The flagship communities are quite alive, but the niche communities have not really taken off. I am talking from both the absence of such communities, and my experience trying to migrate !fluidmechanics. The subreddit has around 10k humans (or bots).

Depends on the culture and time if you ask me.

I read Stephen Hawking and I was like, “sure, maybe it helps with the ALS and see the universe”.

G.P.U.

We are free to learn, but learning is not free.

Freedom vs cost. One cannot pickup a skill without time, effort and more importantly access to guidance and a vast library of content. Same applies to man or machine. The difference is how corporations have essentially reinvented piracy to facilitate their selfish ends after decades of dictating what’s right with DMCA, DRM and what not.

Seems like this can be done in the browser using a user agent switcher.