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"For now" because they are making it harder and harder to do it, and so, it's not a stretch to imagine a day where you simply can't do it. Or you can, but it wi

"For now" because they are making it harder and harder to do it, and so, it's not a stretch to imagine a day where you simply can't do it. Or you can, but it will be rendered meaningless. For examples, look at how hard it is on phones to change the OS and even then, we're at the mercy of the AOSP remaning open and up to date. On desktop, Secure Boot is yet another wrench thrown into general computing. Or, nowadays, how do we really separate two browsing sessions? A private window is a good shot, but still there's ways to connect that to your normal browsing session. The protocols and methods that can make the current ecosystem free feel like holdouts from a world that's passed already. I really really wish that the future is not closed, that we can still host our email and websites in 50 years, but when all key players want a closed and surveilled ecosystem, it's hard to imagine that remaining open is not a struggle. Hence, "for now".

mindslight 5y ago
These developments are precisely why I think compartmentalization is the future. The lockdown trend is happening, for off the shelf productized solutions. Simultaneously, it has never been easier to obtain computing hardware that can run code of your choosing. So to the extent that you need to engage with the locked down world, you need a locked down terminal that behaves like everyone else's (to within some margin that they keep trying to shrink). And to the extent you want freedom (computational autonomy), then you need a real computer that lets you run whatever code you want. If the Internet became locked down to specific protocols, that could be a different story. But the same bifurcation seems to be happening to the network. MITM webapps are going censor-happy and implementing IP blocks and eager captchas, yet it has never been easier to set up a VPS running whatever protocol you want.
- npteljes 5y ago
  You're right that there's lots of advancements on both fronts. It's not nearly as lost of a cause as I implied in my previous comment.

mindslight 5y ago

These developments are precisely why I think compartmentalization is the future. The lockdown trend is happening, for off the shelf productized solutions. Simultaneously, it has never been easier to obtain computing hardware that can run code of your choosing. So to the extent that you need to engage with the locked down world, you need a locked down terminal that behaves like everyone else's (to within some margin that they keep trying to shrink). And to the extent you want freedom (computational autonomy), then you need a real computer that lets you run whatever code you want. If the Internet became locked down to specific protocols, that could be a different story. But the same bifurcation seems to be happening to the network. MITM webapps are going censor-happy and implementing IP blocks and eager captchas, yet it has never been easier to set up a VPS running whatever protocol you want.

npteljes 5y ago
You're right that there's lots of advancements on both fronts. It's not nearly as lost of a cause as I implied in my previous comment.