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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: March 10th, 2025

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  • For a long time, you couldn’t really buy an unlocked phone straight from the manufacturer in the US. The closest thing was importing one is with the correct network bands (GSM), but that also kind of went away when VoLTE became a requirement.

    Relatively recently, some manufacturers started offering unlocked devices sold straight from them, but it wasn’t until Apple started doing it with the iPhone that it became a mass-appeal/well known thing.

    So overall it’s because:

    • That’s just how things were for a long time
    • Carriers offer deals on their locked devices
    • 2-year carrier contracts were a thing until the mid 2010s or so
    • People are just used to their carrier being a one-stop-shop

    Nowadays more people are aware about buying an unlocked phone instead of a carrier firmware/carrier locked device. But in the US I’d say most people only know about iPhones being offered unlocked.





  • No. As a user of both Amazon and Google devices (with screens/sticks), Amazon is far more aggressive in their advertising practices. As the other guy said, neither is ad-free out of the box, but Amazon devices will literally make your screensaver/lock screen a full screen ad (even on your TV). Google just has a home screen ad about something that’s going to play on streaming, usually.

    If you want NO ads, set up DNS ad blocking or get an Apple TV and use that for streaming. But again, Amazon’s devices are FAR more aggressive about advertising as much as possible. My father has one of those Echo Show things that’s a speaker with a rotating screen attached to it. It’s playing ads almost all the time.






  • NotKyloRen@lemmy.ziptoGames@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    5 months ago

    They (Steam) offered Bitcoin payment, but pulled out because of what you said. They were covering the changes in fluctuation, but ultimately it was too unstable. I recall a statement from them saying something like, the value fluctuated too much during the brief checkout process, even.