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Just look at how far wifi has come, only 15 years ago you couldn't imagine an office that could connect to the internet reliably without anything but RJ45 cable
by quanticle 5y ago
Just look at how far wifi has come, only 15 years ago you couldn't imagine an office that could connect to the internet reliably without anything but RJ45 cables.
I still can't. When I'm at work, I plug in to wired Ethernet whenever possible. Otherwise, I get weird slowdown and dropouts all the time. I've done contract work at a number of business ranging from you've-definitely-heard-of-them Fortune 500 enterprises to local small businesses, and it's always the same. When I want a connection that's going to be reliable and consistent, (for example, when I'm taking a video call) I plug in a physical wire.
Read the comments on the internet from the 90s or early 2000s about almost anything and see how pessimistic everyone was about the future of new technologies. This is probably even more true of nerds who live on the cutting edge and see things at a closer range but also at a slightly skewed angle.
Many of those criticisms were absolutely correct. Stallman's worries about DRM have largely come to pass. We're living in a world where farmers can't repair their own tractors without taking out a service contract with John Deere. We're living in a new dark age where a large proportion of our visual cultural output, be it music, film or video games will be lost, simply because it isn't profitable for the original creating entity to preserve them, and copyright law prevents anyone else from doing so.
So what? Seatbelt laws induced the same type of reaction initially, but over time people adjusted, and no one even notices the annoying chime every car makes if you start it without putting on your seatbelt first
I do notice, and I find it annoying when my car insists that I put on my seatbelt, even when I'm just backing it out into the driveway so that I can wash it. I've noticed that newer cars detect when you've been driving for more than a certain amount of time (I think two hours is the threshold) and "advise" that you stop and take a break, regardless of your actual fatigue level. How long before this "advice" becomes more coercive?