Hey mate, so this comment is just not productive. I’m going to be a little hyperbolic here: if everyone alive is being advertised to then your “unrelated ways companies making suckers out of their customers” comment isn’t correct or honest. It’s the norm, everyones going through it is totally related.
I talked about companies that lock you into their ecosystems and force you to have a stake in their business model. They do this for two reasons: you make money and they want it, and if you spend your money elsewhere they don’t get it. Name one phone manufacturer that isn’t stealing your data. Name one social media app that isn’t spyware. Name one online store, review site or fucking cooking blog that isn’t loaded with ad trackers and cursor monitoring shit that tells you to subscribe as soon as you go to close the tab.
Sure some smaller examples exist (I love lemmy, this place is awesome), sure I can download a free open source os, or just install an:
Adblocker User agent spoofer Anti track-sender Set my browser to stop allowing targeted ads or download a privacy browser
but everyone is still stuck using the other products in some capacity just the same. I’m happy for you if you fall outside this, seriously. However, most people do not. We are stuck and it’s because we got prayed upon. So yeah, everyone is the product. Always. No exceptions.
After 3-4 years of using python I’m bumping you up to a 7 so I can fit in at a 5. Congrats on your upgrade. I’ve never contributed to open source but I’ve fixed issues in publocly archived tools so that they aren’t buggy for my team. I can see errors and know what likely caused them and my code literacy is decent. That being said, I think I’m far from advanced.