The tech monoculture is finally breaking

Huh? In what reality is this remotely true? It certainly isn't in the one I live in.

The Big 6 control all media in the US, and mergers happen all the time (WBD->Netflix->Paramount?). Google owns web search and web browsing; Amazon owns e-commerce; Alphabet and Meta own adtech; Amazon, Microsoft, and Google own cloud computing; etc. All of these companies make frequent acquisitions and expansions. "Antitrust pressure" is just the cost of doing business.

What I think the author is referring to are the minor concessions Apple has made in some territories, mainly the EU. And even there, they're using every dirty trick at their disposal to do the absolute bare minimum.

Anti-competitive moats are still alive and well, and growing larger. It's curious that the author is positive about "AI", when that is the ultimate moat builder right now. Nobody can basically touch the largest players, since they have the most resources and access to mind-bogglingly large datacenters.

What a silly article. I don't understand how anyone can consider the current state of the tech industry "fun". I've been following it for nearly 30 years now, and it has gradually been devolving into a place that's anything but fun. Especially in these last ~5 years. I wish I could be optimistic about the future, but it should be obvious to anyone by now that technology, mostly but not entirely by misuse, is the cause of most of our problems.

I have a VoIP phone line from 2004. I was told yesterday that it was showing up as "Spam" on someone's phone. Sigh.

Also, for 2FA, some services allow phone calls. So I put in the VoIP line and not my cell phone. At some point, any given service switches to text-only for 2FA - but they don't notify me in advance and I'm locked out for good.

Even worse, some 2FA that allow phone calls just will not call my VoIP line. No warnings, etc. But if I put my mobile number it calls.

And QR codes for menus? I try not to eat at such establishments. Paper is cheap. I don't need a fancy menu. If you change your prices, just print new ones.

Hey! That's (almost) me!

My desktop has been Linux for multiple decades.

I buy paper notebooks and write with pen. Always have.

mp3 player: You got me on that one. Although I did buy a Yoto (https://us.yotoplay.com/) and perhaps I should just use it as an mp3 player, but to be honest it's a poor player (no shuffle without app, etc). On the flip side, what I like about it is putting podcasts on cards. I can assign a card to any podcast feed and it will let me choose which episode to listen to.

DVD library: Nah - I used to have one and gave in to Plex. I don't know how many of my 20 year old DVDs will work now. Video files have more longevity. But someone did once post on HN how he had set up a physical card + NFC for his kids. A given card has a particular movie/TV show. They insert the card, and the TV plays just the movie on the card and turns off after. I'd definitely pay for that if I could buy it. I'm sure many parents would.

> Gimp is an ugly beast with a bad name. Nobody's using that unless they're a Linux nerd.

It depends on the use case. The vast majority of computer users nowadays use only the browser and an office suite. Even email clients are a thing of the past.

It's true that Gimp doesn't have a great UX, but who spends time photoretouching on the computer, when one can do it in a few seconds on the phone?

> VR is no longer experimental

Till it has practical everyday uses and is at least semi affordable, I would categorize it as experimental still

> Meta shipped a wearable that normal people actually use, thanks to a clever Ray-Ban partnership (and associated equity stake). 3D printers have become real household products.

I don't know a single person who actually owns a Meta wearable device or a 3D printer. Isn't Meta actually shifting their focus away from metaverse?

> Design matters again. In our devices, and in our lives

Design has been forgotten. Just look at your phones and computers and most of the web.

All I see around me are people swiping away at their screens (most of the time not using their headphones), getting their fix in bursts of 15 seconds, rinse and repeat.

It's getting harder to have fun with tech when you have to deal with things like:

* Operating systems that are actively hostile to their users (Windows and OSX).

* iPhone and Android being the only 2 choice when it comes to phones (the author did mention this). The chances of getting a 3rd player here seems negligible.

* Everyone trying to shove AI down your throat. At no time in the past did we need mandates to use a "useful" thing.

* A couple of players consolidating all the power in the AI space and millions of people having no ethical issues about using products from these companies, or opening up their source code and data for these companies to come suck it all up.

* No real disruption or competition in the browser space. It will be a long time before Ladybird will be usable.

* Bloated, heavy websites with popups galore.

* Everything getting a redesign every couple of months for no reason

* You don't own anything anymore. Even building your own PC seems like it will become a thing of the past given how price are rising.

I could go on.