Nah, your ISP doesn’t give you enough bandwidth to host your own mini YouTube. You vastly underestimate the bandwidth required to run the service. It’s massive, which is why PeerTube is having a hard time gaining traction.

Serious question: how can YouTube pay the bills with zero ads? I’m not talking about making a profit, just breaking even.

Except content creators want to create content, not maintain an instance.

Switching to more private and less data hungry services is a tough process. How private do you want to be? If you take it too far, you won’t have a cell phone or a bank account.

Carefully consider the changes you are willing make right now. Start small, progress slowly. Don’t get discouraged and remember that total privacy doesn’t exist.

Start by swapping search engine, don’t use Google or Bing. That’s an easy goal that already makes a big difference. Use something like Duck duck go, Startpage or something like that.

Eventually move away from gmail. Get your own domain, create your own email address. Slowly migrate your important accounts to the new email. This can take time but it’s not hard and you just removed the 2 largest sources of data from Google.

Stop using Chrome, try Firefox. Personally recommend LibreWolf, a Firefox fork. At the very least move to Brave browser (but make sure you disable the crypto crap). Most extensions exist in both browsers this should easy.

Eventually consider moving to Linux but don’t rush it. Study what apps you need, what alternatives are there in Linux. Expect a way worse user experience but a way way better ownership. Try in a VM or live environment before you even consider installing it for real.

Rent must be incredibly affordable in the US from what I’m reading here.

I’m always wary of buying second hand phones. How healthy is that battery going to be?

I have worked in retail to help pay for university. It was a miserable job. Dealing with people made me a worse person.

I am very “passionate” about Proton Pass but don’t take me for a Proton chill, I have a lot of criticism about their other products.

Even if the AI was at the point if outputing exactly what you want correcly, decision makers would still need to be able to specify exactly what they want and need. “I want a website that pops” isn’t going to cut it.

This is crazy to read, thanks for sharing! How did you store/remember all the passwords?

This is not a real solution. You’re supposed to have a unique password for everything. Managing that notebook would be an hassle, not to mention backing it up. It would easily have dozens of records, if not hundreds.

I’ve been using Proton Pass and it has been a game changer for me. Hot take: I think Proton Pass is Proton’s best service.

It creates not only a unique password for each service but also a unique email address alias. If a website leaks my email address and I get spam, I know exactly who did it and I only need to swap 1 login credential.

Has a built-in 2FA and passkeys. Works great in the browser with proper auto complete, even for the 2FA code. Works fine on Android and password in both browser and applications get autocomplete.

Proton Pass can be used by everyone, regardless of their technical level, in every device. My mom could easily use this across all her devices. I’m told Keepass is fantastic but having it sync across all her devices would be challenging for her.

Most Proton services feel kinda underbaked but Proton Pass is excellent.

Android ROMs community took Google’s work? Are you forgetting which community developed Kernel does Android use? Let’s not think about the custom ROMs community as free loaders, please. They provide a free and amazing service.