I agree looking forward to your whitelisting of the piratebay in ur search engines and the modification of the llms you have invested in helping with such activities.
Just stop buying phones from carriers and you never have to worry about this. If you like a phone, buy it unlocked straight from the manufacturer and do whatever you want with it. Most offer payment plans, and if not you can always use klarna or a credit card with no interest to make payments on it.
I used to do this, but Verizon gave me a Flip 5 for $500 less than Samsung was offering and I got a free tablet with it. I needed to switch off of Google Fi anyway because they didn't have service at my job site.
Carriers will offer better deals on the phones though if you're planning to stick with them.
I'm looking at a $1000 phone that ATT will give me for 2.99/month for 2 years. That's over 85% off on the phone. The trick is they give it to you by actually charging like $42/month, but then giving a $39 credit every bill for 2 years, so you have to pay the difference on the $1,000 phone if you jump carriers.
But since they're the only carrier that works at my office, and this is gonna be a work phone (my company pays me a monthly stipend for it), I can live with that.
You just end up paying a premium for your mobile plan at that point. There are much cheaper plans than the ATT one, and for some, you'll end up paying way less if they buy the phone outright and subscribing to those.
A trained Gen. AI model does not just view it though. It generates content out of it which is copying and prohibited by plenty of licenses (GPL-licensed open source projects for example).
I think the copy they're referring to is the initial one that puts it on the Internet without a paywall. Not those that come along after and take a copy.
Can I worry about the fact the most serious AI's are owned by large companies, and that they are being taught to replace artists, writers and creatives?
It is very much still a thing and the contracts still exist in some form, specifically phone financing and locking. If you finance a cellphone from Tmobile, it will be locked to Tmobile until you’ve paid for the phone in full, which is usually over two years of payments. This is why carriers offer deals on phones purchased through them, and have those upgrade-every-year type plans. The contract has just switched from the phone service, to the phone itself. This is also why if you walk into any carrier’s store, they’ll try and convince you to trade in your perfectly good paid-for device for the next years model with a decent trade in value, but only if you finance the new phone.
Boost mobile doesn't even do financing, but they require you be with them for a year before they'll unlock your phone. I refuse to go back to them after buying an LG Stylo, and then when I wanted to switch 6 months later they refused to release the phone. I ended up having to buy a whole new phone when I didn't have the money to do so.
Not like they used to, mostly. They just replaced "contract" with "equipment payment plan". Because $50/mo for 24 months is easier for a consumer to swallow than a lump payment of $1200, especially when the carrier is giving you a $10 or $20 (or more) "discount" on the phone.
But as long as the EPP is active, the phone is locked to that carrier. And I think that's fair. No different than the bank holding the title while you finance a car.
The thing is that the plans that have these equipment deals are significantly more expensive than others. Namely big name plans like TMo or Verizon, compared to MVNO plans like Mint or Visible. So you end up paying more for the plan because you get "a deal" on your phone (but still end up ultimately paying more).
It is illegal for all carriers using gsm-based communication. So that's everyone at the moment and that means that you can't have phones locked when they're purchased. They can lock the phones they're under contracts if you finance the phone. Then they don't have to remove that until the phone is completely paid off. What's been going on over the last 4 or 5 years is the company will give you a subsidy for the phone even if you pay it off in full and then claim that that subsidy is part of a financing deal. So they'll put a fake price and be like the phone cost $1,200 but we'll sell it to you for $800. Then when you pay off the 800 right when you walk out the door you're still getting a subsidy that directly pays for that extra $400 they gave you off that wasn't part of the actual price. If you ever go to change service they automatically use the rest of that monthly subsidy immediately to pay off the phone keep that on the phone since the cost is the same as the subsidy for each month you have the phone untill it's paid off.
If you have Verizon they have been blocking phones even if they're not allowed to do that claiming that any phone not purchased through them or the model number that they sell in the store is not compatible with their Network and needs to be evaluated for security. Then they make it a pain in the ass to get your phone approved to be on their Network and it can take up to 90 days even if it's the same phone just the "unlocked" version with a different model number. This was less of an issue when the FCC rules for GSM based carriers were being enforced, but under Trump and Bush they were not enforcing the rules. And until LTE we had two carriers that were not using GSM based technology so they were not covered by the rules.
Ricky says Bill Gates needs to shut the fuck up. You have thousands of times more money than any human will ever need leave the rest of us alone you fucking demon.
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