Comment by 🚀 SpaceRangerOSA
Re: "Tech is no longer hopeful and optimistic"
I have my burner phone, i wouldnt use my android at all if my work didnt actually force me to use it for everything at least this is a job that doesnt force me to get a FB page.
2025-05-05 · 1 year ago
5 Later Comments ↓
Im not that strong
🗿 argenkiwi · 2025-05-07 at 04:39:
I think the official term for this phenomenom is _Enshitification_.
👻 darkghost · 2025-05-07 at 12:19:
Enshittification is the degradation but is usually motivated by financial concerns. Unicorns promise the moon to investors and post-IPO need to make it happen or else. In the early days of the PC era or the internet, the promise of disrupting markets and getting in on the ground floor was more real because these were transformative technologies. When your product is "a taxi without dedicated cars" or "a hotel with no dedicated real estate" you need to be splashy, promise you'll make it profitable "on volume," chase the latest hype, and then abuse your user base so you can eke out enough quarters to fully cash out. It would be funny if it wasn't so predictable.
Mainstream tech, I agree. But there has been some cool progress in specific niches. Gemini, for once. PinePhone, with its OS and software stack created/adapted mostly by unpaid enthusiasts. 3D printing is very accessible (there are some issues recently, but still), and anything maker-related is easy to obtain and learn.
👻 darkghost · 2025-05-28 at 18:04:
The thing is none of those things are cutting edge the way owning a computer, portable tech, getting on the internet, or digital photography/music used to be. They're technological regressions. You own a massively powerful PC to program your microcontroller that has flight software for a drone or controls a 3D printer.
I see parallels in HAM radio, where owning and operating a radio was cutting edge stuff in the early 20th century. FM radio was invented by HAMs. The hobby exists but it is stuck in these technological anachronisms, still making Morse contacts at super slow speeds over an unreliable distance. (Yes I know there is more to the hobby.)
All this to say, do what's fun. You get one life to live. But you do need to technically regress and fins those niches. I can call anyone in the world from practically wherever using a pocket computer. I can order all the creamed corn I can dream of from the middle of a forest. Radio, like computer tech, is mostly a solved problem. Maybe biohacking is next, I dunno. I just hope my kids won't be like "I was at the forefront of that AI stuff and I remember when all it did was make garbage. It took a lot of blood and sweat to make one that DIDN'T suck and I did that."
Original Post
Tech is no longer hopeful and optimistic — Tech is no longer hopeful and optimistic. It is now largely about squeezing ordinary individuals. Social media - squeezing attention. AI - squeezing all third party content. Nothing is actually aiming at improving the world or even making a better nerdosphere. And I hate that.