This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
technology has the potential to make life so much better, there are two problems.
Tech that makes life better, usually doesn't create much value. Because it's either, already been created, and if it has, it's probably enshittified by now.
Go use open source FOSS tech, it's great. Contribute to the improvement of society by not using terrible technology and begin using good technology, it's free!
Open-source technology absolutely is making the world better.
People forget that technology is agnostic to morals and ideals. Which is a big part of why I support FOSS. It is tech with goals that do aim for accessibility and making the world better. I am not a huge donator as I don't make much money, nor can I code well, but I donate and contribute where I can.
I had an Amazon bot lie to me. I told it some item didn't show up and I wanted a replacement. It said it would send one and it would show up in my orders. It never did. So I requested a refund later. So tedious.
You see, it actually did still save you time from finding a local shop that sells it and interacting with your neighbor
Yeah my neighbors suck
I think this headline is slightly misleading. Here are some better ones:
This is weird take on an op-ed. OP didn't alter the title. The only ways I can conceive of a headline being "misleading" is when it declares a falsity (this doesn't; it's an opinion) or doesn't match the content of the titled text (this doesn't; it matches the text).
Wait. Is this satire? Like these suggested versions have been generated by running through a LLM AI?
Technology absolutely helps advance science and helps the disabled, It’s greedy fucks that destroyed good tech
Yeah I think blanket statements either way are misguided. Some tech does help the disabled, other tech makes their lives much more difficult. It's like any other tool, when it's used at scale by something aiming for optimizing profit it will have terrible side effects
sure, some tech makes life more difficult, but it'd be weird to require it's use, so you're either going to go through a bad government structure (different problem) or choose to use bad products for some reason.
I guess the secret third answer is working somewhere that requires you to use shitty tech, but like, same problem as no 1.
I find the bigger problem to be implementation and support, shit like QR codes and phone based payment taking over things like paper, and card based payment, that's objectively worse. Though both QR codes and phone based payment are in isolation, explicitly good and beneficial things.
I prefer the saying "technology is a tool and a tool can be used for good or evil" or something like that
You can use a hammer to hammer nails or to injure someone
Technology can make the world better if its in the right hands for example open source hardware & software
Agreed, but things act differently at scale and it's not like there's 10 billion+ hammers being used at the same time, almost all of the time, for years on end
"La science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme"
Anytime I have to replace a device I find it incredibly frustrating. It certainly seems like technology is regressing. I've had the same phone since 2016 because nothing I've looked at has enough of it has to replace it and doesn't offer anything better to make up for those deficiencies. My mouse recently developed an issue that had me looking at potential replacements and again almost nothing currently available matches it or was even close. I found two that were potentially not a downgrade and one of those had awful reviews. Instead I'm just buying the part to fix it and hopefully I'll be able to keep limping it along for the foreseeable future. Same goes for my car. Nothing new that I've seen appeals to me. They're all loaded down with infotainment bullshit that's just a pain in the ass to deal with. Those were just 3 off the top of my head. At least with software you can usually find something open source that does what you want, but if it has to be manufactured by someone else you can forget about it.
My mouse recently developed an issue that had me looking at potential replacements and again almost nothing currently available matches it or was even close.
I used the exact same Logitech MX518 mouse from ~2009 until ~2020. Then I went through one every 9 months or so until they succumbed to same problems with the scrollwheel failing until I finally had to stop buying their crap.
On my small fleet of Logi M570 trackball mice, I occasionally have to crack them open and tweezer out the wreath of hair that has built up in the mouse wheel which obscures the sensor. It'll be a mix of mine and my cats hair.
Yea, this one is actually a Logitch 602 I've had for years, and it's my 3rd one after two warranty replacements so the build quality has always been questionable but I love the button layout on this mouse and the software is usually pretty good at doing what I want so I'm dreading having to replace it. There was apparently another similar one that came out a couple years ago but they don't make them anymore and from what I was reading the quality was garbage too. I still have the one from the second time I replaced it through the warranty so I'm going to replace the problematic switches on it and see how that goes.
I saw the writing on the wall when we started getting itunes updates that no one wanted.
I kinda agree with the article, I genuinely think humanity peaked with the computer of the PS2 era. Or maybe it had something to do with the patriot act. Just feels like after that things had gotten worse substantially
I understand the complaint, but the big picture of tech has a ton of upside.
Tech itself is not the issue. How it's applied is the issue.
Once tech takes hold, there is massive pressure to monetize the asset.
That's where this complaint lives. Amazing advance becomes ubiquitous, then two things inevitably occur. Companies are formed that apply the technology on unnecessary and unpopular ways (parking app is a perfect example) or the pressure to make more more MORE MONEY triggers the enshittification spiral, where "wow, you can print wirelessly now!?" becomes "my printer won't take any cartridges but brand name, and I have to watch an unskippable 30-second ad every time I print now??!!!"
