Some of it is though. For example, they take forever to update their servers when new versions of Lemmy are released and it often breaks compatibility with apps. They also have constant service disruption. Even if it is ddos attacks, they should be trying to mitigate them.
I'm a Linux user, so I use .gz and .bz primarily for compression. If I just need to archive without compression I'll just make a tarball. People on windows never complain. Maybe it's just that I'm in the IT field, but most people have an archiving program installed. Plus, I am pretty sure Win11 can open most archive formats natively now.
I think you misunderstand the reason they need to fight fake news. It's for the boomers. Kids these days are very media literate and skeptical of everything. It's really all the boomers who are falling for misinformation and spreading it on Facebook.
I have network wide ad blocking with a PiHole server. I've also got a Wireguard VPN server so I can connect to have PiHole ad blocking on my phone while I'm out.
When I was a kid (way too many years ago) my parents gave up trying to restrict my Internet usage because no matter what they did I could easily get around it. I knew more about networking than they did. Then I grew up to become an IT administrator.
This Baseus USB C 65 Watt 3-port charger. I recently bought one to carry in my laptop bag as a portable charger, and it has proven to be indispensable. I've already used it while out and about or on trips out of town to simultaneously charge 3 devices at once. Such as my phone, earbuds, and laptop. It's so small and lightweight, and you can bring a single charging brick to take care of all your devices. I'm never going back to having to carry multiple chargers with me.
Personally, I think the app is absolutely fine without paying for the subscription. I really don't see too many ads. I get an average of one ad for every two refreshes of the feed when scrolling through, and none of them have been obtrusive. It's certainly night and day when compared to the ads in the official Reddit app.
Haha now if only they could do it in Times Square. That place is a giant eyesore.
I used to feel bad about using an ad blocker on the internet, but not anymore. I utilize PiHole and uBO for ad blocking now because the internet has literally become unusable without it. I never minded seeing ads, but they have gotten so brazen about it now with the most obnoxious ads possible. When the ads start negatively affecting the usability of the Internet there's a serious problem. So they can either use respectful ad placement and get some revenue from me, or they can have them blocked and get zero revenue. It's their choice.
This is what fascism looks like folks.