My muscle memory is to hit power-right-ok to open youtube when I turn the tv on, most of the time without looking at it. The other day, it ended up still sitting on the default menu item after I did that. This must have popped up then. Something that can be dismissed without ever actually seeing it is certainly not enforceable.

I used Opera way back in high school over 2 decades ago. The name has been around for a long time, but I don't know how related the current company is to back then... The product certainly isn't related anymore since it's just another chromium clone.

Hmm, it still resolves for me, but nothing ever responds. The domain doesn't expire for over a year still. Perhaps it's just a transient issue?

proprietary Chinese company

Gonna need a citation for this. Pretty sure they're a privately-held US company.

I've had Premium since whenever it was first introduced (a decade at this point?) and I've never seen a youtube-provided ad during that time, assuming I'm logged into the appropriate account.

AIOs typically pretend to be a fan and you would only need to use that with a custom loop.

most places have a gate at the exit that only lets you leave by scamming your receipt

That would be unlawful detention here. Also, what about people that go in and decide they don't actually want to buy anything after all?

Fun fact: You can ignore the receipt checkers at wal-mart in the states. They have no legal authority to require you to stop. Costco, on the other hand, since it's a membership club, can.

I don't know, the fact that 4 of the 5 other members on my team live at least 2 time zones away from me keeps me from socializing with them after work ends.

(I do not want to leave this job, fwiw.)

Ya know, I'm not super happy with my salary (they're really bad at keeping up with inflation), but ... the promise of permanent WFH (we are actively getting rid of our last office, and hiring fully remote) with ability to live in ~half of the states without salary adjustment is basically keeping me complacent for now.

(does not include LGBT+ people)

Yes it does.

I've been doing this and still somehow managed to catch it about a year ago. One of the few people at that event that was wearing a mask and somehow I'm the one that gets it...

Don't know if I'm ever going to stop wearing a mask.

You can still buy from Amazon as needed without Prime. The free shipping is still usually relatively fast, and they'll give you a free or heavily discounted Prime trial fairly often. I try to avoid buying stuff on Amazon these days, but a lot of things simply aren't available elsewhere or would be significantly more difficult to acquire. I haven't had a steady Prime sub in at least a couple years, but they end up offering me a trial probably every few months. Hell, they gave me a full month for free a week ago (probably to try to drive up Prime Day sales).