I sometimes mention that our radio used to broadcast games you could tape off the air to young people and they fail to grasp the futuristic glory I experienced when I explained to myself it's like one-way modem.
In The Netherlands the teletext system of the Dutch public broadcasting system does still exist and has a loyal following. It's also available on the web [1] and as a mobile app.
Even nowadays I still use it a lot myself for a quick catch up of the news. Some of the benefits:
- Since space is limited, the news stories are ultra short and to the point
- No ads
- No "related stories"
- No toxic comment sections
- No misleading 'thumbnails'
It doesn't take longer than a minute or two to catch up on the most important stories.
If you are so inclined, ARRL transmits amateur radio news bulletins daily on a regular schedule[1] in the USA. The bulletins can be received with any shortwave radio that supports SSB (single sideband modulation) and decoded with a soundcard and appropriate software. Obviously, it's considerably different content, but if you are looking more for the experience of receiving and decoding a radio text bulletin, you can certainly have it! Many other teletext services[2] exist as well.
This is funny because I'm actually building (for fun only) a BBS-over-tcp-socket for use with my C64's WiFi modem. Yesterday I got a "search engine" going and transferred some games over XMODEM. It's two files. I came back home and saw this video, I fainted when he mentioned k8s.
Back in my swapping (demoscene term for sending wares on disk to your contacts) I used to make mix-disk with modules, chiptunes (AHX (then THX) SID, mostly)), you could put a lot stuff that way (and the XPK compressors could take even 50% off original size)
I sit here, using X61s, compiling stuff, listening to music, writing code and articles, no care in the world, comfy as a kitten. I think being comfortable with less is my superpower.
Oh, how I loved that keyboard and form factor - only the 2 GB RAM limit was a little too tight for technical work, but a great office laptop at the time!
Philosophize This is a very beginner friendly podcast. I'd gladly recommend it to anyone with even cursory interest. Then you go to History of Philosophy without Any Gaps. ;)
"The Denial of Death is a 1973 book by American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker which discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of ..." clickbait! well, no, not clickbait, but death, but maybe it's the same thing? listen and you'll find out :)
Or if they're looking for written content, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great resource. It has articles on lots of philosophical topics, and they're fairly accessible
This is not everyone-friendly answer, but Mutt does it. To the second point it's not even optional for composing. Unless you write/use some markdown to text/html.
Thunderbird has a very useful feature: simplified incoming html view. It strips remote images and js, while keeping the minimum to make messages readable.
Responses can use plain text.
I really liked Mutt. I used it for one or two years, a long time ago.
You can pipe text/html to w3m/elinks to get the same results. Well, almost the same, some e-mails are not that well designed. I still love mutt, it's so rapid and it works almost the same when I first used it, over 20 years ago.
Even if it costs $1 to collect that $1 it might be worth it if it creates a 'better' and more engaged user base. If you pay for something you value it more and might end up taking better care of it. The question is if having fewer, but more engaged, users is a net benefit in the long run.
But we know that you'll never get everyone to pay (the If Everyone Gave Me a Dollar fallacy is a thing), and it's still only $500m a year, when they lost $2b+ in advertising, right? And now you have to support multiple micropayments.
I didn't say it makes sense, I am not in a position to judge that given limited knowledge about twitter's finances. I'm just saying that the framing is important
