The same group that’s talked about in the first article has built the highway I’m talking about, but I can’t find an article with a good overview.

Google “developing countries debt trap China” and you’ll find plenty of articles on the overall scheme, these are just some examples from my country.

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/03/13/modus-operandi-chinese-firms-trail-of-debt-labour-exploitation-in-serbia/

https://serbia-business.eu/ssp-criticizes-slow-pace-and-high-costs-of-serbias-milos-veliki-highway-construction/

https://balkaninsight.com/2021/01/26/like-prisoners-chinese-workers-in-serbia-complain-of-exploitation/

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/01/15/us-bans-imports-from-chinese-investor-in-serbia-citing-rights-abuses/

https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/chinas-rush-for-serbias-minerals/

Then we have the tragedy that started off the mass protests to take down the corrupt regime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Sad_railway_station_canopy_collapse

https://chinaobservers.eu/the-novi-sad-railway-station-collapse-the-cost-of-sino-serbian-infrastructure-deals/

If you don’t like my sources, you know what to search for now, this is just what I found quickly.

And you have the audacity to blame them for polluting the environment.

So I should be fine with Chinese companies doing whatever they want in my country?Tire factory releasing toxic waste directly into a river? Not a problem… The absolute ecological destruction from a copper strip mine? It’s an improvement over farmland and forests…

The infrastructure cracking might just be your prejudice, meaning you already believed they would be low quality.

Sure buddy, 16 people dead from a restored roof is my prejudice. A railroad bridge with breaking supports must be my racism. Tofu dreg practices like filling cracked foundations with foam must be the standard in developed countries? Multiple sections of the highway being closed down for renovations less than a month after the opening ceremony? Standard practice. Experts saying a newly opened tunnel will collapse is just panic I guess…

About slave labour, Chinese labour is paid more than Indian labour but I’ve never heard anyone call Indian labour slaves. It implies, it’s just CIA propaganda to bad mouth China. To be fair, their low wage is enough to live a better life than most Americans since everything is so cheap in China.

Read again, PRISON labour. And I don’t need the CIA to see the prison camps with my own eyes, and I most definitely don’t need it to smell the camps in the winter since they have no hot water. Again, standard practice in the developing world, we’re certainly not the first to have imported Chinese prisoners…

But while we’re on the topic of slave labour, we’ve got that too…

https://balkaninsight.com/2021/01/26/like-prisoners-chinese-workers-in-serbia-complain-of-exploitation/

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/03/13/modus-operandi-chinese-firms-trail-of-debt-labour-exploitation-in-serbia/

https://www.euractiv.com/news/european-parliament-denounces-chinese-influence-modern-slavery-in-serbia/

Can you guess which Chinese company was developing the highway I mentioned is using prison labour? You won’t believe it, but it’s the one using slave labour…

Sure, they built a shit load of infrastructure here as well. For example we had the most expensive highway built by Chinese prisoners, and paid for by Chinese loans. It not only started to show wear less then a year in, but there are sections that are literally expected to collapse.

We had the most expensive reconstruction done by Chinese workers, the ceiling collapsed and killed a bunch of people.

And so on, etc…

Now they’re in talks to turn over every remaining national resource to them, to cover a part of the great work they’ve done so far, while Chinese companies are literally releasing unprocessed toxic waste into rivers.

I think I prefer one over the other.

It’s nice to have a preference in the taste of the boot standing on your face…

Yeah it’s great we built the most expensive highway in the world using Chinese prison labour, on Chinese loans, and it’s falling apart less then a year in. It’s perfectly fine that there are a 1000 different schemes draining the budget and literally killing people with tofu dreg construction. I guess we should feel lucky Chinese companies will take over national parks, waterways, and exploit every single resource until there’s only a toxic wasteland left…

Giving all power to China, would corrupt it almost instantly, and turn it into USA V2.

China is already extremely corrupt, they’re simply using militarised corruption instead of a military to exploit developing countries.

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Recognising that both are neoimperialistic powers bent on exploiting thirdworlders is copium?

On one hand USA bombed my country, poisoned the waterways with depleted uranium, and helped war criminals rip a chunk of it off and continue ethnically cleansing people to this day.

On the other, for over a decade China has been helping criminals running the country embezell billions in return for putting us in so much debt who knows how many generations will be paying it off.

Both can go fuck themselves.

You are funny. Pocket is a core value?!?

I know your reading comprehension, or thinking for that matter, is not so good, but try to take the whole sentence and figure out how those examples fit in.

Can’t you handle that? Are you too fragile for that?

