Could it be that this is a very SV problem?
I'm from a European state, I know some people doing programming in Asian regions.
What you are describing to me sounds like a bubble. Or I am in a bubble, IDK.
Yes devices can do less than 10 years ago (less arbitrary thing), but they can also do more than 10 years ago.
Of course the market in this segment might give you the feeling that everything is dumbed down. These devices are not used solely by very smart people.
The most basic of all humans has a phone nowadays. And If apple decides to make MacOS only run singed binaries. That shows that they are targeting people who do not know how to run arbitrary code safely. I am a programmer and when I have to do that I have to think really hard. If my main PC runs stuff that I would rather not like to leave my house. I have to set up a VM and check it beforehand.
You still have Linux to do whatever you want.
If people in the job market and Open Source community are getting exploited, it is only a matter of time until something develops to create a force against the exploitment.
There are unions (at least there should be) and there are multiple ways to fund Open Source nowadays (Patreon, Gitcoin, Bountys,...).
It doesn't seem to me as everything is moving backwards. It is getting harder to live out the freedom of the individual. But on a macro level, I think things are moving forward.
Yeah, a lot of posts here seem to be trying to say the following, but they don't want, or don't know, how to word it:
Technology was made accessible for the masses. That means 100 IQ people. And then it was refined so the 85 IQ people could work most of it. I have no doubt that if you gave standardized IQ tests to every reader of Hacker News, you would not see much of an overlap with the bell curve of the American, or even world, population.
The people coming here are generally very technical, very smart (I'm defining this as at least one standard deviation above the norm, so 115 and higher IQs).
Most people aren't going to build their own enormous media server from used enterprise gear. Most people aren't going to build their own home surveillance system even though the hardware and open-source software out there exists. I could list another hundred projects for which we have specialized "consumer-friendly" devices.
Watch the YouTube video where Jordan Peterson talks about working with an 85 IQ individual and how it was a struggle for that person to consistently and accurately fold a sheet of paper into thirds and put it into an envelope. And now realize that for many of you, that's someone for which you're developing.
Yes devices can do less than 10 years ago (less arbitrary thing), but they can also do more than 10 years ago. Of course the market in this segment might give you the feeling that everything is dumbed down. These devices are not used solely by very smart people. The most basic of all humans has a phone nowadays. And If apple decides to make MacOS only run singed binaries. That shows that they are targeting people who do not know how to run arbitrary code safely. I am a programmer and when I have to do that I have to think really hard. If my main PC runs stuff that I would rather not like to leave my house. I have to set up a VM and check it beforehand. You still have Linux to do whatever you want.
If people in the job market and Open Source community are getting exploited, it is only a matter of time until something develops to create a force against the exploitment. There are unions (at least there should be) and there are multiple ways to fund Open Source nowadays (Patreon, Gitcoin, Bountys,...).
It doesn't seem to me as everything is moving backwards. It is getting harder to live out the freedom of the individual. But on a macro level, I think things are moving forward.