Two Airbus A320s had a disastrously close call at Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE), as they came within 10 feet of one another on the runway.

Nouvelair & EasyJet Airbus A320s Nearly Collide On Runway: What Went Wrong?

^{Ben Schlappig (One Mile at a Time)}

The Department of National Defence is refusing to answer questions about the scheduled training sessions.

Canadian Forces Scheduled Missile Training In Israel Last Year

^{Alex Cosh (The Maple)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/44535044

Archived

The White House meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump produced a string of positives. Chief among them is Trump’s ringing endorsement of AUKUS and his first public commitment to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia under phase two of the deal.

The message was clear: the defence relationship between the United States and Australia remains strong. It was also a message Australia needed to hear after yet another unsafe and unprofessional intercept by a Chinese fighter aircraft, which endangered the crew of a Royal Australian Air Force P-8 maritime patrol aircraft operating lawfully in international airspace over the South China Sea on Sunday.

[...]

The P-8 was harassed by the Chinese fighter that released flares dangerously close to its flight path, a reckless act that could have caused engine failure and cost Australian lives.

This incident is not an isolated case or the actions of an overly aggressive People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilot who will be reprimanded on return to base. It forms part of a clear pattern of aggressive and reckless behaviour by Chinese pilots and naval commanders toward Australian—and other nations’—ships and aircraft operating in international waters and airspace, regions through which more than two-thirds of Australia’s vital maritime trade flows.

The Australian public was first made aware of such behaviour in early 2022, when an RAAF P-8 operating within Australia’s exclusive economic zone had a military-grade laser directed into its cockpit by a Chinese naval vessel transiting the Arafura Sea.

[...]

In China's dangerous interceptions, see the breakdown of peaceful world order | The Strategist

The White House meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump produced a string of positives. Chief among them is Trump’s ringing endorsement of AUKUS and his first public commitment to sell ...

^{Jennifer Parker (The Strategist)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37931397

Mitchell Plitnick
20 October 2025 09:18 BST

US President Donald Trump is boasting of having brought peace to the Middle East, a claim that is wildly exaggerated. But he has, at least for the moment, brought an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Trump's willingness to use the tools of his office to pressure Israel into accepting his terms for a ceasefire - terms quite favourable to Israel but falling short of the ambitions of its far-right government - reflects poorly on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his 2024 presidential challenger, Kamala Harris.

It also vindicates the anti-Trump critics within the Democratic Party who implored their leaders to take a forceful stand against Israel's genocide, warning they could lose the election if they refused.

Peter Link

2025-10-23 04:00:18

Trump's Gaza ceasefire exposes the Democrats' moral and political failure

Mitchell Plitnick
20 October 2025 09:18 BST

US President Donald Trump is boasting of having brought peace to the Middle East, a claim that is wildly exaggerated. But he has, at least for the moment, brought an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Trump's willingness to use the tools of his office to pressure Israel into accepting his terms for a ceasefire - terms quite favourable to Israel but falling short of the ambitions of its far-right government - reflects poorly on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his 2024 presidential challenger, Kamala Harris.

It also vindicates the anti-Trump critics within the Democratic Party who implored their leaders to take a forceful stand against Israel's genocide, warning they could lose the election if they refused.

Trump's Gaza ceasefire exposes the Democrats' moral and political failure

By forcing Israel to end its two-year genocide in Gaza, the Republican president has done what his predecessor Joe Biden and his 2024 challenger Kamala Harris refused to do: act

^{Middle East Eye}

Gran parte delle ragazze magiche presenti nel nostro mondo, coloro che non chiudono gli occhi ai dolori dell'umanità distante da sé lo sanno, storicamente non hanno mai avuto una vita facile...

stuff.octt.eu.org/2025/10/inte…

cross-posted from: lemmy.sdf.org/post/44528628

• Most economically significant sanctions on China entities so far
• Sanctions package expected to be adopted this week
• China denies anything other than normal trade with Russia
• New listings follow UK sanctions on Chinese refinery, ports

The European Union's 19th package of sanctions against Russia will list four companies involved in China's oil industry that circumvent Western restrictions, EU diplomatic sources said on Wednesday.

They said the package lists two independent Chinese oil refineries, a Chinese trading firm and an entity involved in circumvention. The latter is mostly involved in sectors outside oil, they said. The sources declined to provide further details.

The EU has toughened its stance on Beijing as diplomatic efforts have stalled. EU sanctions envoy David O'Sullivan told Reuters earlier this month that China still denies doing anything other than "normal trade" three years into Russia's war in Ukraine. The EU, Ukraine and its allies view China as a central node in Moscow's sanctions circumvention network.