It follows that as tech saturates our lives, the inevitability of enshittification will also saturate our lives.
The year is 2044, you don't feel old but the ticker is starting to skip several beats a day. Your doctor is forced to use the product at his disposal to help you, which is the PaceXMaker produced by the Tesla-Cola conglomerate. The device is a true miracle of modern science. The size of a fingernail, it pulses electricity into your heart in carefully measured bursts to support proper function of all valves, and ensures that any plaque is dissolved harmlessly away. Your iEye tracks the device status, and alerts you when it starts to run low on fuel, a proprietary enzyme designed by Tesla-Cola. When the iEye app notifies you that the enzyme is running low, simply crack open an ice cold, refreshing can of Tesla Cola Zero to refuel your device for another two hours. Need to sleep? We got you. Hook up the Tesla Cola Zero-Venous BeautyRest to your ArmDock (patent pending) for up to five hours of relaxing enzyme replenishment. You can remove the arm dock after you confirm six ad-watch minute credits on your iEye.
Tesla-Cola: We Got You
I would say Tech with a capital T includes not just physical or cloud tech, but the whole process, down to shitty Product Owners and business teams, delivery crap features to customers.
Transmetropolitan had in-dream advertising. I think you got it from breathing in some sort of gas when walking around in public.
The most unrealistic thing about the Transmetropolitan series was the fact that Spider was able to make a living as a journalist.
tech is not the problem, corporations are.
More specifically, it's capitalism that is the problem, not tech.
Tech enables capitalism to take the exploitation to new lows.
We don't blame the whip, we blame the slaver
Agree. It's not the tech it's how it's used and how business owners drive the product development and timelines.
Some parts of life have gotten massively easier. The other day I called my pharmacy to delay my next prescription refill because I still have pills. I was able to do this entirely through voice interaction with an automated system. Huzzah. I get texts when my scrips are about to be filled or ready, and reminders if I don’t pick them up for a while. I can also see this info on demand in an app if I want. What’s not to like?
My entire medical group runs on an app now. I can make appointments with my doctor, see the documentation from prior visits, pay bills, see test results…
Oh but boo hoo this author had to download an app to order a drink. First world problems…
Imagine VR so real that someone severely allergic to cats can know what it's like to give one scritches and feel it purr. Imagine someone who is paraplegic knowing what it's like to swim or climb a mountain. Now imagine how much money Mark Zuckerberg will make when it's $22.95/month with ads and requires you to put in your Social Security Number.
I disagree about such a generalization.
There are very few instances where people decide to be dumb and use technology for it but in general my life is much better thanks to technology.
My job exists due to technology, the Internet allows me to work from home, a washing machine washes my clothes, I can order food in the middle of a meeting and have it delivered on my lunch pause, I can speak to my family half a world away everyday, with video, for free, I can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket, my car brakes automatically if I'm distracted (and heats up before I sit down in the morning)... you get the deal.
lunch pause
car brakes automatically if I'm distracted
These two lines paint a very sad picture.
I think you hit the head on the nail.
What's sad about a lunch pause? Do I need to keep working 8 hours straight?
Or about a car braking automatically? I has saved me twice in four years, I was looking to see if someone was coming from one direction while the guy in front of me braked suddenly. Car stopped before I rear ended the other guy.
I must be missing something...
Yeah, idk what the other guy was talking about. But, I've ridden with someone that apparently got dependent on that automatic braking feature. He "used" something like 5 times during a 1.5 hour trip.
That sounds super uncomfortable, the emergency braking is quite brutal...
I hear you, but the writer isn't concerned with "can": If you replaced "can have the answer to any question in seconds from my a tiny device in my pocket" with "must" then you can see their dissatisfaction.
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I'd have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes "can" with "must".
if I went to a restaurant and was told that I had to install and use their app to order their food, I would fucking leave. If it was the only restaurant left in town then I’d have much less choice in the matter. The insidious nature of technology is that it changes “can” with “must”.
That's not really the fault of technology though, that's the fault of how companies are implementing technology through their policies and procedures.
Companies can have stupid, arbitrary rules and requirements and policies and do stupid or harmful actions regardless of technology or not.
I don't think it's fair to blame tech for company policies.
...but just like you chided the person you replied to, none of that is true or real. The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn't exist, and it's not the only restaurant in town. None of that is even because of technology, it's because of capitalism.
The restaurant that forces you to use their app doesn't exist
Here is one such restaurant (have to use their website via QR code, but same idea) near where I live: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6LhBMo5duVzSB9HE9
That said, it's clearly not the only restaurant in town, and nobody is forcing a gun to your head to eat there.
I watched a documentary about the Unabomber and had the same thought
