It seems so strange to me that we are locked in battle with providers mining our lives for whatever, and we have to work our asses off trying to stay anonymous, to the point of being denied service

Whatever you are getting your hands into remember that there's plenty of free alternatives and libre products available in the public domain. Supporting these is a good way to unsupport the closed counterpart.

As an OSS advocate, I fully agree. Sadly, OSS alternatives have to compete with easily accessible, slick and well-integrated products that are aggressively positioned. Just imagine all the steps you need to go through, just to install Fennec from F-Droid.
- I just installed Fennec from F-Droid and it was like three steps. Search, install, and confirm install. I guess if I didn't already have F-Droid, it would be more steps to install it, but that's not too hard either, and you only have to do it once.
Exactly
If you want to pirate, pirate. But there are plenty of free and public domain sources of entertainment and information.
Same with software. It won't be exactly the same experience but if the goal is truly an altruistic attempt to not give money to bad companies or avoid tracking or whatever... there are ways.
I pirate shit. I am not going to pretend it is some holy struggle. I want things that I don't/won't pay for.
I recently converted to Linux and am loving the FOSS environment. Together with my NAS which covers my "cloud storage" and media server needs, I'm having an awesome time not having to give away money and/or my information just to use my own hardware.

Interesting.. I'll have to check that out.

Yeah it's weird how privacy and piracy have blended together over the years.

With some games you need to pirate them if you don't want a Russian nesting doll of launchers and accounts that are able to leak your information and fill your computer with bloat.

I do find the argument interesting some YouTubers try to make about ad blockers being a form of piracy.

"If you want basic privacy protection, you are a pirate and I hate you." - Linus Sebastian, professional L generator (abridged)
- Not at all what he said, great “quote”
- That guy is a fucking loser
- Can someone give me a source to what he's referring to?
To be fair, it makes sense to liken the use of ad blockers with piracy. Consuming the content without paying for it either way, either without directly paying yourself or without indirectly paying through watching ads. Doesn't change that ads on most parts of the internet are extremely invasive and far too much.
I feel fully entitled to protect myself from the ads because of the problems with them. But I don't feel the need to lie to myself about the fact that I'm consuming content without paying for it in some way. Then again I support some content creators that I feel deserve it. Not sure if that helps offset it somewhat or not, but I don't really care that much either.
- Please stop doing this. It just gives bad actors better tools to fuck content creators.
  If ads arent chosen and paid to the content creators directly then its a damned cancer on the entire industry and you, by giving them this, are supporting wage theft at best and exploitation at worst
  How many content creators have been demonetized for no reason at all yet ads are still injected into their content anyway?
  Sorry for being angry about this, but if we as a whole accept this then we are watching enshitification in action and im sick of the amazing thing that is the internet continually get worse
- I don't see why a free market can't take care of this problem. Let the suppliers run their ads and if it's not profitable then let them fold. None of this "please stop using ad blockers our business model sucks and we need you to accept worse overall service so we can stay in business".
  I don't really care that much either.
  This is the most important thing imo. Some people just don't care (not saying it's a bad thing). Others do so to each their own.
- Well yeah, of course we're consuming content without paying. But that is not piracy.
  The creators are distributing the content freely, and we're consuming it, while ignoring the ads, because we have the ability to do it.
  Is flipping the channel on legacy TV when switching to commercials piracy as well?
Anyone who considers adblocking immoral shouldn't block anykind of advertising anywhere.
- Where did you get that it was immoral from? I don't see many (anyone?) that have claimed that.
With some games you need to pirate them if you don't want a Russian nesting doll of launchers and accounts
I'm not a gamer but is this really true? I thought it was the other way around, that pirated games were the ones filled with malware.
- Absolutely. Sure pirated games run that risk but communities are big enough to usually snuff it out quickly if it's a malware filled crack. Going through legitimate means a PC gamer is likely to have steam, epic games launcher, blizzard launcher, EA, Ubisoft, and probably more I can't think of. Many of these are clunky and slow and demand online connectivity or multiple sign in auths every time you just want to play a damn single player, offline game
I do find the argument interesting some YouTubers try to make about ad blockers being a form of piracy.
This argument makes no sense to me, it would be piracy if I was copying the videos into my own channel and raking in the views. An YouTube channel is more like TV, you're broadcasting into the wild hoping to get some eyeballs and selling those eyeballs to the highest bidder. It's up to me if I want to see the ads or not, just like TV.
Ad blocking being likened to piracy would be valid except for the fact that internet ads have always been predominantly intrusive, misleading, predatory, and malicious.
- No no it isn't piracy. Shame on you
  for giving them that power to wield they will use it to claim that putting tape on your camera so you cant be spied on is piracy. And thats rediculous, but thats what will happen if we dont stand together and say no no its not piracy just because i didnt want to watch your stupid fucking add on a video that YOU ARENT MONITIZING DIRECTLY. ads that arent payed to the content creator directly is wage theft at best and exploitation at worst
  Edit sorry this isnt aimed at you personally beyond the first 8 words. Im not drunk but it does feel a bit like a drunken ramble, guess it touched a nerve. Ill have to reflect on that

It is not strange. They are greedy. Period. If ever someone is less greedy, then even if only after they die the corp becomes as greedy as possible, ASAP - e.g. Disney.

What's weird is that we are also hard-wired to be generous, so piracy does weird things to our conscience. If that bothers you, my advice is to learn to tip well irl, and in CASH whenever possible - the WORKERS deserve your aid.

