Some of you who come to visit will think that I am stuck in the past, maybe that is true to some extent and that is possibly because you have the mindset that everything must move forward and everything old is bad. Well perhaps but perhaps there is a different way to look at this. Think about about the way you watch or listen to or media or how you purchase your games. Back 40 years ago I would enjoy going to my local video store on a Saturday afternoon, browsing the shelves to find that new release I’d been waiting to see or perhaps wandering along the budget rentals to find that old movie I haven’t seen yet. All the time there was the possibility that someone with the same interest in movies would enter the store and a conversation would erupt about this film or that genre but in the process I made some great friends who had similar interests to me. The same would happen when I went to a music shop, I’d find people who were perhaps into my scene and then again with video games and so by pursuing my interests in movies, music, computers, video games, electronics and whatever else I met people some of who became friends and some of whom didn’t but regardless the act of dong those things made me more responsive to other human beings.

These days you can sit in front of your large screen TV and yes you can pull up Netflix, Hulu or whatever subscription services you have and find something to watch, but I guarantee that those subscription services don’t have all the movies I used to have access to at my local video store and yes you can probably get access to all manner of music from your music subscription service which you are continuously paying for and what about your games that you have purchased online that you can no longer play because they shut down the server? Well I still have games from the 1970’s and 80’s and so on that I can still play because guess what? I paid for them, they are mine and no one can take them away and stop me from playing them because they don’t want to run that service any more because it’s not profitable now…. Are you seeing a pattern here folks?

I do believe that digital media is good, but I also believe that having accepted the concept of getting our media digitally we have lost quite a lot in return and the only ones gaining from it in reality are the the corporates who want to sell you the same things over and over and over again, what’s that the game you like to play has a new version with better graphics and the levels are different, sure. But at the end of the day is it really worth paying for that a 2nd or 3rd or….. 9th time, if you think the answer to this is yes then please stop reading and move on because I am never going to change your mind. But think about this, almost everything people do now is based on a subscription model, but when you loose your job or you just decide you no longer want to continue to pay endlessly for that service, what do you own? Where are your movies? Where is your music? Where are your games, your razors, your weekly food deliveries, your dogs dinner?…..

So once upon a time I could have a video rental membership card and if I wanted to watch a movie I could go to the rental shop, rent my film for say £1.75 or whatever. I paid once to watch that movie and I returned it when I was done. Now if I didn’t rent another film from that video shop that year I had only spent £1.75 thus it was a bargain. But now if I want to be able to watch a movie on Netflix I have to pay them £9.99 or whatever and yes I can watch what I want but you have to understand that there is a saturation point where there is not that much left for you to watch. But if I don’t watch anything I still have to pay them my £9.99 a month. Same with music streaming and so on.

So I ask... What have we gained from all of this, the convenience of not going to the video rental store and maybe making a friend or two? I am sorry if you think I am harping on here, but I really would like to know why people think this is an improvement?

Now before you get all snowflake on me and freak out, try and understand that I am not putting down your favourite services I am not knocking what you do, I am saying that It doesn’t work for everyone and it is getting to the point where the choice is no longer there for those who don’t like the direction it is moving or in some cases completely moved.

I would like to ask some questions of you, if I may?

Q. If Movies are better at home, because of your favourite streaming service, why do people still go to the Cinema?

Q. If Music ingestion is so much better with streaming services, why do people flock to live music events?

Q. If Gaming alone in your room is so fantastic why do you go online to play Massively Multiplayer games?

Q. If sitting alone in your house is so fantastic why do people flock to pubs?

As you can see I am not attempting to mock or belittle your favourite past time I am trying my best to make you see that new is not always better. New is not always the future and ask is it now the time when people need to stop and look at what we are loosing before it’s too late. Remember it’s not it’s not really always about the activity sometimes the activity is what draws us together and surely in this day and age it’s becoming more and more important for us as a race to keep in contact and make new contacts before we become a species who live in pods and rarely if ever venture out to see others.

So bare this in mind. By avoiding Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever new “social” site is the latest thing I am forcing myself to go outside and meet real flesh and blood people who are more likely to care if they offend me are more likely to give me a real smile and who are more likely to become a real friend and not just a screen name. Not that I haven’t met a few really good friends on IRC.

Welcome to my little space on Neocites. I am very pleased to see you. Expect to find something new, something old and hopefully something useful.

I do not do what most of you seem to, no Facebook, no Twitter, No Instagram, none of these above, you may at some point find me on Odysee and you will find me here, I do not agree with the corporate spying machine and I am not interested in lining their pockets.

I am also opinionated, like it, don’t like it, I don’t care, no really snowflake I don’t care! If you don’t like what I have to say, go elsewhere. The world wide web is very large and you don’t need to be in my little bit of it if I offend your sensitive nature.

A word to those who are not in the know…

Google gives you things for free in return for selling your data, you may not care about that now but you will in the future. Apple are also not your friend, neither is Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, What’s App (I could go on). None of these large corporates are and none have your best interests at heart. So stop thinking otherwise.

Need a replacement for Chrome browser? See below:-

I advise anyone using Chrome to stop it's bloated it's not privacy centric and frankly I am not a fan of Google and their practices.So in no particular order:-

GNUzilla and IceCat
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
Brave
Vivaldi

Need a replacement Search engine? See below:-

Wiby.

(The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. In addition, Wiby helps vintage computers to continue browsing the web, as pages indexed are more suitable for their performance.)

Mojeek

No Tracking - Unbiased.

Qwant.

Privacy Friendly Model.

DuckDuckGo.

No Tracking - Uses Bing! Results.

Starpage.

No Tracking Anonymous Browsing.

Brave.

Private Browser - Crypto Currency Issues.

Need a replacement web mail service that’s more privacy conscious? See below:-

ProtonMail

Need a brain or personality transplant? Sorry can’t help with that.