And this would be a problem how? If copyright expired after 20 years and an evil commercial company privately forked the public domain Linux kernel 2.6.18, what would we lose?

> what would we lose?

Who is "we"? Going back to the origin of Free Software to proprietary printer drivers causing hardware to be unfixable by its users and otherwise become ewaste. The loss is users are nearly beholden to the manufacturer to customize or maintain their own devices. Android phones, most ereaders, can have long lives when obsolete, but this is only because Linux is Free Software; with proprietary kernels they are entirely ewaste instead of a small fraction having continuing life. OTOH most do become ewaste. OAH this Free Software allows competitors to start from almost the same place and prevent total monopolies, hence why Apple makes most of the profit and I can buy a $150 phone instead of what appears to be $799 minimum from Apple.

But, I think 20 year-old software is probably mostly safe from the above effects and I'm not sure GP was arguing otherwise, just against total absence of copyright.

> Yet, they were still ordered to block the content.

At first yes, but ultimately the blocking order was undone by a higher German court in December 2023.

I would love to use Firefox exclusively on my Mac, but I also like a long lasting battery. Because of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1941693 Firefox currently uses twice as much CPU during YouTube video playback than even Chrome when you have ProMotion (120 Hz) enabled, significantly reducing battery lifetime. Switching to a different browser every time I want to play a longer YouTube video also isn't the best user experience.

Tell me about it. My old MacBook Pro was only getting like 3-4 hours of battery life with FF.

I want a car that doesn't collect the data, not one that gives a pinky promise not to sell still collected data.

When given the choice between privacy and convenience, the great majority of consumers choose convenience over and over again.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's not going to be market based if you look at any recent trends. Interest in privacy is unfortunately a niche concern outside of places like HN.

Anyone who has tried to market a privacy oriented product knows what I am talking about.

Is it that the friction to use privacy is too high and not that interest in privacy is actually a niche concern?

I imagine its friction and not indicative of interest itself.

In 2025 China built 696 TWh of new wind + solar power and 13 TWh of new nuclear power. So to a first approximation it's fair to say that even China isn't really building out nuclear power anymore.

Great comment. China is still building Coal and Gas power too, I wonder how they compare.

In modern times you combine solar energy with wind power and batteries and you already have 90% of the load covered. Then combine that with cheap, easily adjustable gas power plants to complete the picture for cloudy, windless winter days.

There's really no need for coal or nuclear power plants anymore.