Don’t worry, I can handle laughing at you just fine. You seem to be losing it though.

And childish as you are, you assume you know what I’m talking about. That’s just a pathetic move! Learn to debate, and stop lying!

Holy shit, this must be what talking to Trump is like. You see an argument you don’t like, start screaming incoherent nonsense and fake news, mix in a few insults that make you feel superior, and end up thinking you’re debating anything.

I was responding in the context of users paying for access, the same thing OC was talking about. You would then need to create a for-profit entity in order to be able to charge for the use of the app.

Mozilla is more an organisation than a company. It turns profit to work for the free internet

There are 2 organizations, the Mozilla foundation and it’s subsidiary the Mozilla corporation. The corp is a for-profit entity, they’re the ones developing software, and generating revenue (mainly through the Google search deal).

in a world where companies with billions oppose it.

Source? The main opposition to Mozilla are ad agencies, and former employees who think they’ve abandoned their values (pocket, Google, AI, MDN, etc.). Their main opposition in the browser space has been keeping them afloat for years.

But yeah, I’m sure that this federated (which also means an organisation of a sort) will prevail on it’s own. Nice banner you have here - and the following is surely huge! ;-)

Wtf are you talking about? Learn what the federated part of fediverse means.

Also, love how you’re talking shit about federated services on a federated service. You can’t make this up.

And feddit du cost money - the cost is just shared by the ones making and maintaining the serves and software. But hey, keep believing it’s free…

No shit hosting cost money, I was specifically talking about the cost to the end user, the same thing as you…

Matrix is not free. It might be private - who knows for sure? And it’s not used by many…

Lmao

Matrix is a FOSS protocol, and there are multiple FOSS apps using that protocol. You can even host it on your own if you want to be absolutely sure nobody can get any possible metadata. You literally can’t get more sure than that unless you write it yourself…

Where did I write “for profit”? Are you really that clueless? A reasonable price, is what it cost to develop and maintain it, and promote it. You know, just like Mozilla does. It’s not a “for profit” company, it’s an organisation for internet privacy and freedom.

Again, the Mozilla corporation is a for-profit entity, and that’s why they’re able to charge for premium services…

So please stop you lies. That’s a childish way to try to argue!

Do a bit of research instead of spouting nonsense, calling names, and throwing tantrums. It’s not very mature.

But what we need is for someone like Mozilla to make a messaging app

Hoping for a company to make a chat app

And at a reasonable price…

Are we paying for fediverse services? Are there any companies involved?

Privacy isn’t free - if anyone should be in doubt.

Matrix is federated, private, and free…

What exactly did I make up? Were you hoping for a company to make a for-profit federated app?

You’re commenting on federated social media that you’re hoping some company will create a centralised chat app… Use a matrix client my dude.

You missed the overpriced and underpowered part. In the EU, the pinephone pro cost 600€, the same as the fairphone 6, and it’s significantly worse in every single way. Even if it actually worked, who in their right mind would pay that much for a device that’s going to run out of ram as soon as you open a few tabs in Firefox?

They base a lot of their development on the community though. So if the community isn’t up to it, then virtually no one at Pine64 is.

I doubt they’ll be fixing anything since they seem to have stopped selling them.

Also, if we go by their track record with the pinetime, PRs fixing basic functionality will be left open for years. Like how they can’t be bothered to accept fixes allowing the stopwatch to run in the background and not reset when you get a notification, let alone QoL improvements like being able to tell the time on your watch while the stopwatch is running.

I was on board the Fairphone hype, and while I think they have a good message, I actually think Pine64 does exactly what they do - just without the flashy marketing.

Exactly what they do, except it’s not a functional product. “Overpriced, underpowered, and half-finished” is the motto of pine64.

My NixOS config works this way

nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade for system package upgrades and config changes

home-manager switch for user package updates and config changes

Great points about learning, but I’m just explaining what my original comment was about: daily experience of using a distro and reliability.

For me arch installation was the most educational Linux experience since after 10+ years of using Linux, that was the first time I clearly understood each part of the system. But tbh that knowledge has so far been mostly academic - knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

All this comparing and inter-distro warring seems pointless.

It’s got a point when every thread has people recommending arch, even when it’s not relevant in any way. We’re talking about arch in a thread about a nixos guide after all.

But there is in nixos you donkey…

There’s not a lot of competition in the bleeding edge rolling distro space, so I think it’s fair to compare them. Especially since you’re not forced to make it reproducible.

I wouldn’t suggest either to beginners either though.