At this point I'm just waiting for someone to dig up a name associated with Roblox in the Epstein files, because that's the only way I can conceive of how they've managed to avoid getting shut down this long.

Minecraft (Mojang/Microsoft) have also made it clear that with them moving from OpenGL to Vulcan they're maintaining the ability for Minecraft to run on Mac as well as Windows/Linux, which is fantastic.

My bet is that the real different lies in mobile devices - iPads/tablets and phones are something that kids have more access to than laptops or desktops, and lots of people don't bother with parental controls.

[0] - https://prismlauncher.org/

I'm able to set it up so that my SO and I can view all the pictures taken by the other (mostly cute photos of our dog and kid, but makes it easier to share them with others when we don't have to worry about what device they're on), have it set to auto-backup, and routed through my VPS so it's available effectively worldwide.

The only issue that I run into is a recent one, which is hard drive space - I've got it on a NAS/RAID setup with backups sent to another NAS at my parents' place, but it's an expensive drive replacement in current market conditions.

Saying you don't see an individual motive here to do anything just says that you don't see how interconnected everyone is in modern society.

I'm optimistic at the response from the EU on tech investment, but I haven't seen them put their money where their mouth is yet. If they want to poach talent from the US they'll also have to figure out an work visa path that makes it easier to move there (bureaucratically, like the classic "you need a phone number to sign up for a bank account, you need a bank account to rent an apartment, you need an address to sign up for a phone number") and direct investments away from the US and into local tech providers in support of infrastructure and development (that isn't AI related datacenters).

Because someday Valve may no longer be privately owned, and we're potentially back where we started. If we support having strong OSS ecosystems around computers we don't have to fight this battle over and over again.

Valve slow-rolling SteamOS and being coy about it ever being released as a "standalone, supported" OS is only because they're a private company and can build for open source ecosystems.

[0] - https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/understanding-memetics

Locally, within Italy I can see the argument that CF can be compelled to adhere to blocking sites for any requests originating from, or being routed to Italy - so long as Cloudflare maintains any kind of presence there. That goes for any other country, too.

Realistically maintaining this kind of work puts a financial and engineering overhead on Cloudflare (or any CDN) for running operations in that country, and that incentivizes Cloudflare to push back on this request from any country. The logical response from CF is to refuse and threaten to remove all operations from the country if the country tries to force the issue, to prevent CF from getting pulled into the same requirements for multiple other countries, which is exactly what CF did a couple days ago.

I'll reiterate my previous stance - if a country wants to block part of the internet, that country needs to do it themselves and for the space within which they have authority to do so (their borders). At that point it's up to the citizens of the country to push back if they disagree, and if they don't want to be compared to China and their Great Firewall they shouldn't try and regulate the internet.

I'm disappointed in the availability of self-hosted alternatives for personal use right now, but businesses don't really have an excuse.

Similar to the UK's attempt to try and get noncompliant sites like Imgur and 4chan to block themselves from serving content to UK locations, I think the responsibility for country-wide blocks lies with the country attempting to regulate the space, not CDNs or websites.

I don't doubt that Italy is correct that CF has the technical ability do a local block like they're asking for, but I also don't see how CF is in any way (legally) compelled to do so. Whether or not Italy (or any country) is capable of doing so, or paying contractors for an appropriate solution, isn't CF's problem either.

The last Windows computer that I have is my work laptop, which is an acceptable compromise as far as I"m concerned.

When prices are going nuts and the economy is tanking the option that doesn't cost you money starts to look a lot more appealing, and for some the first isn't even an option; they're completely priced out of the new market for the foreseeable future.

I think there's a good point to be made here that this isn't micromanaging, it's bypassing feedback layers that have a tendency to filter out critical or important information. That information may or may not be withheld intentionally, but being Bill Gates and seeing that a crucial tool to help a customer doesn't work very fast, or is missing information, or relies on "hacks" (tribal knowledge on how to bypass restrictions or flags) to keep the support process going would be something that wouldn't filter upwards easily.

Definitely a balance to be had though for sure.