I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.

What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?

  • yenguardian@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    207
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Needless complexity in software is something that gets on my nerves, especially on the web. We went from simple HTML to such a bloated mess that only like 2 web browsers can manage to keep up with it. I mean, does a web browser really need to do everything? Why use an office suite written in JavaScript in a web browser when there are native programs you could use?

    • ares35@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      37
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      if the ‘big three’ have their way, it won’t be a browser to do ‘everything’, it’ll be individual apps instead. where they control everything, including ads and trackers and data collection, instead of in a browser where users at least have some control. but yea, where it’s possible or expected, an ‘app’ should have a standalone application to install or run available. and knock it off already with ‘apps’ that are basically just wrappers around a ‘mobile-first’ web page. apps should do something other than just browse your damn web site.

    • CeeBee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      ·
      1 year ago

      It goes deeper than you think. Frameworks like Angular are used everywhere. So you not only have an abstraction of the underlying language (Typescript compiles down to Javascript), but you have additional abstractions like the virtual DOM. Basically, Angular acts like a go between from the code you write and the end result webpage. It makes both writing complex interactions and debugging a major pain.

      And this is more being done for even simple websites now. It’s the equivalent of building a small garden shed with a kitchen, fridge, furnace, bedroom, bathroom, insulation, etc.

      It’s so overkill nowadays.

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      1 year ago

      Standards based thin clients, basically. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but I do get your frustration. I still like working with tiny little static sites.

      Mostly though, JavaScript is also just trash. The only language we transpile because working in the vanilla version is so miserable.

      • CeeBee@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Surely you mean Typescript? Plain Javascript is as vanilla as you can get on the web (aside from plain plain HTML).

        • treadful@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          TS is basically a JS extension, but no, I meant JavaScript. Webpack, esbuild, babel, and probably a dozen others were not originally built for TS.

          • CeeBee@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’m trying to understand what you meant by “The only language we transpile because working in the vanilla version is so miserable.”

              • CeeBee@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Just “ok”?

                The statement “the only language we transpile” is just wrong. Java is a language that we (usually) transpile.

                Then there’s LLVM, and how the frontend transpiles a language into an IR before being sent to a backend that targets a hardware architecture.

                • wols@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I think they meant the only language we transpile to for the express reason that working with it directly is so unpleasant.

                  Java is not transpiled to another language intended for human use, it’s compiled to JVM bytecode.

                  People don’t usually develop software directly in the IR of LLVM. They do develop software using vanilla JavaScript.

      • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The fact the Turbo PR caused so much drama earlier this week says it all about JavaScript really. And it’s my daily driver ATM. I’d rather be using PHP. Yes, you read right. At least they’re fixing the duck typing.

    • the16bitgamer@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      I agree with you. But with how fractured the software and hardware space has become. Building native is expensive and time consuming.

      For example a web browser is compatible with x86 amd64 armv7 aarch64 on any OS from Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iPad/iOS, and Android.

      Which means that if I make 1 web page, I can support all these platforms at once.

      The customer doesn’t care, they just want funny cat pics.

      Building native requires both the hardware (especially if you need to build for the walled garden known as iOS), and frameworks. Where its just easier to recompile chrome, and bake in a Web Page, I.e. react native

    • johnyma22@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I help maintain Etherpad and this cuts so deep.

      The main counter-argument I have is restrictive installation policies especially in Edu/bluechip IE you can do whatever the fuck you want in the sandbox that is your web browser but if you want to install some software you have to wait 4 weeks for approval then another 4 weeks to get approval for each update.

      Also security updates/patches for native applications can be really shitty especially on Microsoft inflicted devices… For example, if you want to update Inkscape on Windows you have to do a whole download/install process. This can lead to security related issues…

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    171
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The loss of the actual internet + The loss of actual search engines.

