> We just got tech that can write an email, code a simple program, and potentially more.
It does the second thing decently well.
> We got laptops with battery life measured in days that generate almost no heat or noise.
So? Laptop's a laptop. And while they increased the battery life they also took away a ton of the ports and made them spy on you.
> We’ve had some awesome advances in memory safe programming languages.
That one I'll give you. Now if we could just get industry to actually use them instead of putting everything in fucking React.
> All sorts of hacker friendly gadgets like 3D printers and Framework devices are available in more varieties and at lower prices than ever.
That's... kind of exciting, as long as you set aside concerns about microplastics. However the Framework laptop still isn't a mainstream thing and neither is linux, so the vast majority of users are still being ravenously exploited by the tech sector's surveillance industrial complex. I do not consider this a victory until everyone is saved, not just people technically literate enough to innovate themselves out of it.
> Apple and Google are starting to ease up on some of their worst policies and give developers more options for revenue.
Oh wow they're only crushing 29 orphans per hour instead of 30, throw a fucking parade.
> You can criticize things you don’t like but saying it’s all or even mostly bad just seems completely wrong. I think one of the things that makes Reddit (and HN, and X, and some Discords and corners of YouTube) unappealing these days is the extreme toxic negativity about everything.
It IS mostly bad, and I don't say that as some bitter old hacker, I say that as someone who grew up, fell in love with technology, and then watched Big Business Assholes utterly ruin it!
The Internet is nearly UNUSABLE now for anything that isn't motherfucking commerce. Blogs and forums are dead and the majority of social networks are more anti-social than they've ever been. I don't even SEE friends on Facebook anymore, it's just a wall of generated bullshit content trying to either make me horny or piss me off, sometimes both. Instagram is a dead mall. Tiktok is psychological torture. Twitter is open mic night at the Reichstag circa 1941. We're more connected than we've ever been yet somehow I'm less informed on anything I actually give a shit about. If it doesn't make money, nobody will help you spread it around. Except Blusky and Mastadon.
Damn near every application I use daily is now written in JavaScript. Websites run by companies worth billions just don't load sometimes and that's just an understood thing that happens. Apps make my phone hot sending text messages. Every software update has the potential to completely redesign UI's almost always for the worse, and I am unable to opt out in any way. Windows is an utter nightmare to use, practically adware itself now, with parts of fucking EXPLORER written in React because even MICROSOFT can't be fucked to develop software properly now apparently.