Since I have found it historically hard to engage on this (broader) subject around here, just yesterday I put together my own thoughts at https://loudwhisper.me/blog/proton-fediverse-burnout/

Personally, I did not see the value of their Mastodon presence, it was write only marketing communication, no engagement with the community anyway. That happened only ever on Reddit, which I think is going to continue being the case.

They push the same info via email newsletter, if someone really wants that stuff.

Either way, the post above covers my take on the whole drama, not just this last small chapter.

I think the benefits of federation is discoverability. I can spin up my gitea or forgejo (or something else!) Instance, but when people look for code in their instances, they can still discover my public repositories, and if they want to contribute, they can fork and open PRs from their instances.

So yeah, it means mostly you can selfhost and provide space to others, but with the same benefits that right now github offers (I.e., everything is there).

Been there...

I thought my API keys were expired, I regenerated them, changed a couple of things, checked all API calls to see if they changed API itself...then I searched the exact error and found out.

For such a breaking change to the API, was it hard to drop an email to every account not meeting the damn "requirements" with an API call performed in the last x months, to alert of the change?

$20/month for a service that anyway is low traffic (especially for hobbyists) is a completely insane price. Even more insane is that their cheapest subscription still doesn't offer any API access. I agree anyway, but are these staying in business just because they have a consolidated market share? Do they have access to more TLDs? I don't know, I am genuinely confused. I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to even think of using GoDaddy again.

NameCheap

WOW! I did not know that. I just checked and after a little search:

We have certain requirements for activation to prevent system abuse. In order to have API enabled, your account should meet one of the following requirements:

- have at least 20 domains under your account;
- have at least $50 on your account balance;
- have at least $50 spent within the last 2 years

$50 in last 2 years is not much, but for those who renew for many years, it is still stupid.

Ironically, Namecheap is what the people in https://github.com/navilg/godaddy-ddns/issues/32 migrated to!

I really wish that domain registration was done in a different way, but even in current scenario, gutting features for such a basic service to extract a few bucks and risking losing customers...?

Thanks! I went and tried on my phone and indeed setting Firefox to light mode indeed causes that horrendous and unreadable result. I will need to figure out way, eventually, and provide an alternative light scheme.

How do you get this? Anything that tries to force a light mode?

This is how the site is supposed to look like (there is no light/dark theme selection):

Thanks!

But I have to think the massive costs of cloud junk also pay a role in stuff like a calendar charging double digit annual fees for something that takes very little storage and very little computation (and you of course can’t just buy software any more).

Absolutely agree. I did not even think about this aspect, but I think you are absolutely spot on. Building something with huge costs is something that ultimately gets passed to the users in addition to the rent-seeking aspect.

I have no words for multi-cloud.

You and me both. I have to work with it and the reality is, there is nobody who actually understands the whole thing. The level of complexity (and fragility, I might add) of it all is astonishing. And all of this to mitigate some (honestly) low risk of downtime from the cloud provider. I have lobbied a little bit against at work, but ultimately it has become a marketing tool to sell to customers, so goodbye any hope of rational evaluation...

Oh yeah, I know that that's a thing. It's a practice not too different from the stereotypical drug dealer who gets you hooked on free drugs. In this case the idea is that if you start there, you get vendor-locked and you will have to pay that amount many times over. I understand the appeal from the company perspective, though.

How could I miss the opportunity to use this picture!

It definitely felt like that at times.

Nothing to be sorry for. I didn't write for you nor for any particular individual, and it's fair if you are not interested in it. I also added a table of content at the beginning, so you can jump directly to the relevant section (Technical Side) skipping the (in my opinion needed) introduction completely, if you wish. Cheers

This can be absolutely true the other way around too, depending on how proficient you are, and what you are used to or find intuitive. For me, macOS is extremely unintuitive, for example, while my fully personalized Linux setup allows me to do what I want. It is very subjective, ultimately.