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> Your idea that people should own their own computers because they’re critical tools isn't wrong, but it is elitist. For the vast majority of people, their des
by jart 6y ago
> Your idea that people should own their own computers because they’re critical tools isn't wrong, but it is elitist. For the vast majority of people, their desktops degrade into a fragile truce with a whole ecosystem of malware and near-malware.
I used to buy the homes of people who were delinquent on their taxes. To my surprise I learned that people also develop a fragile truce with a whole ecosystem of insects and animal droppings. Are most people like that? I choose to believe no. Because I think what's elitist is choosing to believe most people are too unhealthy to take care of themselves. Folks who think that way are going to be biased towards building orwellian tech dystopias. Just because unclean people exist, doesn't mean the rest of us don't deserve freedom.
Also there's just as much unscrupulous software in the mobile world as there is in the desktop world. It's just that, rather than being called malware, it's called an app with overly broad permissions. Like you download a Family Guy game and it uploads all your emails and photos to some business intelligence database. But that's apparently considered OK for some reason, since the user consented to it having that capability, likely believing that permission agreements would be as innocuous to consumers as EULAs.
- underwater 6y agoI feel like I had a better time downloading Windows programs off of TUCOWS in 2000 than the App Store in 2020. I don't know exactly how the incentives have aligned, but the modern app stores are dominated by ad-ridden, manipulative, rubbish.
- jart 6y ago2000 was the pinnacle of Windows' golden age. iPhone golden age was probably 2007 to 2010. I was there. Nothing better than star products in their growth phase. Unfortunately MBAs are taught a self-fulfilling prophecy that what invariably follows in a product's lifecycle is decline. So once it hits market saturation, they immediately pivot their strategy towards squeezing the most value out of a community as its members are willing to tolerate. As it turns out, 3.8 billion smartphone users are willing to tolerate a lot.
- quicklime 6y agoI was there too. In the year 2000 most Windows users weren't running an NT version of Windows. The web browser that came with the OS enabled constant popup ads, making it unusable. You were in theory supposed to "defragment" your hard disk periodically - this was purely theoretical because everyone had to reformat their hard drives wholesale before fragmentation became a problem, so that they could get rid of all the accumulated malware. Some golden age.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]