Why do things have to get terrible, before people act? Big tech, politics, housing & enshitification in all facets of life
Placeholder, more text and many corrections to follow:
I was thinking about:
The recent acceleration in the usage of Linux and the decline of Windows (11) over the last year.
EU cities and even countries that suddenly no longer want to store their data with US big tech companies.
Many people who recently became very angry with Google Android because all app developers will soon have to register, pay and upload their ID. Discord, also suddenly making it mandatory that people upload ID/biometrics, and that many people are uninstalling it.
HASBRO + Dungeons and Dragons 5.0, which has been hated and even shunned by more TTRPGers for only a few years, particularly since the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License#Proposed_OGL_changes scandal.
*Housing shortage.
*Veganism or eating more plant-based as an option. I was very involved with trying to promote that lifestyle, or at least for people to eat more plant-based, for some years about 27 years ago. Almost everyone thought it was ridiculous if not borderline crazy to be vegan, back then.
LibreOffice vs Microsoft Office. Adobe products, Dropbox, Gmail, etc. vs many alternatives. The far better alternatives have been around for so long, and only now, finally, are more people switching over.
Piracy having a really big surge and come-back after the streaming services have truly fucked over their customers and continue to do worse every year or two.
AI, literally almost every single person I know, used or at least tried it quite a bit because: "It is sooo convenient, you should try it! Keeping up with any tech is good!"
Nevermind that AI, and all the companies that own the biggest models are amoral and dystopian as hell, and that AI will almost certainly wipe out many jobs and pollute the entire environment at a truly rapid and unprecedented pace and scale! Who cares that AI companies never make money and solely just extracts value, steals data, jobs and power.
Ignore that many people and experts have been saying all that since day one?
Only lately do I hear a few people saying "Okay, perhaps AI is not so convenient or great after all.."
The same people that were stanning AI before and even would tell me I am wrong to not want to use it and overstating the case and being a bit alarmist.
So many other people had thoughts along the lines of ‘Elon & Tesla, how nice! I'm in! I admire that man and he will do great things for the world or even humanity!’
‘Oh, it turns out he is a Nazi weirdo POS that colluded with a paedo rapist in Trump? And that might be a paedo himself?"
"Oh my bad! Whoopsiedaisies!"
"Steve Jobs? What a hero, love his stuff, I buy so many Apple products, what a visionary! I want to be like him"
"Oh he was always a weirdo POS who abused and terrorized his workers, didn't have much tech know-how at all himself compared to the actual nerds and engineers he ripped off like Steve Wozniak? And he was a rich deadbeat dad and complete miser to his daughter, of which he denied paternity for years? Ah well, he made some shiny things I like!"
https://nypost.com/2018/09/06/steve-jobs-exposed-as-an-abusive-creep-by-his-daughter/
"Bill Gates, what a hero!" the quintessential rags to riches story, he made being a Nerd cool! Plus he did lots of philanthropy. Good guy!"
"Oh, wait, he was always, since the very first start of his company a trash human being that tried to completely ripp-off his friend when the latter was struggling with cancer?" "Him and his company destroyed a bunch of great and open source projects and small organizations and set back software and operating systems in general, and freedom as well, for pretty much every computer user and consumer? And he treated workers like shit, made sure his company was huge tax-dodger and criminally violated anti-trust laws and on and on and on?
And now it turns out now that he likely was a Paedo that visited Epstein island lots? And vast majority of this info has been reported on for decades and I have heard at least some of it, multiple times?
Ah welllll,.. I will still continue to use Windows and Microsoft Office, I am just used to it and gaming and stuff is a bit easier haha!" 🤡
https://www.slashgear.com/1568338/shady-side-microsoft-controveries-explained/
Surprised Pikachu face "Oh, I am shocked and outraged I tell you, when these same (tech) people and companies that have being doing documented and absolutely immoral, backstabbing and disgusting things for decades are absolutely fine with praising, colluding and sucking up to a Fascist Paedo autocrat like Trump. How is this possible?!"
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) as a dirty and lying marketing tactic has been reported about in media regularly, in relation to technology since 1975 and became heavily associated with Microsoft since the early 90s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish was used internally by Microsoft as another filthy anti-competitive and mercenary tactic since at least 1994. They coined the term and liberally employed this "strategy" and faced heavy litigation from the US government over it later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
So the whole "Wir haben es nicht gewußt" as claim of ignorance by almost anyone, in terms of wrongdoing of Microsoft is unrealistic and horseshit as fair as I am concerned.
Sometimes, I hate some people & the masses.
What all these things have in common is that they have been really awful, bad for freedom/consumers and even the world for 3 to 30 years, and even then they were awful, so I and many others switched to alternatives and shouted from the rooftops that more people should do the same!
For a long time, whenever I pointed out the above issues with all those things many people had an attitude of ‘Meh,.. it's not that bad, I will still keep consuming product.. I'll just carry on as usual! I don't want to switch or know, seems like hassle! :D" or even
"You're paranoid and crazy! What the hell are you talking about? Weirdo!"
And now, now that all these things have become truly absurdly bad, even more obviously (borderline) Satanic with lots of paedophiles, pathological liars and thieves, at least in big tech and politics,... only now is something happening!
Only now that there are many new scandals or even bigger, obvious, extremely greedy or evil excesses taking place with those companies, products and people,.. only now are people, and even governments, switching or looking for alternatives. What a bunch of RETARDS. In the literal and figurative (French/English) sense of the word. If of course am not referring to, nor trying to disparage people with an actual disability.
Well, perhaps I could just think "better late than never", but it is a shame, frustrating, tragic, and utterly stupid that people are so slow to think, act and make a switch. That it had to get this bad before people actually did something...
I always think:
"When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!"
Now that filthy and deep hole will only be much more difficult to climb out of, and we will almost never be able to completely get rid of those stubborn nasty elements that all the "normies" helped become entrenched in the world, and in the culture. The entities I talk about, how too much power, lobbyists and money to ever be truly become irrelevant, and they will fight tooth and nail to gain more power and control rather than lose any.
If even 10% of people had turned away from all that mess 10 or more years ago, the whole world would literally be better now in so many ways. ☄️
Bit of humor:
