Plus all this stuff can be disabled in discord too, if you want to be that serious. There are per-role and per-channel settings that let you disable images, link embedding, external emojis, etc.

It gives you choice. I have no choice in Element, it’s always unfun all the time.

As someone who owns a digital audio player I can give some reasons:

• Since most phones don’t come with headphone jacks anymore, it’s nice to have a device you can just plug your wired headphones into. It also means headphone jack inclusion is no longer a factor when choosing a smartphone.
• Better audio quality depending on the DAC inside the device.
• Expandable storage. Most DAPs let you insert one, some even two micro sd cards. No need to stream anything, plus you have space for lossless files.
• No need to worry about data/wifi, your music is always there ready to listen offline.
• Some DAPs are really small (Shanling M0 for example), making them more portable than a phone for a lot of use cases.
• More headphone compatibility. A lot of higher end DAPs support more than a 3.5 mm jack. The Fiio m11 plus for example has a 4.4 and 2.5 balanced output jacks in addition to the standard 3.5 mm.
• Higher power amps to power hungry headphones. A smartphone can’t power say a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s, a DAP can because it comes with a preamp (not all though, depends on the specs).
• Dedicated physical buttons. A touchscreen will never compare to controlling playback with physical buttons.

Though I will say, even as someone who owns one, unless you’re really into carrying your music library with you it’s generally not worth it. But they are nifty little gadgets and new ones come out every year to innovate the space.

It’s similar to an e-reader as others pointed out. Sure, you can read on a phone/tablet as well but it’s nice to have a device that’s purpose built for one thing and does it really well. The same applies to a digital audio player. Yeah you can (and most people are fine with) play music on your smartphone, but a dedicated device does add some nice QoL to the experience.

Over simplified, because Romani are usually nomad, they live in moving settlements and don’t typically integrate much wherever they settle in. A lot of the hatred they receive also stems from these settlements being illegally set up in private/public property, as well as how they result in a lot of trash being dumped everywhere. There is also an issue with Romani criminality (stealing, damaging property, and sometimes there are even shootouts between different Romani families which result in casualties).

There is also a perceived notion that governments do not want to deal with these problems, which further fuels the hatred against the Romani as they’re seen as criminals who get away with everything.

The truth of course lies somewhere in the middle. Most Romani are not bad people if you take the time to know them, but there is definitely a lot of toxic cultural norms being perpetuated by leaders of many Romani families, which doesn’t help with clearing the stereotypes, and with very little to no integration between the Romani and the cultures they are in, it’s hard to get rid of the animosity.

As a European myself, never mention the Romani people to anyone here unless you want to hear the most degenerate, racist diatribe you can conjure up in your mind. (half hyperbole half not)