the endless cycle: cool new platform is created, everyone moves to it, platform is enshittified, repeat

Eh companies yell loudly about any minor inconvenience they have to some proposed law or change. Want to raise wages, security or improve working hours? The companies kick and scream about their profits, threaten with closures and more. But when it comes to age verification the majority is awfully quiet if not out right supportive.

No, I absolutely blame BlueSky, because they purport themselves to be different from Big Tech, and they absolutely aren't, and this is a great example. You can see fedi servers around the world omitting age verification because they're either not in the UK or don't make any money.

Or they could refuse to comply with unjust laws, you're allowed to be mad at people for failing to do that when they have a good opportunity.

Free VPN use is like worse than not using one tbh. Like if its free its definitely monitoring you. And who knows what else its doing. It's about as safe as going to the dark alley downtown and accepting some "Free samples" from the guy selling weed out of his jacket.

It is most certainly worth it to pay for a VPN. That's the only adequate solution.

I'll keep saying it: democracy doesn't rest on elections and whatnot, it rests on fear of government officials to lose their place - or, on extreme end, their head - should they go against people's will.

If this fear isn't there, everything else will be warped to suit their needs.

crazy that if you go to any of their posts, ALL replies critiquing ICE are hidden by default. this is just twitter all over again

Same people still using gREeDDIT, Xitter, etc.