Maybe it’ll be able to revive some? Though there’s still the issue of smaller communities being fragmented because of being spread across many instances (without any software support to make that easier to work with).

Yeah. I don’t know what these “just post” types think it’s like. I tried making some relatively niche posts early on, trying to spark discussion in communities for some games I was playing. Got a single digit number of comments at most. Sometimes none. Small communities don’t get seen and niche posts in bigger communities are less likely to get votes. It feels very discouraging if you spend 30 minutes to make a post that seemingly nobody even sees.

Some folks here don’t seem to want to hear it because they badly want Lemmy to be better (and I kinda get that), but where niche communities are concerned, Reddit is unfortunately better.

Also, the “jUsT PoSt” replies are acting like everyone wants to post. Not everyone does and we shouldn’t be acting like they’re idiots because they don’t want to be the one to make the posts. It’s perfectly valid to want to read other people’s posts. There’s also some stuff you just can’t post and expect it to work. Eg, I read episode discussions on Reddit. Those can really only take off if you post them immediately when the episode airs. It feels like only Star Trek has those here. For every other show, I just go back to Reddit.

It can be a vicious cycle. Someone raises price for whatever reason. Their competitors see that and think “well, if it works for them, it’ll work for us”. Their suppliers see the price rise and want a share of it, so raise theirs too. New players entering the market will likely set prices based off competition, even if the competition has actually set inflated prices. Eventually even companies that wouldn’t want to raise prices arbitrarily has to because it’s now inflation and their costs have risen.

Even without direct colusion, many companies still end up all following each other.

Why would “something is complicated” mean you can’t have a stance on it? By all means, you should be extra careful with complicated issues, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion or that there aren’t parts that are more clear cut.

Eg, your comment reads to me like you’re conflating Palestine (the largely unrecognized country) and Hamas (the terrorist group). Your Al Qaeda comment certainly reads that way. These groups and the vast majority of people support Palestine, not Hamas. So it’s like sympathizing with Iraq because they got invaded after 9/11.

And the why now is pretty obvious. Because big things are happening now. Yeah, this isn’t the first time Israel and Palestine have faced conflict, but it’s a big time and people are afraid that Israel is going to put a complete end to Palestine this time around. If you don’t speak up now, when will you?

Yeah, in colloquial usage, most people understand that China and Taiwan are two different countries and there’s no confusion over which one is which.

I still use Reddit to read episode discussions of TV shows and such. Those largely don’t exist here, outside of a handful of shows. And probably would struggle to take off even if the threads existed, as they need a lot of people and good SEO.

You definitely don’t need accounts for every instances (as long as you’re not defederated). That sounds like an app bug or something.

Eh, I think we have to recognize that many people using this site are doing things like taking the train, using the bathroom, or waiting on something. That often necessitates browsing to be short.

Yeah, it wouldn’t even make sense for renting to be cheaper than buying. Most renting is from for-profit landlords. Obviously they have a mortgage, too. They’re obviously going to try to make a profit. Plus mortgage is only part of the cost of owning. There’s also property taxes and maintenance, which renting includes in the rent price.

The problems are mostly that there’s not enough supply (most commonly due to bad zoning), homeowners oppose anything that could help (cause that would reduce the value of the home they already own), and that most of these landlords are for-profit. Being for profit means they aren’t just going to charge more, but they also have a vested interest in making sure it’s more expensive and less tenant friendly.

I like the idea of progressively higher taxes. Second house might have a modestly higher tax, but the third will be a steep increase and it only gets higher from there. Anyone who truly wants/needs multiple homes can have em, but they’re gonna pay through the teeth for them (which we can invest into building more homes).

We have such a shortage that IMO any extra home ownership is a problem. But it’s the kind of problem that I don’t think is a concern if they pay sufficient taxes on it. It’s the kind of problem that we can largely throw money at to fix.

Are plastic bags still a thing anymore? I think Ontario banned them, cause I haven’t seen them anywhere. It’s especially awkward if you use Instacart cause they just keep giving you need reusable bags every time. But even before this, they’ve been dwindling for ages, with lots of big chains no longer having em.

Only at places like farmers markets for me, and even then, I’d say at least half of vendors accept credit cards. And frankly I hate using cash. I don’t want to carry physical money around when tapping my phone is so easy.

Heck, this has even been my experience at Walmart. Even the express aisle took an eternity compared to self checkout. I love self checkouts and think they’re great. The complaints about hAvINg To ScAn mY OwN GrOCeriEs are ridiculous. I just want to buy my stuff and get home ASAP. Not like scanning groceries is difficult or anything.

Just wish the self checkouts weren’t so shitty about mis-scans. If you accidentally scan something twice, you usually need to call an employee over. You should be able to do that yourself. If they’re worried about theft, just make the button get flagged for loss protection to scrutinize or something.

Yeah, I had a total of 3 initially and now I’m just down to one, barring an outage of my main instance.

Seriously, who are these people commenting on CBC articles? I don’t usually even look at the comments anymore, simply because any time I did, they were full of the shittiest, dumbest assholes I’ve ever seen. I’m embarrassed to even share a country with people who comment on CBC articles.

By comparison, comments on Reddit and Lemmy are usually okay. Not good by any means (especially in the right leaning mess that was r/Canada), but miles better than CBC’s comments (which I can only assume are completely unmoderated).

The part of the post that stood out to me was this quote:

“Please note that this period could be extended by up to 14 days if you are requested to provide additional information or documentation, or up to 30 days if you are invited to an interview,” the EU has warned on the official ETIAS website.

Even if most people can do it in hours (not sure how much most is – 99.9%? 60%?), that still reads to me like it makes it a case where you can’t count on it for last minute trips or if you forget to do it.

Yeah, the lack of many of my favorite niche communities makes me constantly wonder if I should just “suck it up” and go back to Reddit. I miss so many of them. If I wanna discuss a particular TV show or video game, often I just don’t have much of an option here, cause the community specific to that TV show or game is very likely dead.

We also don’t yet have many interesting text post subs that I liked to read on Reddit, like AITA, Best of Legal Advice, Best of Redditor Updates, Hobby Drama, etc.

Similarly, my local city sub is pretty dead (and never shows up on the front page cause the sorting algorithms suck). So I barely have any local interaction anymore! I met real life people on Reddit and it was great for getting advice from others who live in my city.

The sorting algorithm fixes can’t come soon enough IMO. Small subs are dead because they simply can’t show up on the front page with most of the sorting algorithms that Lemmy has. That limits how much you’ll see in your feed and also makes Reddit a better product (due to all the niche subs it has that actually show up on the front page).

I wonder what’s the reason for the change? The article just mentions vaguely about the EU tightening border security. But is border security from Canada really a concern? Or did we just get swept up in a larger change?

I’m personally of the opinion we should be going the opposite direction. It should be easier to visit, work, and immigrate/emigrate to and from similar countries.

Yeah, it’s gonna really suck for some people who forget to do this well ahead of time. They’ll have to cancel vacations or the likes. Most trips, you currently just bring your passport with you and that’s really it. Nothing to apply to ahead of time.

Hopefully it’s something that airlines will make part of purchasing tickets, so that you can’t forget it. But it seems like this means you basically can’t do last minute trips anymore. If you possibly could have a need to travel to the EU on short notice (eg, you have family there), you probably need to just keep this permit valid all the time. It would really suck to not be able to visit a dying family member because the permit could take weeks.