boatswain

Yeah, surely nobody would ever like Batman... /s

"plotting" != "conducting"

They explicitly don't:

The law does not require photo ID uploads or facial recognition, with users instead simply self-reporting their age, setting AB 1043 apart from similar laws passed in Texas and Utah that require "commercially reasonable" verification methods, such as government-issued ID checks. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who authored the bill, said this "avoids constitutional concerns by focusing strictly on age assurance, not content moderation," in a press release. The bill passed both chambers unanimously, 76-0 in the Assembly and 38-0 in the Senate.">

I'm still hopeful about https://veilid.com/ but I suspect that's a long way out; the protocol is still in development stages, let alone implementations of it.

Your formatting makes this wall of text even worse

[citation needed]

Just use Obsidian without using folders, then? They're completely optional.

Don't do it; they're a security nightmare: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/11/is-your-android-tv-streaming-box-part-of-a-botnet/

There are safer ways to acquire content to view.

Can you clarify what you mean about the folder structure? As far as I know, Obsidian doesn't change up the directory structure at all; it just uses what's already there: if you've got folders, you'll see them in Obsidian. If you don't, all the notes will be in one big directory.

Syncthing is great for syncing things like keepass dbs

Either adopted heir of a wealthy uncle, or gardener.

It's absolutely feasible; it's just not painless. The network effect is real. This is something most of us here on the fediverse should be well familiar with: I'd wager we've all left a big proprietary centralized platform for a smaller one with less content that doesn't exactly fit our needs. Yes, it can suck; yes, you'll miss out on content and discussions that you would have seen before; yes, you'll be fine in a year anyway.

That said, it sounds like Discord is doing some backpedaling at the moment, and that the vast majority of people won't have to do this. If that's so, there's some time before it enshittifies further. I'm going to use that to check out alternatives. My first step will be spinning up Matrix and a Discord bridge to see if that meets my needs. Then some of the other platforms, probably Stoat and Spacebar. I'm going to treat them as beta tests and give lots of feedback to the dev teams, which I hope will help incentivize development. I might even throw a few bucks at promising projects.

The ultimate end of centralized platforms is decay. It's time to get serious about Discord replacements, at least for me.