way to see it "legally" is to make a monthly subscription for a service that offers me no other value, offered by a company I don't want to support, I'm not doing that. And the thing is that it doesn't have to be this way - I happily paid for Netflix for years, before content started being fragmented. As a wise man once put it, piracy is a service problem, not a price problem.
Same with Youtube - it's not the ads, it's the endless amount, the annoying implementations, and non-creator-friendly practices. They're not doing ads in order to keep the servers running - they simply need to find new ways to squeeze every cent of profit quarter after quarter, and I'm not playing that game.
This only applies to big corps though - if you pirate indie content and don't even make a donation to the artist, you're an ass.
I have to say I find this somewhat curious. Why is Musk aligning with Putin? I don't think it's just to echo Trump, but I also don't see how it's in his interest to do so. Being pro-russian is not exactly popular among Americans, across the whole political spectrum, and neither it is among allied nations. Does Putin have some kind of insane leverage, or what's in it for Musk?
Is he just so deep in his delusion that the world is his own shitposting messageboard that he's too busy being edgy to realize he's committing suicide?
the inherent act of doing so confirms that something was classified information.
Does it? You can investigate to verify if there was a "leak" - aka some communication happened, and if it did, whether it was classified or just a dick pic
Can anyone argue this is not a great idea? Even by being devil's advocate, I genuinely can't see any reasons why this would be worse than it currently is for anyone. 1 Billion still grants you A LOT of luxury and influence, just about as much as any single human should reasonably ever need or desire. And the best part is that we wouldn't even need to pretend to be impressed! Imagine a parallel universe where Nole Ksum "contributed" 400 fucking billions to improving infrastructure, healthcare, and research. Wouldn't you actually like the guy who has made the world, or at least your side of it, measurably better?
Activists and strategists argue Democrats must shift from defending institutions to telling human-centered stories that resonate emotionally.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Stop treating your parties as if they were companies. These marketing terms make me sick. "Human centered stories that resonate emotionally"? What about thinking about the humans and the emotions they are feeling such as fear and desperation?
What, do you expect us to engage in good faith with this kind of bullshit?