Even if you do want to use a streaming service rather than buying music directly, Tidal pays something like 3x as much as Spotify per stream. They were also the first major streaming service to support lossless audio (11 years ago!) and the first to take a stance against AI-generated music. They label AI music, block royalties (people that upload AI music don't get paid for it), and let users filter out all AI music.
dan
I've already got solar panels on my roof. Originally they fully covered our usage, but my wife and I have two EVs now (a BMW iX and an i4) and charge them at home, so we're back to having to pay the electricity company.
I've got 1:1 net metering (grandfathered into an old plan) so don't need batteries.
Makes sense! 30W is great for your system. My home server has an older 10Gbps NIC that uses an Aquantia AQC107 chip, which has poor support for ASPM and prevents the CPU from entering lower C states. I've been considering swapping it out for something newer (like an AQC113), I just need to work out whether it's actually worth it.
Mine used to cost $0 in electricity since I've got solar panels, but we've got two EVs now (my wife has a BMW iX and I've got an i4) so we're back to having to pay the electricity company again.
Creating a cluster could help me self host more websites I create as I want to move away from using hosting services
Just jeep an eye on electricity prices. This is probably not an issue with a phone server, but for me, hosting at home with a decent server PC costs more per month just in electricity compared to using a cheap VPS. Continuous draw of 50W 24/7 is ~37kWh per month which can cost $15 or more in California.
I do still host some things at home, but all my sites are on VPSes. The enterprise hardware and fast, data center grade internet connection is worth it for me. Some of my VPSes are only $40/year.
A friend is running Linux, Nginx, Hermes Agent, and a few other things on her old phone. Definitely doable! It's a decent idea - very small form factor, phones have pretty powerful CPUs, and a lot of people have an old phone they're not doing anything with.
I'm not sure about the Note, but the Samsung Galaxy S series phones have an option to limit charging to 85%.
Cycling the battery is a good idea too though. I used to do that with a wall mounted tablet and a smart plug, until I swapped it for a Lenovo tablet that has this as a built-in feature
is so rich that
I'm not sure about Apple, but Samsung has some ridiculously good trade-in offers sometimes. My wife upgraded from an S21 Ultra to an S26 Ultra this year, and got something like $250 for trading in her old phone. About the same as what they were selling for on eBay. I've seen them offer $600+ for last year's model.
This depends a lot on the person. There's plenty of rich people that earned it rather than being born into it, and still live frugally. I work at a big tech company and there's plenty of people with mid to high six figure salaries that still use coupons, keep their phone for 4-5 years, and save as much money as they can. Living well within your means on a higher salary lets you retire early, and for some people that's worth more than any frivolous spending.
I don't understand why people would upgrade their phone every year. It's so wasteful, and there's barely any changes from year to year. Most of the larger upgrades these days are in software rather than hardware.
Elon Musk is so rich that
Blame UMG - Spotify have to comply with their demands or they'll lose their license.
Although... I don't see this as any different from movies coming to the cinema then to paid streaming before coming to free streaming services. Free users contribute significantly less revenue, which isn't great during the initial rush when a new album or movie is released.