Before & After & Inbetween

I decided to use this blog a lot more next year, so let's start early with that, shall we?
2024 is still six days to go, but here I am. :-)

Changes during 2024 (part 1)

Spotify to Tidal:

This is the most recent change. Spotify crossed the "has to go" enshittification threshold a week ago, when I first needed fifteen minutes on their crappy app to find the christmas music playlist I made last year and then discovered that half of the songs on it were either missing or replaced by "suggestions" of elevator music. Then there was this blog post by Cory Doctorow that linked me to an article about Spotify's muzac side-gig on Harper's (explains a lot, really!), plus their abysmal paying of the artists (think 227 streams for 1 Dollar [source]).
So I canceled my abo (effective Jan 2, 2025 - after which that account will be deleted) and looked into alternative services: Deezer, Tidal, and Napster. I didn't consider Apple (I'm on Android and Apple doesn't play nice outside its sandbox) or Youtube (Google is unreliable when it comes to continuing services) and Amazon is so close to the enshittification threshold by now that I certainly won't take any new business there. Deezer and Tidal have both intuitive apps and all my must-have favs.
I'm now on Tidal, of the two, they pay the artists better (80 streams vs 157 for 1 USD) and I liked their app a tad better. I didn't use their transfer service for playlists and such, since Spotify made a mess out of my lists anyway and I prefer listening to albums. For that I already spotted two new ones from "Two Steps From Hell" that I never found on Spotify and the audio quality is superb even on my tinny kitchen speaker.
Also, their themed playlists, something I avoided at all costs on Spotify in the end, are a positive surprise. Starting the "Rock Christmas" playlist (I needed a soundtrack on short notice yesterday) with "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl is certainly a bold choice and I was halfway through the list before one of the ubiquitous jingles showed up (Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney). And there are a lot of songs on that list I never heard before. Wow.
If you like podcasts and audiobooks along with your music, you'll probably want to look into Deezer, but if it's music in superb audio quality: have a look at Tidal. I'm certainly positively impressed at this point.

Twitter to Bluesky and Mastodon

My Twitter handle (AKK666AKK) was unused and the account locked since EM bought the company and put enshittification on speed dial.
In November 2024, I deleted it for good. I started accounts on Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky - and found myself using Bluesky (AKK666) and Mastodon (AKK666) the most, with Bluesky being mostly books, fan activities, art, cats and plants, and commentary in English, whereas Mastodon is German everday talk and science. More to Threads later.

Facebook, Instagram, Threads:

I stopped using these cold Turkey a couple weeks ago, when they demanded that I as a EU customer (a) confirm again that I'm fine with being ad-tracked and (b) get unskippable auto-play ads that are so much fun on a commuter train in the morning in my feed if I don't pay through my nose. Nope. Nope. Nope-ty-nope!
The accounts still exist, the apps are still on my phone - because I enjoy seeing the desperate notifications of "you missed this..." and "look at our crap..." that are increasingly off the mark regarding my interests (so much for their algorithm *eg*)
So, if you want to stay in contact with me, find me on Bluesky as AKK666 or here on this blog. :-)

There's more to come, but this post is certainly long enough by now.
Feels good to post in a format I'm atuned to. Verbose text. ;-)

Hi,
I just was locked out of my facebook and asked to enter a mobile phone number in order to confirm my identity. Again the site presented is a mixture of English and German. Again, each attempt to log into my account is redirected to an ssl-secured site by Facebook US. This time, I didn't try to enter a phone number. They didn't answer my help requests for the last time:

Text: http://akk.dreamwidth.org/282766.html
Screenshots: http://akk.dreamwidth.org/283068.html

This is bad, because since the last time I gathered a few FB-only friends, with one of whom I am currently in conversation and don't know (yet) how to contact offsite. This is the 2nd time FB blocks me out of the service. Since I did nothing - and obviously can't validate my phone (tried last time) - I'm out of their service. Assholes.

EDIT: Apparently, it's a new "security feature" in case they don't recognize your log-in location - like your smartphone via UMTS and you via a computer within a short time doesn't make sense to them and you get "ROADBLOCK". Only that their offered "confirm your identity" is limited to "add your phone" at my place, which doesn't work for what reason ever. Hence: FB IS DEAD! AGAIN! An especially nice touch is the new added link of "Or use a different verification method", which gives you -- yes, indeed -- "add your phone".

EDIT2: and no, I'm not the only one. Once I figured out what "feature" was in the way, it's easy to come by a 1000+ hits via Google-fu. Such as this one: http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/285198-facebook-cell-phone-verification/ Unfortunately, that doesn't get my account back - and I don't want yet another one only to have it blocked again.

Okay, I have a pretty clear idea how FB gets its over 2 million users numbers. *IRONY CUDGEL!*

Back on Facebook under http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001525693347&v=wall

Phone registry still doesn't work. At least, I can complain about it now.

If you friended me on FB before, I'd love to see you back.

leareth was so nice to file a log-in error report on my behalf. FB already responded, asking for screenshots. Since I have them anyway:

AKK
proudly presents
the infinite Face-Book-Loop
*EG*

( ...in nine screenshots. Enjoy. )

The whole affair reminds me decidedly of the inifinite cat project!

If you've been stalking this blog for a while, you probably know that a few months ago I delved briefly into Facebook and it drove me nuts with fretting over who-sees-what, privacy issues etc.. I jumped through various loops to delete the whole thing (successfully) and good riddance.
However, there were a few things that I actually liked when using the service and I realized that I made a mistake. I was using Facebook as Facebook (and its boss) wants us to use it, not like I want to use it. Therefore I'm back on a fresh book and -- any He-Man references are fully intentional *eg* --

( with the powers of Disclaimer! )

Forget the fretting! Have fun!

If you want to share the goofiness: the coffee kitchen black board is here. :)