    Let me explain. The internet used to be an open playground where anyone could post a website dedicated to their interests, and did so. There were websites about octopuses and electomagnets and all sorts of obscure niche interests. Free website space with plentiful, and everybody used it. You could see 50 pages of information about someone’s dog Fifi, just because they wanted to put it out there. Or hand loading ammunition if that was their bag. Or why the Communist manifesto was a better document than the declaration of Independence. Anything went on your own web page.

    And it became massive; so big that we needed search engines to find the exact thing we were looking for. When we wanted to find information about octopuses, we needed to search through all those obscure websites and find what we needed to find about octopuses.

    So the search engine wars began.

    We also had things like stumble upon, where you could be surprised by some interesting site, and there were rings, where interesting sites of the same genre linked together so you could follow a threat of interest through a bunch of obscure sites.

    None of this was forced on you.

    Now we have possibly 20 to 30 large websites that account for 95% of all the traffic on the internet? We have search engines that show us what they think we meant by our question, but not the exact answer to our question.

    It’s gone. We wondered how they were possibly going to tame the internet how they were going to close Pandora’s box.

    It’s all gone.

    • Psythik@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      59
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      1993-2002ish was the golden age of the web. Now everybody just goes to the same handful of websites for everything. Even if you hate Spez, you still can’t find any quality answers to anything without adding site:reddit.com to your searches. Everything else is SEO-optimized blogspam generated by a bot. There are no real personal webpages being run by a single person or a small entity anymore. Everything is corporate and centralized.

        • Psythik@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I do (it’s my default search engine) but I more often than not have to go back to Google anyway cause DDG promotes those bot-written blogs to the top even more than Google does. Ironically Bing does better than both because at least it’s GPT-powered.

          That said, none of these search engines can provide me the results I’m looking for most of the time. I need something different.

        • prunerye@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          DuckDuckGo might be more private, but it won’t solve the SEO problem. I know they have some of their own trackers, but in practice duckduckgo is basically a front-end for Bing.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        We need a good solution to the search engine problem. With that we can just metaphorically load a save at the last known point before everything started sucking

    • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s some rose tinted glasses, and misunderstands why we don’t do that anymore, despite being perfectly able to.

      Those obscure websites you were referring to had a high barrier to entry, they required the person to know how to host and code some basic HTML. Sure, it had more personality, but that barrier meant there was far less people who could do that. So then platforms like geocities came out, where instead you now needed just an account and to fill out some forms to create your own little site, you didn’t even have to host anymore! That was the beginning of web2. Those people who now were creating pages on geocities didn’t have a voice before, they could have posted their own websites but simply did not have the means to, nor should they be required to just so they can post online.

      Well, now we’re on geocities on crack, which the websites we post our content on have gotten much more advance, to the point that we are now. Those big internet monoliths exist because of web2, because people didn’t want to handle their own self hosting stack just to post some stuff to the internet, so no wonder we’ve reached this point. People then gravitated to the best places to post their content, and to explore other’s content. Because that’s essentially what the internet is, exploring other’s content.

      • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        43
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        That’s not right and I’ll tell you why. You’re not wrong about geocities opening up the ability to create websites to a lot more users. Geocities and other website creator sites like that were great, and did exactly that. Even MySpace did the same thing. But then here’s where corporations threw the control element in.

        They added a social element. They took away a bare website presence, maybe a counter to see how many people came by, and replaced it with an upvote and downvote system where your thoughts were subject to peer pressure and social correction. MySpace, Geocities, all of those independent free website creator tools died in favor of Facebook, digg, Reddit, Twitter. The odd stuff, the weird stuff, the truly countercultural stuff, disappeared under the tyranny of the masses. People turned to blogs for a while. But soon those died too.

        So now we have the new element of control. The control of what you get to see. What the web search engine shows you. What rises to the top of your feed. Hell a lot of the times you have to really work hard to find your own friend’s posts. I’m looking at you Instagram.

        But by all means disagree with me. But you won’t convince me that this is better. Not in a million years.

        • sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          What’s more, they created a standardized format for how people add content. Facebook has template, Instagram has a template and users just plug in what they want to contribute. It has made it easier for more people to post things, for better or worse, but it sucked so much creativity from the internet. The individuality of personal websites has been crushed by these entities forcing people to use their format.

          • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Don’t get me started. How about “meme” templates? Just stick a few lines of text onto this well-known picture and everyone will have chuckle as they pass by.

            It’s exactly what you said.

        • forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          There’s only so far to go technologically speaking. Making websites and message boards was a solved problem a long time ago. Search engines were pretty much perfected about a decade ago.

          Tech companies stopped being tech companies too. I dunno what they are anymore. The dystopian cyberpunk evil corporations.

        • bermuda@beehaw.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          but you won’t convince me that this is better.

          Average internet conversation

      • urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Those obscure websites you were referring to had a high barrier to entry

        Barrier for entry? I had a geocities page when I was around 11 or 12 (and it was free, geocities ran banner ads on my page. I could host something like 50mb-100mb in pictures). I learned HTML because I played a webgame called Neopets, and you could customize little webpages for your pets and your shopfront. I think it had CSS too (and it was the new thing!).

        The barrier wasn’t making a website, it was visibility. How many human visitors do you think my geocities page got? Pretty sure just the people in the webring I joined, and my mom. But I spent a lot of my time looking at other people’s obscure geocities pages about pokemon or their doodles or whatever. Was my page very useful or interesting? No, but it was my little corner of the internet, and I was so excited to visit other people’s fan pages and add them to my links list or whatever. Or figure out how they pulled off some new rad html stuff that I had to do for myself.

        I had to take my geocities page down. There was a form on my site so people could send me cool facts about pokemon (it would show up in my email which my mom had access to), and someone typed up some awful pokemon sex story, so my mom made me take it down!

        Anyway, I’m not sure what I was trying to say, but no, it was braindead simple and freely available to make a website. The internet was more human. Other kids at my school knew how to do it. Not sure what kids would say these days if you asked them to put their doodles on the internet. They’d upload it somewhere, where people can comment on it, upvote it, downvote it. My geocities page was entirely mine, nobody was there to judge or monetize my shitty doodles (outside of banner ads)

        • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I appreciate you responding, I loved reliving through your experience.

          I neglected to mention in my long winded response that before Geocities existed, ISPs gave you free web page space, free web page builders, free templates, there was no barrier to building a web page.

          I’m a dumbass, and I had one.

    • StantonVitales@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I think about this constantly. I’m constantly very upset about it. I’ve lost friends to cancer and freak accidents, and the loss of the internet is still genuinely the greatest tragedy in my life. The internet is, in large part, nothing more than a series of very customizable and semi-niche subscription packages and big box stores now. VR, particularly VR Chat, is close to/reminiscent of what it used to be like, so I cling to that, Lemmy, piracy, archive.org, and a few other things very tightly, but VR is starting to enter an era comparable to when cable internet started to become commonly available (and full of obnoxious unsupervised children), so it’s on its way out; not to mention the continued attempts to ruin the internet archive, which will be, not hyperbolically, the greatest loss to our species since the destruction of Alexandria.

      We had it all, and it got bought out from under us, and there’s nothing to be done about it. People en masse don’t even know what we’re missing. I hate it. I’ll never get over the obsolescence of specialized forums in favor of social media, in particular.

      • Uranium3006@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        The good thing is that all the bones are still technically sound, and there’s nothing stopping you from renting a VPS for $5 a month and returning to the good old days. The only thing is that you would have to convince others to do the same, which might ironically end up with you posting about it on Facebook to draw attention. Of course some of the more modern features we want now available with all of the open source decentralized goodness we always wanted with the rise of Federate social media but these Tech Stacks are still underactive development and you could argue we should try building something that doesn’t have things like down voting. All hope is not lost and you care and know exactly what you want and you should fight for it

        • MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I still make little static sites on occasion. There’s still free options for hosting, I’ve got some on GitHub and used to use netlify til they changed their free tier. Sticking a static site into aws s3 +cloud front is super cheap if you don’t have much traffic. The nice thing is that they run forever without any intervention.

