You seem to look at it quite pessimistically imho, but I’ll try and counter ;-)

developers won’t support a third platform

We’re not talking about a vastly different ecosystem. Probably Android-derived (which is open-source), very likely Linux derived. So compatibility is not going to be a huge issue, hence developing not hard. Developers will usually follow where user demand goes, not the other way around.

nor will customers move to a platform that doesn’t have the big apps that they need

Most of the big apps today have a smaller equivalent, check AlternativeTo.net.

Doubling your market share is easy when your market share is so low.

Generally true, but we’re talking a growth of millions of users a year. Millions of people is no small number. 5% of the US’ traffic are from Linux desktops, according to StatCounter (here’s an article with many links).

Nope, not in the tens of millions

You’re correct wrt. gaming, as 2.89% of 157 million active monthly users is about 4.55 million, which is not a small number either.  If you look at Linux desktop users in the US however, we’re talking over 5% of 347 million, which is 17.35 million users in the US alone, which is also not a small number. It’s more than the population of Greece and Bulgaria combined.

Purely because of the steam deck (wrt. Steam Linux users growth)

Do you have numbers? I can’t find any official numbers of active users on the Steam Deck, but there are estimations of 3+ million devices sold. I feel like I keep seeing posts of people who move over to Bazzite and similar distros these days for the sake of playing games, but nevertheless, both of these factors weigh in, and are steadily increasing the adaptation of Linux systems.

without [kernel level anti-cheat] it will never take off because the overwhelmingly most played games all have kernel level anti-cheat.

This is denying the antecedent. The amount of games, and money in games, without KLAC is plenty substantial to make a difference in the approach of both developers and DRMs, further increasing ease of adaptation by users. Do not undermine nor underestimate the potential of marginalities.

The Windows phone entered the market while the market was stable, and users had little reason to move away from what they were used to and comfortable with. These days users are getting more uncomfortable, hence why Linux is on the rise. Same with the push for more liberal software (FOSS). I believe if a company can do it right, and offer a stable and comfortable alternative, they can manage to be much more successful than the Windows phone was 10 - 15 years ago.

Disclaimer: I haven’t checked the statistics, but I remain optimistic, and continue making choices that align with my principles.

Availability in the US might be a bit of a challenge, as the Google/Apple duopoly has solidified greatly over the years there. Europe has the entire BoycottUS movement these days, so there are a lot of attempts at developing something independent there. But as with most new solutions, they have the added difficulty of being compared to these bigger companies who’ve already had many years to develop and perfect their solutions.
The choice boils down to how much you value your principles over comforts, and whether downgrading to physical cards is worth it. Personally I’ve recently done just that.

In regards to Android clones becoming worse, I saw GrapheneOS say on Mastodon that it won’t affect them in any significant way. Hopefully this is the case for most, and will remain the case.

/e/OS works with most, according to this list.

The founder of /e/OS has a blog where he talks about alternative payment solutions, and he mentions Curve being one.

I just recently ordered the Fairphone with /e/OS, and will be looking into this myself soon enough…

Not a lot currently, but what’s needed is for the snowball to start rolling. This means the early adopters will have to make the more difficult decision of choosing “lesser” options wrt. comfort and convenience, compatibility, and bang for your buck. All decisions matter, and it will have long-term effects en masse.

Fair point. Though that’s why I think the term is composed with “violence”. The desire for chaos and destruction comes from the human in question, while the nihilism is what removes the barriers of committing to the desire. Nihilism goes both ways, and there’s nothing inherently good nor bad about it.

I wonder what other term would be accurate for these groups though?

Nihilism means there is no meaning. Whether that pertains to existence (existential nihilism) or morals (moral nihilism). Nihilism effectively works both ways: “Nothing matters, so I might as well kill myself”, and “nothing matters, so might as well make the most out of it” (constructive nihilism).

This I believe falls under moral nihilism, where there is no right or wrong, only what feels good or bad. Which the article hints at by mentioning that the actors seem to have no ideological goals.
So it’s not a completely irrelevant use of the term, imho.

I interpret it more as “since nothing matters, might as well have fun”, and “fun” is subjective and can be interpretted as enjoying watching things burn in unpredictable ways (chaos & destruction). Human nature can be a bit messed up in that regard.

It’s fun that one can use games for it, but it shouldn’t be difficult to do the same through AI-generated imagery either, which isn’t much more difficult.

Even though this method is flawed, one shouldn’t really use ID-only verification either imho, as it’s a security risk to upload any official document like that (ref. Tea app leaks).

The whole age verification that the UK wants to impose has been quite the impossible task from the beginning. Creating government-backed education for (future) parents about how to raise a kid and protect them in today’s digital society would be more efficient than this, if we really are thinking of what is best for the kids. But alas, there are zero requirements to become a parent…

Does Actiona suit your needs?

Yeah, a bit of an xy problem, I’ll admit. My ultimate goal would be invisible blocking/hiding from certain expected behaviors like the ones anti-adblockers employ. I’m not sure if what I have in mind specifically exists or not, but I find it fun to tweak and experiment with these kind of things. So I don’t necessarily have a problem I’d like to solve, it’s more an ask for directions/experiences.

I have tried Fiddler before, and it almost has the capabilities I’m looking for (it replaces an entire file; nothing granular), but it was a bit of a hassle to get working well last time I tried it, with the CA certificate, decrypting the TLS and stuff.

I haven’t heard of ZAP before, so this is new and intriguing! Thanks!

uBlock Origin I very much like, and I think it’s near-impossible for me to use a browser without it installed anymore. But as far as I know, it’s only used for blocking (dropping network requests) and hiding (CSS-like rules), but no manipulation?

The monkeys I’ve also used a little bit of, but I wasn’t aware that they supported being run ahead of the rest of the page like how I wanted, so this is definitely worth looking into, I appreciate it!
For reference, I found this answer on StackOverflow, which is promising.

I most likely am going a bit to the obscure/convoluted solution, yes.

My goal is to do something to the effect of uBlock Origin, but instead of just blocking/hiding, either replace with local files, or intercept req/res in order to manipulate them favorably, without being detected. I don’t know what uBlock does under the hood though, apart from its resource blocking and CSS-derived hiding.

Example:
Watching a video on youtube, an ad is about to get loaded, but instead of the hiding/blocking strategy uBlock uses, intercept the GET/POST, save the important flags that are uniquely served to your device that would indicate that you have successfully been served the ad, drop the rest, and then answer with what would be a valid response for “I have watched the ad in its entirety”.
So the server basically saying “Here, I give you this page and this script with both vital and ad contents. I now expect you to provide the corresponding hash that these two files will create through a series of functions. If you don’t, I will assume you’re blocking me, and I won’t provide further contents.”, and I’ll simply respond with “Here’s your hash! *wink*”.

Essentially, I wish to experiment with trying to be completely invisible in the blocking, by providing responses as if I have loaded and watched the ad, with all anti-adblock implementations through scripts and dynamic loading “intact” and unaware.

You’re quite right, I should include my goal in the post - editing it in now.