I have an amazon server that I use to host my email and my simple website. I'm considering setting a vpn up on it, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Would my data be as secure as with 3rd party vpns? Would Amazon see my traffic? It seems like if I go this route, anything that I do could be traced back to me, because the see the ip of my server and than ask amazon who owns it.

Like many on here I've been moving away from cloud services. I used to think that the open-source-heads that grumbled about loss of control were just out of touch. Just "get-off-my-lawn-types" but now I'm one of them. One of the things that pushed me over the edge was Amazon removing a bunch of tracks I had in my workout mix. Just so not cool.

So I'm done with Amazon but hesitated to stop paying for Prime because I couldn't figure out a good way of getting music onto my old iPhone 5S that didn't involve the absolute steaming pile of garbage that is iTunes sync. Why oh why does ti have to be so hard? And the answer is DRM. It's always DRM. Fuck DRM.

I have mp3s from hundreds of CDs I bought and burned to my computer back in the 90s and early 00s. These have largely sat unused. But not now! Now they are free!

And that is all thanks to the magical open source media player VLC. I've long used it on my laptop and desktops but didn't even know there was a mobile option for iOS. I stumbled across it while struggling to find the default iPhone Music app in Apple's app store. I never found it - I found one that looked like it could be it but it talked about an online store to buy music from so I wasn't sure. Anyways, up popped VLC.

The VLC app is awesome! I can get audio/video to it so, so easily in a variety of ways. I can drag-and-drop across my network, use a number of different kind of online services like dropbox, etc (which is not what I did, but that's cool). In theory, I could sync through iTunes as well, but F that noise!

So now I have 5-10 of my favorite albums, including good music to work out to. And best of all, I have "you are my sunshine" which I was able to download off of Youtube. I play that every night for my daughter and ever since they nerfed the YouTube app to prevent it from playing music while other apps were open, well it's been a pain to just sit an listen to it while she falls asleep each night without doing anything else. But not now! VLC isn't trying to market the shit out of me and lock me into their app. I can put on a song and finally use other apps.

So if you are one of those "get-off-my-lawn" types like me, I invite you to check it out. I don't know if there is an Android version but I sure hope so.

This is all stream of consciousness so forgive my typos and likely poor grammar. I'll clean it up after a I get tired of rocking out to these awesome tunes (maybe...)

For the past few years, I've grown more and more uneasy with Amazon's business practices. I think it's time to move on. Not to mention the declining quality in products since international shippers were added (as discussed in the podcast Reply All).

I'm addicted to the convenience of 2 day shipping, even though we use Amazon less and less, I like knowing I have that option.

I've been considering a Costco membership instead - how does their online shopping and shipping times/prices compare?

I've also considered using Jet more but I don't know much about their ethics, does anyone?

Open to other alternatives and discussion about business ethics here.