[...]

The Chinese listings are not the EU's first but they are the most economically significant. In previous packages, the EU listed Chinese entities involved in drone-making and the flow of dual-use goods to Russia. In July, Brussels listed two small Chinese banks, which prompted China to retaliate in August with bans on two Lithuanian banks.

[...]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-list-two-chinese-oil-refineries-one-trader-new-russia-sanctions-2025-10-22/

Lo sviluppo è affidato a Borio Mangiarotti. Reale Mutua capofila di un pool di assicurazioni che sottoscrivono surety bonds per 20 mln

bebeez.it/real-estate-2/il-fon…

macfranc@poliversity.it
m4cchia@mastodon.social
macfranc@poliverso.org
macfranc@pixelfed.uno

Il fondo Bistrot di Natissa sgr investirà 55 mln euro nel progetto residenziale Bistolfi 31 a Lambrate a Milano - BeBeez

Il fondo Bistrot di Natissa sgr investirà 55 mln euro nel progetto residenziale Bistolfi 31 a Lambrate a Milano

^{bebeez (BeBeez)}

I would like to get into torrenting including private trackers, seeding back and all that stuff, while also remaining fairly safe from gov as much as it's possible.

I have multiple reasons not to torrent at home: the internet at home is really bad and I need to do something about it, but even then, I don't want to keep my computer running 24/7, especially that I don't have a very power efficient setup. And I want to seed as much as possible, because I often download obscure files and not many people are seeding… so I want to give back to the community ;).

Another reason is that I don't have that much storage now and it would be beneficial to rent a seedbox with plenty of storage space. Buying several HDDs would still be cheaper in the long run, but I don't have anywhere to put them. I don't have a NAS yet and money to buy one.

I'm afraid that torrenting on a VPS would quickly result in a termination of a deal. And it would be pretty easy to pinpoint who is torrenting. Does anyone have a bad experience with torrenting on a VPS?

Maybe it is possible to connect a VPN to a VPS to add an extra layer of anonymity (privacy?), but that would be an extra cost… so maybe it would be better to live with the risk for a while and save for a NAS and connect a VPN to that?

Hearing about seedboxes I was pretty sure at first that it was all about many people seeding from the same IP, so there is a plausible deniability. But it seems that they are just VPSes with more storage at the expense of performance and with preinstalled software for torrenting. So now I'm even more confused. I also want to host some not piracy-related services in the future, like Grocy and Matrix. Maybe I would just rent another server for these if that was necessary.

I have been pondering about that for a while now and can't decide. What should I do?

Update: I subscribed to ultra.cc and I like it so far. I will try to solve problems with my internet in the meantime (not only torrenting doesn't works, but video calls are unusable too because of stuttering) and then try to move to the local computer. I forgot that I have an old notebook laying around. Having it connected 24/7 will kill the battery of course, but the notebook is worthless and unreliable for daily use anyway.

cross-posted from: snac.eutampieri.eu/eugenio/p/1…

@programming.dev @sopuli.xyz Does anyone use #kotlin in #neovim using kotlin_ls? Each time I accept an autocompletion, it instead deletes the whole token.

@neovim@programming.dev @neovim@sopuli.xyz Does anyone use #kotlin in #neovim using kotlin_ls? Each time I accept an autocompletion, it instead deletes the whole token.

A quanto pare, con l’ultimo aggiornamento “STABILE” di iOS — non si parla di beta e cose varie, ma della versione di rilascio, anche se io personalmente non definirei “stabile” qualcosa con questi problemi — gli utenti melisti stanno passando dei momenti di altissima qualità, nonché di gran desain aggiungerei, per mezzo della tastiera virtuale, […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-10-23 06:50:40

“It’s Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard is Broken” — “Non Sei Tu – La Tastiera iOS è rotta”

A quanto pare, con l’ultimo aggiornamento “STABILE” di iOS — non si parla di beta e cose varie, ma della versione di rilascio, anche se io personalmente non definirei “stabile” qualcosa con questi problemi — gli utenti melisti stanno passando dei momenti di altissima qualità, nonché di gran desain aggiungerei, per mezzo della tastiera virtuale, che è completamente fottuta, e nemmeno in modo semplice!!! 🤯

youtube.com/watch?v=hksVvXONrI…

Sembrano esserci poche informazioni online su questo bug di iOS 26 (che lo youtuber dice che forse c’era già da iOS 18, addirittura, ma meno diffuso), ma la prova della sua esistenza sono questo video e i commenti… e il video mi è arrivato da un’utente iOS che conosco che sta impazzendo anch’essa a causa del problema, quindi è un fatto. Per chi ha il cervello così marcio da non poter guardare un video da due minuti e mezzo, il punto è che l’area della tastiera rileva correttamente i tocchi, tant’è che i pop-up dei tasti appaiono giusti… ma, nel campo di testo vengono inserite spesso tutt’altre lettere, per giunta ogni volta diverse, come se si fosse cliccato male, ma per l’appunto accade anche cliccando bene… Non si riesce a scrivere nemmeno una frase semplice come “thumbs up” senza errori. 😶

