Most of what I do in the tech space these days are absurd and ridiculous hacks to attempt to get applications and services to work like they should and that they formerly did, rather than as their authoritarian makers are attempting to herd me to into.
I don’t herd well.
I realize that most of it is about ability to steal data and personal info, but that’s not any kind of excuse. I miss the days when I was in control of my own machine and what it did. They were far better.
Vaguerant:
Well as your average normie user, I’m at rooting around in the command line now, creating fake accounts to test how something should work between several platforms or what might have happened, and physically backing up all of my stuff. All because I’ll be damned if I tie any more of my stuff to an unreliable cloud with its security and be forced to upgrade to some AI enabled POS subscription services with zero ability to talk to anyone. Let alone anyone who knows anything about what I think are simple questions.
I’m 100% ready to go pirate stuff and open source software things. I might even buy my own domain at this rate. I’m the literal dumbass user who’d keep buying from the same company without thinking about it, but at this level of pain? Why am I hunting around for information I only have & shouldn’t even retain because I hoard files? Why did they break every search modality and search operator logic? Why are they promising to mine my stuff for content sludge generation?
AI being jammed into everything these days is so frustrating. Not long back, I logged into my brokerage account and it tried to press AI onto me. That’s the last thing that anyone needs in a broker. I wish there were some way to opt out of AI everywhere with a single click (not even vaguely possible, but I still dream). But the tech economy needs its next growth engine and nothing will stand in the way of that — not even natural resources, common sense or lack of applicability.
If you can even open the command line, you’re not a normie user. The things I’ve seen at the front lines of the help desk….
Cloud wasn’t completely hype but it was also way oversold. And people treat it as reliable but it’s only good as a third-tier backup in my book. I guess to be fair, though, that it’s more reliable than the 10-year-old PC backed up never that is likely to be destroyed by a spilled Coke.
The time of control of one’s computer and data is never to return, but that doesn’t mean we have to think this hellscape is better. “You just hate change” is half-correct — when the change does nothing but harm me. Then I certainly do hate it.