All of these things can be true, all without a subscription.

Not having revenue certainly makes it impossible to sustain a business to work on a service, without some other kind of monetization path, like ads, or data harvesting and sale.

VPNs do exist, but still.

I started to think this after seeing the bills from multiple visits, where it's often broken out, in detail, what they had done. It's probably not as bad as that, there probably is some record-keeping happening in there. But considering how overworked most doctors are in the public health system, and how little time is commonly allocated for each patient, it can feel a bit like you didn't actually interact with a human doctor.

* In March 2019, Prince George's County, Maryland, police arrested Abrego Garcia and three other men in a Home Depot parking lot, where they were seeking work as day laborers.[2][19] One of the men claimed Abrego Garcia was a "gang member," but The Atlantic reported that, according to court filings, the man offered no proof and police said they did not believe him.[19] Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime in connection to his arrest.[20]

Police handed custody of Abrego Garcia over to ICE for deportation proceedings. In those proceedings, the government claimed that he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang because "he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie" and a confidential informant claimed that he was active with an MS-13 group based in New York,[2] where he has never lived.[16] ICE relied on information from a form that was filled out by a local police officer who was suspended not long after for "giving confidential information about a case to a sex worker", and thus was unavailable when Abrego Garcia's lawyer sought more information.[21] Roger Parloff of Lawfare notes that since neither the officer nor the informant were cross-examined, the accusation went through two layers of hearsay to reach the immigration court. An immigration judge determined that the informant's claim[22] was sufficient evidence for the purpose of denying Abrego Garcia's bond request; another judge upheld that ruling on appeal, saying the claim was not clearly wrong.[18] However, no court has ever made a "full adjudication" of this issue.[18] *

The evidence of him being a member of MS13 is dubious at best, and suspicious since he and his brother had fled to the US to escape gangs in El Salvador.

He didn't fail to deport, he applied for asylum and withholding of removal during the process. Asylum wasn't possible because it needed to be applied for within a year of arriving, but he was granted withholding of removal, which he'd maintained by checking in yearly with ICE since 2019.

For most bands in these cases, their primary revenue came from record sales, touring at this level was very expensive, and was usually promotional rather than a revenue stream. They weren't renting big buses, they didn't have roadies. They're touring to promote their new record.

For these bands, this period was devastating. Before there was a Bandcamp, before streaming services. Yes, it could be seen like radio where some people used Napster as a way to preview artists.. but not everyone did.

Major labels were able to live through the transition, they're like venture capitalists, as long as they have enough huge and profitable artists, they can offset losses. But that's not true for anybody but them.

I saw it. I was working in the music industry from 1999 to 2010, as a musician, working with independent record labels, and in recording studios. It did not lift all boats, I promise you.

This is demonstrably false. Napster and it's ilk did hurt people. It did not focus it's upset only on the 'entrenched asymmetric power structures in the music industry,' it also affected small business and independent musicians, arguable more so, since they weren't as well funded to adapt to the disruption.

In terms of the 'crucial development leading to iTunes.. Spotify,' how have these not become the newly entrenched asymmetric power structures? Bandcamp is a notable exception, and I don't think Napster in anyway contributed to it's development, except for the fact that it might have been a way to distribute your own music. But that wasn't it's primary use.

I realize this is incredibly fortunate, and I'm going to take the opportunity to do something a bit different. I'm going to try to pursue a new direction in my career, with the goal of starting my own mini-company. But, I'm also trying to be very realistic, and setting some contingency goals. Since I'll be focusing on learning some new skills, Plan B is to build a portfolio as I learn, and if I can't meet the goal of starting my own company, I'd like to start contracting with my new skills. Or.. Plan C is to get a job using my new skills, and at least I'm able to pivot my career in a new direction.

I'm not too worried about the lack of a line in my resume, I'll plan to document what I'm doing this year in public, on a blog, and on Github, and find some way to describe it on my resume.