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The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

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Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#171

Post by wtetzner »

CountSessine wrote: post #137
wayneftw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Or even better, imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to someone else’s iPhone, without asking anyone’s permission though? That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it?

> That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it?

But those aren't the same thing. Me being able to install what I want on my phone doesn't give me the ability to install it on other people's phones.

I currently have the ability to install apps on my phone from the app store, but I can't make that decision for someone else's phone. So why would it be different for software that doesn't come from the app store?

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#172

Post by anigbrowl »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #156
doteka wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the right to do whatever you want to with your iPhone. Apple is not obligated to make it easy for you to do so, or honor their warranty if you choose to fiddle with it. The law getting involved here would be total overreach, and I say this as someone who’s politically left, a total commie by US standards.

The technical protections in a modern device are impossible, from a practical perspective, for an individual to defeat. For all practical purposes Apple has removed the rights of owners to do what they please with the devices they own. It's not that they didn't make it easy-- they made it completely impossible. I am not mature, informed, or articulate enough to argue about this objectively. I cannot conceive of how s…

But you can cooperate with others to figure out to defeat those protections, or not buy into the Apple ecosystem in the first place. I agree they make it very difficult to fully personalize their products and share your dislike, but to me this is like complaining about a case being glued shut or requiring a special driver to access.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#173

Post by halostatue »

wayneftw wrote: post #121
mattkevan wrote: post #106

Thing is, in the ‘olden days’, the only thing you could do with a home computer was tinker - the job of a computer was to be a computer but little else. And the number of people interested in doing that was small. Today, the job of a computer is everything. Computers are in everything and do everything. They are our interface to the world. Their value is what they enable - writing, tax returns, video consumption, gam…

> I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work... Imagine being able to quickly and easily add your own custom programs to your iPhone without asking anyone's permission though? Also, what if - as the owner of that device - you had full control over it's capabilities like you do with a desktop computer? Adding these abilities certainly would not be the downfall of phone ecosystems as we…

Just as it’s not possible to provide “Lawful Access to Encryption” (master keys) without weakening crypto, it’s not possible to “quickly and easily add your own custom programs without asking permission” that _also_ provides the safety so your mom or grandfather don’t install something that allows crooks to drain their bank accounts.

General purpose computers are great for people who know what they’re doing (although there are some _really_ good phishing scams out there that can even fool trained people), but they’re an absolute disaster for the vast majority of people who _don’t_ become specialists in computer security.

I _just_ had a support ticket opened by someone who goes between different stores for a client…and this man sent his password in the clear in the support ticket. This man isn’t an idiot, it’s literally _not_ in his job description to be a computer security expert (his job has to do with hardware sales or lumber or something like that).

This man would be better served with two things we’re building later this year (AD integration and an Android version of the employee app), because then he can just log in with the same (probably simple and insecure) password that he uses for his Windows log-in at work. He is the type of person that, when told to do something, would simply install program X because someone told him to do so (never mind that program X is actually malware).

So no, while I think that Apple’s signing restrictions are a little on the draconian side, I don’t think that that Windows 95-like “permissions” are what most people want or need.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#174

Post by grawprog »

anigbrowl wrote: post #172
EvanAnderson wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical protections in a modern device are impossible, from a practical perspective, for an individual to defeat. For all practical purposes Apple has removed the rights of owners to do what they please with the devices they own. It's not that they didn't make it easy-- they made it completely impossible. I am not mature, informed, or articulate enough to argue about this objectively. I cannot conceive of how s…

But you can cooperate with others to figure out to defeat those protections, or not buy into the Apple ecosystem in the first place. I agree they make it very difficult to fully personalize their products and share your dislike, but to me this is like complaining about a case being glued shut or requiring a special driver to access.

>but to me this is like complaining about a case being glued shut or requiring a special driver to access.

Both of those are fairly valid complaints though. Intentionally making a device hard to access or repair is almost as bad as not allowing it at all. That shows an actual concerted effort to stop or make it as difficult for consumers as possible.

That's basically the definition of anti-consumer practices.

It in no way benefits me to not be able to use a standard screw driver to open something and have to either purchase an expensive proprietary tool or at worst take it to an 'authorized' repair shop that has the license to use the proprietary tool.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#175

Post by asdff »

ravi-delia wrote: post #149
EvanAnderson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the fact I don’t have to muck about with my iPhone to get it to work ... I have changes I want to make to my iPhone. Some of them would be as easy as adding a trigger to an SQLite datbase that a stock "app" uses. I'm not "allowed" to. I don't think companies should be legally permitted to take away the rights of an owner to do what they please with their own property. Locked bootloaders, e-fuses, crypto keys b…

Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone . Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options? There's a reason I don't have any App…

That's like saying you don't have to buy a car, or you don't have to get an air conditioner. Sure, you could tolerate a 2 hour bus ride and a summer with 90+ degree heat waves, but there is no reason to put yourself through that given the cost of the alternative luxury is not insurmountable even for working people in expensive places.

