In colonial india, the british put a bounty on cobras. Indian villagers who would have usually just killed the cobras and went on with their day now tried to catch them alive so they could then farm them for multiple bounties. This ballooned the snake populations to ridiculous levels, and then the british found out about the scheme. They then cancelled the bounty program, and the snake rearers released their animals on places they thought were far from people.

Net result: More snakes than ever before.

If you aren't going to turn out evil, raise your right hand.

There's a free tier, which means the dream is same but there are billboards all around the parking lot

Loyalty cards are more for getting the customer in the door, right? Usage patterns come second if I understand the model correctly.

The latest version of this I've seen is fucking fast fashion of all things asking for your phone number to send invoices to, as part of their "digital sustainability initiative". If they really gave a shit they'd set fire to everything the company owned.

I think paying in cash cuts down on trackin massively. Can you still be tracked? Yes. But are most stores going through the effort? I don't think so. Depends on the store too, I guess.

Maybe my tin foil hat is getting rusty, but to me it just feels like they'll just move on to the next dude who payed by card instead.

Look at the brightside: there's no risk of an update resetting your progress

Why not both? Telegram is bad for privacy, and governments still want to arrest the founders of systems they cannot control?

Are your concerns about how people can be so blase about potentially throwing their lives away for no particular reason at all, while you had to fight for your survival? I suppose none of us can really control what cards we're dealt, only how we play them.

For what its worth, I'm glad you're not dead.

I'm assuming OP didn't just accept a position with the fucking Hezbollah, so Signal probably fits his usecase

It'll be fine. If the fucking CIA wanted OP to spill the beans they'll just send an agent with a wrench directly to OP's kneecaps.

Oi, thats enough. I'm confiscating your imagination license.