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0 pointsm4631y ago0 comments

That is how I felt. Computers made everyone's life better!

My opinion is that "the big sellout" happened when apple introduced the iphone and the apple app store.

and it basically came down to a couple nuances in their policies...

#1 apps have unfettered network access

#2 apple would never approve security apps like a firewall (because #1)

and when a big player sets an example, it normalizes the situation for everyone else.

I think it was seen (or sold) as "advertising will fund everything" just like television, radio and print advertising did in the past.

Except the old advertising was one-way. Advertising today means ubiquitous surveillance and dossier building on every person on the planet.

It's been ~ 17 years of this iphone BS, and now behavior is creeping into every app, device and platform. Look at microsoft breaking new ground in appalling behavior with each software update.

Thank goodness for linux, open software, open hardware and people coming up with great hacks all the time.

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6 comments · 1 top-level

prox1y ago· 5 in thread

This seems like historical revisionism. Not saying Apple wasn’t part of a certain trend, but it’s an odd bone to pick since Apple technically is one of the few companies that relies on hardware sales, not ad revenue.

Google is far more likely to fit your profile. It’s where ads (adwords and adsense) started to transform the web. First just a few cute banners at the top. And these days some sites just plaster the whole page with them.

Even still it’s hard to pick any singular company that started to make tech suck, they all followed or initiated trends that made things worse from a consumer standpoint.

FrancisMoodie1y ago

It's hard to pick any singular company that started to make tech suck because it's a result of the economical structure in which these companies are trying to exist. The neverending search for more profit, more growth every quarter has made it impossible for companies to adopt a strategy that is not focussed on consumer exploitation, at least in the long run.

prox1y ago

Agreed, they also calculate in “future profit” in the valuation and so you need to always hit your targets.

ryandvm1y ago

Agree. Ad-based businesses are eating the world. They hoover up data, invade your privacy, and then set up moats around their little fiefdoms (when they aren't selling your data to the other fiefdoms).

And every ad-based business has the same underlying strategy: steal from the finite amount of attention you have and use it to extract your wealth.

ryandrake1y ago

I think a lot of companies (including Apple) figured out at around the same time that the Internet finally allows them to have that unbreakable "tether" to the end user. The Internet provides them the control over what the user is doing that they never had before. Without intrusive things like hardware dongles and long distance modem calls, they were never able to watch the user and control their activities like they can today.

m463OP1y ago

> relies on hardware sales

but apple made it a free-for-all on the device that you arguably own.

for example, you can block google in your browser. web browsing still has choices and is still somewhat democratic. But you can't block google in an app on your phone.

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