We are in a similar place in the mobile world, where life is getting increasingly reliant on electronic luxuries. If you want to take advantage of the convenient electric scooter or rideshare, you need an app. If you want to cash a check without going to a bank or paying a fee with a third party like a grocery store, you need an app. If you want to get early warnings from the city and/or state about earthquakes of all things, you need an app (MyShake). And for all those apps, you can't build from source on your own hardware. There is rarely a mobile website alternative. You need to get them from one of two centralized and moderated marketplaces, where only sanctioned and licensed devices may participate. You could make a stand here with a dumb phone and yell at the clouds that the world is this way, and it really is bad that it is this way, but you'd realistically be living a decade in the past and miss out on all this useful functionality.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#176

Post by pjmlp »

jonathankoren wrote: post #165
EvanAnderson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Right to Read is coming closer each day. Almost nobody cares. It seems like an increasing number of technical people want that future to happen. It fills me with immeasurable sadness. I am having a really hard time coming to terms with the fact that computers aren't "for" me anymore.

I think this is related to techies have given up selling things , and now sell subscriptions, or best of all remotely terminated licenses for “purchase”. If you have a general purpose device, you’ll find all those artificial limitations can just as easily be removed, thus destroying the rent.

All the anti-GPL techies have themselves to thank for.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#177

Post by notriddle »

freeone3000 wrote: post #169
stavros wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past, there were only enough components to fill a few shelves. Also, you can get many, many components from local stores now, if you're willing to pay the 4x-10x premium. Not many people are, so local stores aren't as common.

>You can get many many components from local stores now, if you're willing to pay the 4x-10x premium Well. No. RadioShack is closed. Fry's is closed. If I needed a resistor, I honestly wouldn't know where to go. Probably AliExpress or DigiKey. There's no local stores left.

Comic books shops are suffering the same problem. It's not just computers.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#178

Post by njharman »

asdff wrote: post #175
ravi-delia wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, in general I'm with you. But at the end of the day you just don't have to buy an iphone . Get an android device, flash it with Linux, buy a pinephone, do whatever you want! But Apple doesn't sell tinker's devices, they sell a walled garden. Why force them to spend even 10 seconds of effort on something that isn't their business, when there are plenty of other options? There's a reason I don't have any App…

That's like saying you don't have to buy a car, or you don't have to get an air conditioner. Sure, you could tolerate a 2 hour bus ride and a summer with 90+ degree heat waves, but there is no reason to put yourself through that given the cost of the alternative luxury is not insurmountable even for working people in expensive places. We are in a similar place in the mobile world, where life is getting increasingly r…

No it's not! The parent listed other phones as options, not "do without a phone".

Following your weird examples the parent's comment is like saying you don't have to buy a *Ford* car, or a *Carrier* AC. There are many more car and AC options if you don't like Ford or Carrier.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#179

Post by asdff »

dschuetz wrote: post #15

It's declining perhaps, yes, but it's not there yet. Because modern workloads shifted mostly towards gaming, crypto-mining and web browsers doesn't mean that general-purpose computers declined. It only means they haven't developed very fast, but that is thanks to Intel and Microsoft. In my opinion, the OS needs to go all virtual+distributed for general-purpose to survive. Or else all hardware will become web browser…

I think consumer devices are going to remain consumerified, but we will see an increase in people across disciplines who need and make use of general compute power. More industries are starting to recognize the importance of statistical modelling and interpreting data, and that means being able to develop bespoke analysis on general purpose computing hardware. Right now it's just the data scientists and engineers doing this work, but I wouldn't be surprised if this grows to include investors, accountants, actuaries, urban planners, etc, in the coming decades. I expect we will see more smaller companies with unique cluster offerings to compete against AWS and their increasing prices, especially as hardware grows cheaper by the year.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#180

Post by smk_ »

visarga wrote: post #79
brainless wrote: post #6

This is what I personally feel is just missing these days. I was never part of the leading edge of hobby computing. I was very far off, geographically, growing up a teenager in India. But back then, 1998 - 2006 ish, I feel the Internet was a lot more about experiments. I would read up on some software or hardware group all the time. LUGs were way popular. I used to be on chat rooms from MIT or other unis every other…

> Nowadays most people I see of that age group are happy with a YouTube video on their smartphones. YouTube is a fantastic resource for any hobby or subject. It's like a world wide university.

Except that the algorithm is optimized for revenue and attention-grabbing content (the opposite of university material), and will gradually steer watching habits in that direction.
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