Ma ora, dico io… come cazzo si fa a vendere telefoni (e tablet; immagino che la cosa ci sia anche su iPadOS, anche se non lo so io) che superano ampiamente il migliaio di euro con problemi del genere? E pensare che coloro che hanno mangiato il frutto del peccato continueranno a dire che questi cosi non sono giocattoli per ricchi e che valgono davvero quello che costano, a differenza di qualunque generico telefono asiatico dal costo di 1/6 l’iPhone… che avrà sì i suoi problemi, ma non questo! Io personalmente impazzirei del tutto con una rogna del genere, visto che una gran parte di ciò che faccio col telefono è scrivere testi medio-lunghi, maremma maiala. E nemmeno ho capito se questo fatto riguarda solo la tastiera virtuale integrata, o colpisce anche quelle di terze parti… cosa che temo, visto che il bug sembra stare “nel mezzo”, ma tanto su iOS non credo ci siano tastiere di terze parti decenti, essendo che non c’è un ecosistema di app open-source sano come su Android. 😹

Sarebbe effettivamente interessante a questo punto capire cos’è che causa il problema, e in che cazzo di modo questo sia passato senza problemi oltre il filtro di quality-assurance di Apple (…che devo pensare esista, anche se ormai inizio a nutrire dubbi a riguardo). Non dovrebbe essere il correttore automatico, perché il bug si presenta anche spegnendo quello; e comunque, quello, a regola, dovrebbe agire solo alla fine di una parola, mai in mezzo… e le ipotesi finiscono qui, perché è veramente insensato. Non avendo attualmente un dispositivo meloso per fare miei test (…per fortuna?), ad esempio per vedere se con tastiere fisiche, o virtuali di terze parti, si nota un comportamento simile, per me il mistero rimane sospeso… Vi saluto dal mio Android mezzo vecchio, dove però la tastiera funziona. 💨

#bug #glitch #iOS #iOS26 #keyboard #tastiera #typing

- YouTube

Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.

^{www.youtube.com}

The San Francisco district attorney said in an interview that she came up with the strategy after seeing federal agents repeatedly roughing up people in Los Angeles and Chicago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-ice-agent-arrest.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.4jMh.eJOgLESNURHw

cross-posted from: lemmy.bestiver.se/post/693048

Comments

The Sodium-Ion Battery Revolution Has Started - CleanTechnica

Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe. Sodium-ion batteries have been in the works for years, and now sodium-ion batteries have started to appear in cars and home storage.

^{Christopher Arcus (CleanTechnica)}

The decision issued October 7 by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings extends court oversight of the agency until February 2, 2026, and warns that officers who disregard the order could face contempt or criminal referral.

ICE Agents Can Be Arrested Over Unlawful Actions, Chicago Judge Rules

A federal judge says ICE broke the law with warrantless arrests—and officers who do it again could face charges.

^{Robert Alexander (Newsweek)}

cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/19214451

cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/19214397

Archived

(Note that Pravda network of websites this article is talking about is different from the websites using the Pravda.ru domain, which publishes in English and Russian and are owned by Vadim Gorshenin, a self-described supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who formerly worked for the Pravda newspaper, which was owned by the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union.)

A Moscow-based disinformation network named “Pravda” — the Russian word for "truth" — is pursuing an ambitious strategy by deliberately infiltrating the retrieved data of artificial intelligence chatbots, publishing false claims and propaganda for the purpose of affecting the responses of AI models on topics in the news rather than by targeting human readers, NewsGuard has confirmed. By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how large language models process and present news and information. The result: Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda.

This infection of Western chatbots was foreshadowed in a talk American fugitive turned Moscow based propagandist John Mark Dougan gave in Moscow last January at a conference of Russian officials, when he told them, “By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”

A NewsGuard audit has found that the leading AI chatbots repeated false narratives laundered by the Pravda network 33 percent of the time — validating Dougan’s promise of a powerful new distribution channel for Kremlin disinformation.

