For me personally the issue is more of a hardware issue (firmware too) though, I'll be pretty happy just getting bare metal Linux (or something I can modify myself) running on my phones and laptops.
As for the issue of accounts and lock in, I believe this is where the government could actually do citizens a service, but will require careful thought... so we might be better off waiting on that for a while :/
About a year ago I quit my job and moved. As a part of quitting my job I gave up my only Mac, since it was a work laptop. Nothing unexpected about this story so far... and it wasn't until I tried to recover the backup that I realized my mistake.
Apple backups can only be recovered from other Apple machines. So I went into the Apple store and tried to use a floor model. A manager quickly told me I'd need a genius bar appointment (fine).
So I booked one. The scheduled time comes and goes, hours of time in the Apple store just waiting to finally have a guy tell me they won't help me. Things got a bit heated at that point :(
All this is to say, it's pretty clear Apple has no empathy for users in general, just fear of losing the users they currently have.
I regret not taking out that laptops hard drive and smashing it to little pieces with a sledgehammer in front of the store, the symbolism was right on point.
The recently refreshed MacBook Air and Mac mini really smacked me in the face. Astonishingly, ridiculously high prices for the specs. Upgrades at even crazier prices, even by Apple standards. Such a shameful show of greed and contempt for their customers.
I can't help but think Apple has decided it'll be the brand for rich people only (and people who haven't yet maxed out their credit), and to hell with everyone else. These days, the Genius Bar seems more interested in selling you upgrades rather than fixing your problems.
https://www.howtogeek.com/212505/how-to-restore-files-from-a...
The thing is, most people don't want to create upheaval. Most just want to make money. Because in our modern capitalist democracies, money is the highest value, the moment someone has power, or knowledge that goes beyond the ordinary the first thing they do is try to make it make money. And if they succeed- well, out goes all the democratic, free-thinking, hacking ethos.
This is not an easily hackable system. You need people who have skills and knowledge and also, well, let's say higher ideals. People who don't care about money because they can have all of it that they want, but who decide they prefer to go Buddha, and give everything to the poor. To actually "make the world a better place", by not selling you stuff.
Are there people like that? I doubt I've ever met any.
Now, what do you think of the post content? :-)
http://thedemoat50.org < anyone else going?
Internet companies thrive on specificity in the signals coming from end users. Twitter/Facebook > RSS, for example.
One trouble I see is that, to be productive and to be entertained, end users end up continuously dumping their hearts and souls onto data collectors at large internet companies.
Conversely, these internet companies hold the ubiquitous/universal data stores whose utility is all locked up behind the query and the scroll.
We need to invert that specificity/ubiquity relationship between end users and for-profit companies somehow. We need a mediating layer between users and for-profit companies. As users, we need to start with all-the-datas, ubiquity in local caches, and produce signals only when we contribute back.
With robotics and neural links, our current direct-connect model of internet computing poses existential risks.
I guess they are trying to mimic Safari's built-in inertial scrolling on every other platform, but they can't do it perfectly, so it actually ends up breaking scrolling in Safari. Sad and pointless.
