The author claims, "Internet surveillance, the algorithmic polarization of social media, predatory app stores, and extractive business models have eroded the freedoms the personal computer once promised, effectively ending the PC era for most tech consumers."
I'm not required to use social media and extractive business models. Intenet surveillance is lamentable but I don't see why he thinks app stores are predatory. The PC is still mostly a force for freedom. The privacy losses are more than offset by the gains of communicating with everyone on the planet.
App stores are middlenen who dictate what users get to see and consume, while taking 30% from what's approved. I think thars eye predatory part.
Apple is the much more obvious offender, even for stuff not traditionally stigmatized against. Microsoft struggled to release Xcloud becsuse Apple didn't want a game streaming service on IOS. Meanwhile, steaming music, videos, and anything that works on its purposefully botched internet was fine.
>The privacy losses are more than offset by the gains of communicating with everyone on the planet.
Definitely a contentious take these days, given recent events.
That's kinda what I was thinking too. There is a privacy loss for sure, but the average consumer also gained things for that loss.
Maybe Amazon in 2000 wasn't so icky but there was also no free same day shipping. Apple II could be repaired without "special tools" but those machines were huge, heavy, mostly empty space, and gap and glass alignment was way worse. I wish I could say something smart about Windows 95 but I've worked hard to erase it from my memory, so I can't. :)
Electronics things, just in general, did a lot less in the past. With that comes good and bad.
Privacy is a trade-off and right now the general public doesn't place a high value on privacy so they're happy to trade it away for anything. Honestly I understand it. I'm convinced I'm going to get bombarded with marketing nonsense regardless so I might as well get something for it.
> I wish I could say something smart about Windows 95 but...
Remember how its uptime was limited to 49.7 days because of a timer's numeric overflow (and in something like an audio driver, too, it shouldn't have been system critical). Good times.
A lot of computing in the 90s and earlier was terribly unstable. And that was without considering how prevalent viruses were in the 90s, too.
> Maybe Amazon in 2000 wasn't so icky but there was also no free same day shipping.
And that was absolutely okay and would still be okay. We don't need free same-day shipping. Free same-day shipping is basically a drug that people have gotten addicted to.
You're equating avoiding mass-market social media with becoming a hermit on a remote island.
But you're here, saying that on HN.
I've seen people say similar things on Reddit, in IRC channels, on blogs, Gemlogs, Mastodon posts, and other similar venues, without realizing the irony of it.
The previous comment was complaining that we can't improve the situation, as there are no viable alternatives, in a discussion that is taking place on one of the alternatives. That's the irony.
Bizarre stretch of logic to extract an irony. Meta platforms in particular (facebook and whatsapp) are in many countries an almost exclusive intermediary to any online communication. You are basically incapacitated if you do not use them.
Thats true, but its theoretical. As an individual you frequently face a take it or leave it option. Have you ever tried to move an existing community e.g., from Whatsapp to Signal or can you do anything if an entire country has chosen to reside on Facebook? In the short term, you either accept defeat and learn to love the adtech bomb or you withdraw into the digital wilderness. In the long term... we are all dead.
> Have you ever tried to move an existing community e.g., from Whatsapp to Signal or can you do anything if an entire country has chosen to reside on Facebook?
What does an "entire country" have to do with it? People move online communities between platforms all the time -- and many communities have presences on multiple platforms.
> In the short term, you either accept defeat and learn to love the adtech bomb or you withdraw into the digital wilderness.
I'm just not seeing the argument here. Suppose you've got 50 users on Discord and would prefer to move to Matrix. So you post a link to the Matrix channel on your Discord server, lock stuff for further posting in Discord, and update external links and documents. People do this sort of stuff all the time without being "defeated".
yeah, thats pretty clear. Because you choose to focus on cases where you do have agency to do something, e.g. its my discord and I am moving us to matrix - and goodbye to those who will not migrate.
Now think about an established group where you are a simple member and you say, "hey folks, why don't we move to something that is better for us, no ads, no data collection, etc."? And they look at you with glazed eyes, and... shrug, and that is the end of the conversation. Now what Don Quixote?
> What does an "entire country" have to do with it?
In countries with high facebook/meta adoption if you want up-to-date information about an event or an establishment it may only exist on meta platforms. Only larger entities can afford to have an independent website, and many such sites are typically in a state of disrepair and neglect.
As an individual trying to go against so-called network effects most of the time you have very little leverage. Its really fighting against wind mills.
> Because you choose to focus on cases where you do have agency to do something, e.g. its my discord and I am moving us to matrix - and goodbye to those who will not migrate.
I guess I'm not sure of what scenario wouldn't align with this in terms of an extant community?
> And they look at you with glazed eyes, and... shrug, and that is the end of the conversation. Now what Don Quixote?
I think I understand what you're getting at now -- you're looking at it from the perspective of a user who doesn't manage the community or administer its technology.
But I'm not sure this is really on target. The relevant arguments, and the call to action that applies here, are for the people managing online communities. And one of the calls to action should be to listen to and consider what users are saying when they propose alternative technologies.
> Only larger entities can afford to have an independent website
> I'm not required to use social media and extractive business models.
Most people do use them though.
> The privacy losses are more than offset by the gains of communicating with everyone on the planet.
I completely disagree. Most people aren't actually communicating. At least not in any form that matters. The drastic increase in loneliness and depression that correlates with the increase in connectivity should at least show that more social media doesn't mean more happy.
Sadly relatable to a lot of real life. Modern people don't talk "to" each other some portion of the time. They talk past each other in this mimicry of discussion.
I'm not required to use social media and extractive business models. Intenet surveillance is lamentable but I don't see why he thinks app stores are predatory. The PC is still mostly a force for freedom. The privacy losses are more than offset by the gains of communicating with everyone on the planet.