and the government would have to explain precisely why they decided to ban all Google services over a song about freedom.

They wouldn’t explain shit. This is an authoritarian government we’re talking about; they have near total control of what information gets to their populace.

More likely they’d just accuse Google of supporting terrorism, and make a show of raiding their offices and jailing their local executives.

I don’t think the people in charge would last long if that happened, considering how integral Google’s services are to many people’s lives.

This is China we’re talking about. Chinese equivalents to nearly every big tech service are more than present and accounted for, even often preferred by the local populace. Hong Kong is a little different, but the CCP still exerts near total control there.

It is literally either follow this law or cease operations here. Both would end in the song being blocked anyway.

Mind you, I wish we were that level of strict when it came to our data privacy laws.

Until they make the wrong call and it bites them on the ass.

Yeah but they’re called talent for a reason. The senior talent are generally better than the juniors at what they do.

They believe Tories don’t go far enough.

It should be, but you know Poe’s law. People blame POTUS for ridiculous stuff.

That’s satire, right? Cuba is a completely different country

Correct. But it’s either this or literally starve. That’s why you’ve got people here saying it isn’t really a choice.

It can be. Depending on the circumstances in life you are in, credit may be the only way you’re able to pay for food.

The slime character is from Dragon Quest. On top of being a standard enemy, it is also used in an implicitly sexual manner in-universe known as puff-puff

Would it be a crime to have access to the software, or would they need to catch the criminals with the images and video files?

Problem with the former is that would outlaw any self hosted image generator. Any image generator is capable of use for deep fake porn

You would have to be a Muslim. Not drinking and smoking is usually something that they like to promote in their citizenry.

Not that they aren’t shitty towards Atheists, but it’s a whole 'nother level with the Uyghurs. Think post-9/11 islamaphobia taken to wild, CCP level extremes, and you’re not far off the level they take it and their ‘rationale’ for doing so. (Basically there were a few terrorist attacks years back and the CCP has been milking it as an excuse for their conduct)

Imagine your computer is a big block of flats and your applications are all people who live in the building.

Mail sent to the building address alone isn’t going to reach the intended recipient, because the postman doesn’t know what flat to post it to. So they need additional information such as ‘Flat 2C’

That’s the basic concept of ports. It’s basically additional addressing information to allow your computer to direct internet traffic to the correct applications.

When an application is actively listening on a port, it means that they are keeping an eye out for messages addressed to them, as designated by the port number. While an application is sending or receiving messages using a given port number, that port number is considered ‘open’.

Now, all sorts of applications do all sorts of things. Some are for the public to use and there are some that are useful within trusted circles, but can be abused by malicious people if anyone in the world can send messages to it. Thus, we have a firewall, which acts as a gatekeeper. A firewall can ‘block’ a port, denying access to a given group of people, or ‘unblock’ it, allowing access.

VPNs are a totally different thing. They are literally middlemen for your internet traffic. Instead of directly posting a message to somewhere and receiving a direct reply back, imagine you flew out to Italy to use a post box there and receive replies from there.

That’s literally what we’re discussing.

No, we are discussing services not sold through their store and not using their payment provider. That is literally the topic of the post.

Third-party console game developers paid money to the console maker even for physical sales.

Third party console games don’t literally pay money to not use services.

The payment service is 3%; the commission is the other 27%. That’s what a commission is. It’s for access to the market.

And that doesn’t strike you as patently fucking insane? 27%? For doing literally fucking nothing? For literally providing no added value beyond which you as a developer have already paid for?

It’s a commission for access to a lucrative market that Apple created.

Which Apple already got their money for. Or did you think those $1k iPhones were at cost?

Apple gives away the developer tools and charges an extremely modest annual App Store fee, which also covers the review process and hosting.

A review process they themselves mandate. You also forget they also charge 30% for anything sold through their store. Which they also mandate you use.

It’s been common for platform creators to charge third-party developers in some capacity for many decades.

Not for services they aren’t providing, it isn’t.

Some do it by charging high costs for the developer tools, others by charging a commission based on sales.

Again, these are for services that are being provided. Apple is charging people to not use their own payment service.

One of the things about Java is that it is stupidly easy to decompile back into java source code.

Obfuscation can make it harder to do but not impossible. There are also performance and licensing implications too.

What it would REALLY hinder is mod development, which is where a huge amount of it’s diehard fanbase is, not to mention advertising via let’s plays comes from. There’s only so much material you can make out of simply building blocks, and the mod scene helps keep Minecraft relevant in Let’s Plays and streaming.

The mod scene has been incredibly instrumental in keeping Minecraft as a whole relevant. Most footage and screenshots you tend to see today usually has a mod applied that you can see in the footage. Ever seen Minecraft with realistic lighting? That’s a mod. Seen those weird survival challenges? Also done by mods.

If that dies off, Minecraft’s word of mouth and relevancy dies with it. And from that, so do the console versions.

How is that extra fee not getting struck down by courts? Developers already paid the fee to be on the app store.

Plenty of ways to identify people from their spending habits.

There are also plenty of ways to connect the address to the person. You can subpoena a legit vendor they’ve paid with that address, for example.

It wasn’t a revelation in 2013 either. The ledger data has always been public information.

In the UK, you gotta pay £50 for a return trip to London lasting 40 minutes. Train companies gouge the ever loving fuck out of you and Stagecoach, a popular bus company over there, is no better.

Although I guess that’s an improvement over not existing at all. Might as well not exist to most families though, for the prices they charge.