Fuck tipping. American tipping culture enables employers to get away with paying their hospitality service industry employees starvation wages. By giving a big tip you are just telling the employer "Don't worry about paying your employees a living wage. I got you fam."
Obviously I still tip depending on where I am, but the minimum amount that is considered socially acceptable.
- The ethics are complex for sure... a bit like sailing the high seas:-). I have no right to tell you or anyone else what to do, I just shared my own thought. Fuck the SOBs that started this for sure...but the WORKERS are the ones getting pinched in the middle of that clash of wills:-(.
  Also I know of no better way to be generous to my fellow human - unlike some "charities", this is no hand-out b/c there at least you can be 100% certain that they work. Also, a LOT of people do not tip (or if they do, then not much), thus necessitating a more extreme tipping from those that do if the scales were to ever to be balanced (which they ultimately never will, but still a little bit can help).
  This is really a trolly problem through and through: someone puts a human on the tracks (lets say mostly innocent - possibly they were goaded rather than forced into being there but for the sake of argument let us presume they have no malice or any ill intent whatsoever, like this is no scam that they are "in" on, again just for the sake of argument), and a tiny but noticeable pile of your cash on the other, then offers to allow you to pull the lever to switch the track. Fuck the evil POS who would do that for their own amusement ofc but... given that it happened, do you play along and sacrifice your cash to help the human, or allow them to get hit? Let us also presume that you have the "right" to your cash, i.e. you would get it back rather than it being impounded for evidence or whatever.
  I choose to play along, knowing full well that the system is unjust. Maybe I am contributing to the problem, but I do not know what else to do that could help in even the tiniest manner. Passing laws to enforce payment of a minimum wage that is actually a livable one seems like an entirely separate matter to me btw - b/c whether you tip or not, or whether you want to tip or not (I saw that you do the former but neither of us really do the latter, though I come closer to that in one manner of speaking), without being forced to, greedy-AF people will never (it seems) voluntarily pay the workers more on their own initiative, so simply "not tipping" in protest seems to me to be an approach doomed to failure. I do not deny that you are correct though - they will certainly take my doing so as their cue that they can continue, not that it would matter if laws were passed to literally prevent that happening - it is just that I cannot control them, I can only control me.
  Thank you for this respectful conversation btw:-).
- By giving a big tip you are just telling the employer “Don’t worry about paying your employees a living wage. I got you fam.”
  And what's the alternative? Giving them nothing and telling yourself that it's on them?
  Yeah no thanks. I hate tipping culture as much as the next guy, but this isn't how you change that.

What's more crazy is that the very ISPs that track all of our information and sell to the highest better are the same ones sending us letters and emails when we use torrents that they'll shut off our services if we continue to pirate movies and music.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

They have to break the law to make sure that you aren't "breaking the law".

You see, the paperclip maximizer is real. Only, it isn't paperclips. We are being compressed into currency.

Corpos are greedy for money and will attack anything that stands between them and it. That is until the Govt steps in, then the lobbiests fend it off with handfulls of money.

This is almost verbatim the definition of a dystopia, fwiw.

eta: the start of it is nearly a Black Mirror episode

Open signups happen frequently but you have to be quick to catch them
Opentrackers.org and r/opensignups (or r/trackersignups) are good to check once in a while
MyAnonaMouse has open applications twice a week and the test is very easy
- maaan, I have to go to reddit for that? Ewww
Depends on which tracker. In general though invites and you get invites by association with relevant groups. Sometimes open registration occurs (though rarely) an other times the trakcer may do interviews.
It mostly comes down to time and patience.
- I'll be the first to preach Usenet for movies and shows, but I'm wondering if you've found it useful for gaming/ music.
- Unless I've misunderstood how it works, don't you need to pay for Usenet?
  Something about paying money for pirated content rubs me the wrong way.
Search the term "OpenSignups"
They less elite one open usually during holidays like Easter Christmast, Black Friday and summer break.

to the point of being denied service

Yes. Spotify blocks my account if I'm using VPN, ChatGPT asks to solve ridiculous captchas (on a paid account!). It's crazy. Reddit blocks access if you're on the VPN and not logged in.

Worse is when you have to justify your view on privacy to family and friends.

I've started to get annoyed at people asking why I cannot be found on this or that social platform! I have given up on explaining and simply tell them I took an irreversible decision to do so and leave them in the dark as to why

Use residential IP and the friction stops

You actually don't need a Youtube Account, unless you are a paying subscriber to some creators!
Check out FreeTube, it's a desktop app similar to NewPipe on Android, that allows you to subscribe to creators while still not requiring an account, and without ads.
As for Android, I don't know what phone you have, but if you're ever buying a new one, I highly recommend just getting a (paradoxically) Google Pixel and installing GrapheneOS. An older Pixel is OK, just check which versions are still supported and for how long on the Graphene website. And the installation is super easy, and can actually be done in a browser without any issues, and takes like 15 minutes.
I've recently switched to Graphene and it's amazing. I have a separate profile for apps that refuse to work without Google Services, so they are contained, and additionally Graphene sandboxes the google play services, so they can't do anything you won't let them, in contrast to any other Android phone where Google Services can basically do whatever they want without any way to limit it.
I also run Mullvad VPN on my phone all the time, but I don't think that it's neccessary.
Can you set up a Google voice number for this purpose?
Google voice also requires a number, but I was able to buy one of those shady sim cards to make a Google voice number. The shady sim card stopped working when I used it with a VPN, but I already signed up for some stuff with it that blocks Google voice like ChatGPT

Sounds like a book of Victor Pelevin

Preach it.