NO.

This is so confusing. There are many free things where you are not "the product". We make many, see https://www.tromsite.com and https://trom.tf.

I wish people would stop saying this about google and the like. There is a simple and to the point way of describing these "free" services. They are TRADE-BASED. You have to trade something to them, in order to use their services.

In the same way that when you go to a supermarket you have to trade your currency for what you grab from it, you have to trade your attention (ads) or data to Google when you go on their platform. Currency, attention, data.

S I M P L E

We live in a TRADE-BASED society where pretty much everything is trade-based. Money is just a currency we invented, but trades go without currency as well.

We spent more than a decade trying to shed some light on this confusion.

Documentary - https://www.tromsite.com/documentaries/trom2/
Book - https://www.tromsite.com/books/#flipbook-the-origin-of-most-problems-1/1/

So when you create something entirely free, simply call it TRADE-FREE.

S I M P L E 😀

#tutanota #free #foss #google #capitalism #trade #trade-based #trade-free #trom #tromsite #privacy #youtube

This is why we gave up Youtube officially:

YouTube will cut parts from your video now. Imagine that. In this case it is from a TROM II snippet that @Alexio shared on our "legacy" YouTube channel. Mind you the documentary is free for everyone and also educational, so in a sane world it should be fair use for whatever media we've used.

We are so thankful that @PeerTube exists! We can post all of our videos on our Peertube channel https://videos.trom.tf/c/trom/videos without being afraid that anything will be banned or cut out.

And to no surprise Facebook does the same:

Banned the same video in several countries....

Basically we are not using YouTube or Facebook anymore since 2 years ago. Only @Alexio and @Georgi post there from time to time, mirroring our Friendica or Peertube. We do that since there are still many people following TROM on those platforms unfortunately. We are always trying to bring them to the fediverse and to these sane platforms, but change is hard...

So for now at least if some of our content can be mirrored to these trade-platforms while encouraging those following us there to change their online habits and use these other trade-free alternative platforms, then so be it.

But it is another reminder of the stupidity of our world, emerged from the practice of trade where even the reproducible at no cost digital content is "owned" and traded, so that ideas like copyright are invented to protect them. Terrible.

Te digital is abundant so we should not even put restrictions in place. But you can't do that in a trade society since so many would take advantage of that for their own gain.

#TradeRuinsEverything #capitalism #copyright #facebook #youtube #tromlive

If by the end of this year we cannot get at least 70-80% of the funding we need for TROM, see https://www.tromsite.com/donate/, then we will have to shut down and limit many of our projects. This is unfortunate but there is no way we can support so many projects, let alone grow them.

If we cannot find 200 people to donate 5 Euros a month to support the many projects that we have, then perhaps it is a sign that some things have to end. In particular TROM.tf that provides a video platform with unlimited uploads for everyone, a file hosting with 10GB of diskspace for anyone who joins, a social network and a chat platform opened for the public. Plus more such services. They will have to close, or solely be available for us at TROM to host our stuff.

I will give you more details these following weeks about what projects will be shut down in case our campaign fails by the end of this year.

There will probably be a video series that I will start for TROM in a few weeks time, but unless I find enough support to help me battle this trade-based society, then I cannot do much. TROM.tf costs a lot of money and it will cost us more and more, the more people use it. We need more diskspace, more CPU power, and such.

It is unfortunate but I need to be realistic and deal with these things in a graceful way. If I am to remove many of our projects, they will be done in a smooth way, landing the plane rather than crashing it. So do not worry. You'll have enough time to move to different platforms and save your files.

In the meantime I will work this year to make these projects better, keep them updated, release new things. I will give them my best shot to hopefully get enough financial support in order to continue with them.

10 months to decide. 10 months to get the needed financial support. 10 months to try once more. 😀

Tio

#TradeRuinsEverything #Capitalism #trade #tromlive

The privatisation of nature

So, if a plant breeder like Morton develops his own variety of lettuce and the lettuce matches any of the traits of a patented variety – whether it be color, the curliness of the leaf or a trait that makes it conducive to a particular climate – the breeder is technically in violation of patent law and risks getting sued by the patent owner. There are utility patents for “Brilliant White Cauliflower”, “Pleasant Tasting Melons”, “Red Lettuce” and “Heat Tolerant Broccoli”. Some patents are so extensive in what they cover that they are nearly 50 pages long.

“They are essentially just doing obsessive-compulsive descriptions of plants and laying claims to those traits, so if anyone else has those traits, they are in violation,” Morton said.

The US patent system was designed to encourage competition and promote innovation. However, the patent system has opened the door for large corporations to patent thousands of plant varieties and traits, locking up genetic resources seed savers have relied on for generations.

Today, just four companies – Bayer, DowDupont/Corteva, ChemChina-Syngenta and BASF – control over 60% of the seed market worldwide.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/plant-patents-large-companies-intellectual-property-small-breeders

#capitalism #agribusiness #food

Here's Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) on the *permanence* of wealth disparity in the USA...
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The factual: America is not a bootstrap-friendly land. If you have money in America, chances very good are you inherited it.

American wealth is now dynastic, perpetuating itself and growing thanks to a whole Versailles' worth of courtiers: money managers, lawyers, and overpaid babysitters who can keep even the most Habsburg-jawed nepobaby in turnip-sized million-dollar watches and performance automobiles and organ replacements for their whole, interminable lives.

But it's not just that the American rich stay rich – it's that the American poor stay poor. America is a world-trailing loser in the international social mobility league-table. If you change classes in America, chances are you're a middle class person becoming poor, thanks to medical costs or another of the American debt-traps; or you're a poor person who is becoming a homeless person thanks to America's world-beating eviction mills.

As a factual matter, America just isn't the land of bootstraps; it's a land of hereditary aristocrats. Sustaining the American narrative of meritocracy requires a whole culture industry, novels and later movies that constitute a kind of state religion for Americans – and like all religious tales, the American faith tradition is riddled with gaps and contradictions.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/

#Politics #USA #Capitalism #Inequality