> "I'm tied of Apple converting everything to services so I'll eschew the Apple Watch in favor of an analog watch and an Oura ring that requires a subscription."
I wouldn't pay a subscription to Oura, especially with them moving towards a more obfuscated view of individual metrics. I'm grandfathered in to a lifetime subscription. And eagerly awaiting something comparable in the market, but reviews of competing products are not yet compelling.
> "I'm tired of distracting notifications so I'm getting Meta Ray-Ban AR glasses."
These are for travel videos (dense markets, or places where I can't logistically use a phone or camera). My family enjoys the videos. If the glasses are capable of notifications, I haven't enabled them. The glasses have utility without notifications, and without a heads up display, they'd be of limited value.
> Why is Linux growing in popularity?
This was my point "Integrated platforms seemingly made the Linux philosophy untenable, and yet it may now be growing as a direct result of this decoupling. This was a feature, not a bug."
Linux is not part of an ecosystem, and people are starting to realize they like that for a variety of reasons. We're making the same point
> People are sick of being spied on and being manipulated for profit. I don't think the OP wants to acknowledge that fact because it paints him as a technology hipster rather than someone taking back their autonomy from corporations. He's saying "Look at me, I'm an individual because I choose to have a different set of companies spy on me than you do."
The point is that there is growing optionality. It's becoming easier to participate across ecosystems. We can treat tech as an a la carte rather than an omakase menu. Your computer can be one thing, your phone another, and your wearables something else. It's hard to escape big tech entirely, but cracks are starting to form in terms of portability, and perhaps increasingly in terms of alternative options.
> The other striking thing to me is that the list is also completely devoid of any sense of morality.
I had assumed I could just buy a printer I like that's relatively affordable, on sale, and highly rated? It allows me to use 3rd party filaments and import my designs from TinkerCAD or Python generated. What should I have bought?