@Em0nM4stodon strong ditto...

@Em0nM4stodon

We buy second hand whenever possible:

Originally for sustainability reasons but more and more to avoid surveillance and AI.

@Em0nM4stodon even the verge, a gadget magazine, written to hype tech, is fed up with AI stuff.

@Em0nM4stodon
skepticism has been my most trained skill in the last years…

@dianea

@Em0nM4stodon

I used to be excited about getting a new car, but the same applies to cars these days. Which is why I'm still driving my 2001 PT Cruiser

@Em0nM4stodon Aye.

@Em0nM4stodon @gentlegardener Absolute same. I don’t even want any new tech anymore because all it is now is more surveillance or more subscriptions.

@Em0nM4stodon I absolutely feel this way. A new service, a new upadate, a new gadget used to be something to get excited about. Now it really isn't.

@Em0nM4stodon I'm not known as a positive person. In fact I used to be proud of being a pessimist or as I would call it a realist. I think the Corpos pushing AI and dystopian tech may in fact push people into holding on to old devices longer, create a demand for them, or potentially more serious efforts to reduce e-waste. Yay?

@Em0nM4stodon This is just a bad mindset, in my opinion. There couldn't be a better time for technology- we've had so many advancements in just 2 years! Even if AI is ruining some of it you can still have fun.

@Em0nM4stodon me too.

@Em0nM4stodon

Enshittification

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL58196013M/Enshittification

@Em0nM4stodon

Mullvad browser is new tech. 🙂

@Em0nM4stodon I wonder if the generations before us went through a similar development, just with different kinds of enshittification.

@Em0nM4stodon Agree 🙄

@Em0nM4stodon I cling to the belief that it all is phase that will fade away.
Too bad I'll be long dead when it does.

@Em0nM4stodon I tend to think it's not the technology per se that's bad but whose hands most of it is now in and their modus operandi.

@Em0nM4stodon
In the 1970's Dystopian Sci-Fi BBC TV show "Blakes 7", the protagonists had a supercomputer named Oroc.
One its abilities was to remotely access and interrogate any other computer in the known galaxy. It was able to do this because it was created by the Genius that created the technology that all other computers relied on.
I feel all gov't and corps want their own "Orac"

@Em0nM4stodon same, I really feel the approximate peak of modern technology in it's utility, ease of use, valued cost & lack of privacy invasions, was reached around 2000-2005 ACE. By then we had solid speech/talk to text software & hardware. Mobile phones, including smartphones were durable & had cameras or not depending on your preference. Similarly phones had GPS, & satellite or not. Screen readers were likewise fully developed.

Not everyone needs everything a piece of advanced technology & that's why I would love to see a renewed separation of different devices. Cheap mapping/direction GPS systems, separate from phones, separate from PDAs, separate from cameras.

Speed of doing every tech related task hasn't really changed for most people & if anything it's probably slower due to infrastructure decay.

*As I'm unfortunately continuing to consider which smartphone I should get over the next year & same for my spouse, it really hits me hard how it'd be better for us both if we could just get PDAs, his with a touchscreen & me with a physical keyboard that were 5g enabled.
#Tech #NoGenAI #SurveillanceState #Innovation #Regression #DisabilityAccessibility

@Em0nM4stodon I'm worried about old tech *also* becoming infested with AI too unfortunately. It seems like a lot of software or products that I had trusted to be a little better have given in.

* BeagleBoard
* OnlyOffice
* DuckDuckGo
* Startpage
* Gitlab
* Mozilla
* Phillips (mostly their razors, which have AI marketing now despite that not making any sense)
* Even fucking Encyclopedia Britannica has a chatbot on their website...WHY

@Em0nM4stodon same here. Also new tech is not even that new, just old one repackaged with some little shenanigans added

@Em0nM4stodon same

bloatware, spyware, etc

I don't want to be that old person who thinks everything is getting worse,

and perhaps people growing up with this stuff crammed into everything will have a better view of it,

but it all seems so damaging to society with no upsides.

unless you are a billionaire who can consolidate wealth and power

@Em0nM4stodon Getting more of that new tech/gadget feel from the #homelab community lately. The idea of hosting more stuff in my house without all the surveillance and AI crap is sounding like a great idea.

@Em0nM4stodon 💯