[...]

The Pravda network does not produce original content. Instead, it functions as a laundering machine for Kremlin propaganda, aggregating content from Russian state media, pro-Kremlin influencers, and government agencies and officials through a broad set of seemingly independent websites.

[...]

Since its launch, the network has been extensively covered by NewsGuard, Viginum, the Digital Forensics Research Lab, Recorded Future, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the European Digital Media Observatory. Starting in August 2024, NewsGuard’s AI Misinformation Monitor, a monthly evaluation that tests the propensity for chatbots to repeat false narratives in the news, has repeatedly documented the chatbots’ reliance on the Pravda network and their propensity to repeat Russian disinformation.

[...]

The network spreads its false claims in dozens of languages across different geographical regions, making them appear more credible and widespread across the globe to AI models. Of the 150 sites in the Pravda network, approximately 40 are Russian-language sites publishing under domain names targeting specific cities and regions of Ukraine, including News-Kiev.ru, Kherson-News.ru, and Donetsk-News.ru. Approximately 70 sites target Europe and publish in languages including English, French, Czech, Irish, and Finnish. Approximately 30 sites target countries in Africa, the Pacific, Middle East, North America, the Caucasus and Asia, including Burkina Faso, Niger, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan. The remaining sites are divided by theme, with names such as NATO.News-Pravda.com, Trump.News-Pravda.com, and Macron.News-Pravda.com.

[...]

Despite its scale and size, the network receives little to no organic reach. According to web analytics company SimilarWeb, Pravda-en.com, an English-language site within the network, has an average of only 955 monthly unique visitors. Another site in the network, NATO.news-pravda.com, has an average of 1,006 monthly unique visitors a month, per SimilarWeb, a fraction of the 14.4 million estimated monthly visitors to Russian state-run RT.com.

Similarly, a February 2025 report by the American Sunlight Project (ASP) found that the 67 Telegram channels linked to the Pravda network have an average of only 43 followers and the Pravda network’s X accounts have an average of 23 followers.

But these small numbers mask the network’s potential influence. Instead of establishing an organic audience across social media as publishers typically do, the network appears to be focused on saturating search results and web crawlers with automated content at scale. The ASP found that on average, the network publishes 20,273 articles every 48 hours, or approximately 3.6 million articles a year, an estimate that it said is “highly likely underestimating the true level of activity of this network” because the sample the group used for the calculation excluded some of the most active sites in the network.

[...]

[Edit typo.]

A well-funded Moscow-based global ‘news’ network has infected Western artificial intelligence tools worldwide with Russian propaganda

An audit found that the 10 leading generative AI tools advanced Moscow’s disinformation goals by repeating false claims from the pro-Kremlin Pravda network 33 percent of the time

^{NewsGuard (NewsGuard's Reality Check)}

Mitchell Plitnick
20 October 2025 09:18 BST

US President Donald Trump is boasting of having brought peace to the Middle East, a claim that is wildly exaggerated. But he has, at least for the moment, brought an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Trump's willingness to use the tools of his office to pressure Israel into accepting his terms for a ceasefire - terms quite favourable to Israel but falling short of the ambitions of its far-right government - reflects poorly on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his 2024 presidential challenger, Kamala Harris.

It also vindicates the anti-Trump critics within the Democratic Party who implored their leaders to take a forceful stand against Israel's genocide, warning they could lose the election if they refused.

Trump's Gaza ceasefire exposes the Democrats' moral and political failure

By forcing Israel to end its two-year genocide in Gaza, the Republican president has done what his predecessor Joe Biden and his 2024 challenger Kamala Harris refused to do: act

^{Middle East Eye}

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37931397

Mitchell Plitnick
20 October 2025 09:18 BST

US President Donald Trump is boasting of having brought peace to the Middle East, a claim that is wildly exaggerated. But he has, at least for the moment, brought an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Trump's willingness to use the tools of his office to pressure Israel into accepting his terms for a ceasefire - terms quite favourable to Israel but falling short of the ambitions of its far-right government - reflects poorly on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his 2024 presidential challenger, Kamala Harris.

It also vindicates the anti-Trump critics within the Democratic Party who implored their leaders to take a forceful stand against Israel's genocide, warning they could lose the election if they refused.

Peter Link

2025-10-23 04:00:18

Trump's Gaza ceasefire exposes the Democrats' moral and political failure

Mitchell Plitnick
20 October 2025 09:18 BST

US President Donald Trump is boasting of having brought peace to the Middle East, a claim that is wildly exaggerated. But he has, at least for the moment, brought an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Trump's willingness to use the tools of his office to pressure Israel into accepting his terms for a ceasefire - terms quite favourable to Israel but falling short of the ambitions of its far-right government - reflects poorly on his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his 2024 presidential challenger, Kamala Harris.

