Banks don’t have an ad business like this, though they will have some advertising in general.

They also all, I believe by law, have opt-out for all third party sharing of data for this purpose.

General advice is never use a debit card, use a credit card, it changes theft from a big problem to a manageable one.

AppImages aren’t necessarily portable, it depends on the specific one. Try and see.

See also UseGateway.

TIL, the Real ID Act requires states share license databases with other states.

It isn’t quite the same as a digital ID though. This involves verification in the private sector.

I’m not sure what an SBC refers to, but the matrix server is pretty heavy unfortunately.

Yes. You can also self-host their bridges.

It is just a Matrix service, you can connect with any Matrix client.