Piers

Futo (the organisation developing this app) appears to be a tech billionaire (Eron Wolf) firing his money at the tech industry until it stops being so shit.

This is from the about page on their website:

Our Three Pledges

We will never sell out. All FUTO companies and FUTO-funded projects are expected to remain fiercely independent. They will never exacerbate the monopoly problem by selling out to a monopolist.

We will never abuse our customers. All FUTO companies and FUTO-funded projects are expected to maintain an honest relationship with their customers. Revenue, if it exists, comes from customers paying directly for software and services. “The users are our product” revenue models are strictly prohibited.

We will always be transparently devoted to making delightful software. All FUTO-funded projects are expected to be open-source or develop a plan to eventually become so. No effort will ever be taken to hide from the people what their computers are doing, to limit how they use them, or to modify their behavior through their software.

(From: https://futo.org/what-is-futo/)

What they say and what they will do could of course differ but they do go to great pains to paint themselves as fundamentally opposed to be sort of action you are worried about.

It isn't free however they are very clear that they make no effort to make you pay for it. IE the app works whether you pay or not and they aren't planning to change that. It's not free in the same way WinRAR isn't free. Here's the announcement video from Louis Rossman where he talks about that. https://youtu.be/5DePDzfyWkw?si=KuNumtHUrtW_kHSC

Russian government-sponsored media isn't free press is it?

I think you're the guy I saw over there rambling on about an unfair moderation action then someone pulled the moderation log and it was for saying something like "you can turn any Jew into a Nazi by giving them some land."

It looks like Kotick will be leaving after the transition so that's a great start. My dream is that this all somehow leads to the full Overwatch PvE campaign coming back onto the table again (given that their attempts to provide long-term replay ability without doing the work seem to be floundering now, there's a chance right?)

If everyone had this particular issue the world would be very different I think.

Sadly that's unlikely to ever get a remake as noone can agree who owns the rights to do so.

YouTube music seems to hit a perfect blend of stuff you know and stuff you don't.

YouTube music pays artists slightly less badly than most services fwiw.

I wouldn't trust a sandwich made by one of his companies.

I just hope there aren't too many consequences for other people along with it.

To be clear, he did try to make them use his own work instead and it was awful so they pushed him out to protect the company.