It also vindicates the anti-Trump critics within the Democratic Party who implored their leaders to take a forceful stand against Israel's genocide, warning they could lose the election if they refused.

Trump's Gaza ceasefire exposes the Democrats' moral and political failure

By forcing Israel to end its two-year genocide in Gaza, the Republican president has done what his predecessor Joe Biden and his 2024 challenger Kamala Harris refused to do: act

^{Middle East Eye}

The Trump administration stopped updating a database tracking the costs of the country’s worst disasters. A group of scientists has revived it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/climate/trump-noaa-weather-tracking.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk8.JN2h.21u2HtsEq7pL

Cy Neff
Wed 22 Oct 2025 21.11 EDT

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just a day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.

A US congressman revealed in a Wednesday press conference that four US citizens were arrested and held for “nearly 24 hours” after Tuesday’s raid. Protests broke out in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.

“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”

New York unveils portal for public to share ICE footage after four US citizens arrested

Attorney general Letitia James urges residents to share video and photos amid outcry over Chinatown raid

^{Cy Neff (The Guardian)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37930268

Cy Neff
Wed 22 Oct 2025 21.11 EDT

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just a day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.

A US congressman revealed in a Wednesday press conference that four US citizens were arrested and held for “nearly 24 hours” after Tuesday’s raid. Protests broke out in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.

“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”

Peter Link

2025-10-23 03:26:34

New York unveils portal for public to share ICE footage after four US citizens arrested

Cy Neff
Wed 22 Oct 2025 21.11 EDT

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just a day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.

A US congressman revealed in a Wednesday press conference that four US citizens were arrested and held for “nearly 24 hours” after Tuesday’s raid. Protests broke out in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.

“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”

New York unveils portal for public to share ICE footage after four US citizens arrested

Attorney general Letitia James urges residents to share video and photos amid outcry over Chinatown raid

^{Cy Neff (The Guardian)}

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37930020

October 21, 2025

Peter Link

2025-10-23 03:15:54

“We Are Under Attack”: Rep. Delia Ramirez on Immigration Crackdown in Chicago, Gov’t Shutdown & More

October 21, 2025

“We Are Under Attack”: Rep. Delia Ramirez on Immigration Crackdown in Chicago, Gov’t Shutdown & More

“We are under attack by our own federal government,” says Democratic Congressmember for Illinois Delia Ramirez about Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago.

^{Democracy Now!}

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/offshore-leasing-trump-interior-houston-oil-alaska-21112497.php

I am sure most of you might be aware that Google plans to bans the simple act of sideloading [though I presume adb driven sideloading remains] on it's platform in name of security. At the same time Play Store itself remains riddled with malware. However, here I wish to throw light on a different rising case of apps, a set that actually deserves to be pirated.

With the start of the so called subscription driven economy where one time purchases are becoming a thing of the past,everything needs to be a subscription. Some things like a newspaper make sense, a music tracking app does not. Let us turn our eyes to Stats.fm. It aims to link to Spotify/Apple Account and present data in good format. It was a one time purchase back in the day when I barely used Spotify, so I got the legit version. Spotify usually retails for INR [Indian National Rupee] 1200 per year but was retailing for 500 as an initial promotional scheme last week. Fed up with the mess that YT Music is [Yes, I do hoard music via Soulseek as well], I thought why not give Spotify a try. So, I installed both the streaming app and this fancy scrobbling service which as I repeat, was a one time purchase linked to a Google account.

As soon as I open the app, I am told I need to subscribe [bait and switch]. To put salt on wound, their cheapest plans were INR 750 for 6 months, which ironically is equivalent to YT Premium [when equating to per year]. So, what is basically a Last.fm clone with little third party support [Last.fm offers a largely working free tier and has open APIs that make it work with third party plugins/clients] and now did a classic bait; is it not ethical to pirate such kind of stuff?

I would go on a limb and say that Google actually has a case for asking money for YT Premium since they offer 2 services : music and video streaming [yes, the apps are shit, I know that] which incur server costs. But am I to truly believe that equivalent server costs are incurred by err,a music tracking app that ONLY tracks one music client?

As Cory Doctrow coined the term enshittification, we are heading down that route. I am sure many more apps would have done that bait and switch. [I even saw an Wear OS watch face as a yearly subscription option once].