  • TheWeirdestCunt@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    142
    ·
    1 year ago

    I just moved into a new student dorm today and every single thing is done by a different app run by a different company and the “help desk” only say “use the app” whenever you have an issue. Only problem is I can barely even download the thing because the wifi is broken and I can’t report that I can’t connect to it because I can’t download the app to report it.

    • RozhkiNozhki@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      98
      ·
      1 year ago

      On that note I am noticing with growing concern the big push to transition to and rely on technology that is nowhere close to the level of reliability that is being presented. I am not a Luddite in any way but pushing apps everywhere with little regard for functionality and privacy, as well as endless “do you have an app for this?” questions are unnerving. Same with AI.

      • Susaga@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        1 year ago

        I recently got on a plane that insisted I download an app to use as my boarding pass, rather than just give me a boarding pass. It was a transfer, and the second flight used a boarding pass. Significantly easier. But I guess the app lets them gather data on me or something.

    • Matomo@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      I like the contrast with this comment about how web is starting to do too much. I agree with both sentiments, so it would be great to find the golden mean.

    • Nyanix@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly, I’m so fed up with EVERYTHING having an app. I don’t need an app to pick up some Taco Bell

    • acastcandream@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m somebody who likes to take care of things himself, especially if an app can handle it, but ultimately I want there to be a clear way to get a person for when things just aren’t working. I feel like so many companies work so hard to make sure I never talk to a person ever.

  • yukichigai@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    117
    ·
    1 year ago

    Another one that gets me: buying things but not actually owning them. You buy a game but you don’t actually own the game, you own a license to play a game on a service that might shut down sometime in the future or change their mind about the license they sold you. You buy an e-book but the storefront you bought it from might change or remove it, and then forcibly update or remove any copies you have on e-readers. Most people don’t even buy movies or TV shows, they just subscribe to some streaming service, and if they do “buy” an electronic copy it’s the same issue as e-books.

    At least physical copies of movies and tv shows and books are still a thing, but even then we’re heading towards a future where physical media may require phoning in before it’ll play.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      44
      ·
      1 year ago

      It needs to be made illegal for any store to call a lease a purchase. If what you’re buying is a temporary, revokable license to download and play a game or watch a movie, the store you buy it from should be forced to make that perfectly clear.

  • HunkyBrewster@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    115
    ·
    1 year ago

    Noise pollution and how comfortable people feel contributing to it. I’m mostly talking about people playing videos and listening to music in public (bars, restaurants, etc), but also the new “stereos” on motorcycles that are essentially just PA systems. Sometimes it feels like nowhere’s quiet anymore.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Tangentially related, light pollution. Not just the damn city preventing me from seeing Nishimura, but also inside your own home. How many electronics do you have that put out constant light? I should not be able to cast a shadow on my wall while my TV is off.

      Does anyone know where I can get a large, dim, red alarm clock? It always seems like I have to choose one of those, two if I’m lucky.

    • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      It seems like people are scared of silence after being raised on constant stimulation. They go everywhere with airpods and then blast the music when those aren’t enough. Even nature trails aren’t enough anymore because there’s always some asshole blasting their music.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Some people get downright feral when their noise machines are even brought up. It’s competitive aggression against other competitive aggressors and it’s supposed to go without criticism, or else. frothingfash

      • HunkyBrewster@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        This is precisely why I don’t say anything when it happens. It doesn’t seem to bother others — for some odd reason — and I don’t want to get my ass beat if they end up being unreasonable.

        • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s also why I just have to put up with the floorboards shaking at 3 in the morning because a very divorced grillman needs to tell the neighborhood about his divorce while doing figure eights in the nearby parking lot.

    • cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      also the new “stereos” on motorcycles that are essentially just PA systems

      God I was walking to the store on Saturday and some douche was driving around blasting one of the SHITTIEST red hot chili pepper songs ever and he fucking circled the block a couple times so me and everyone walking down the sidewalks had to endure this fucking god awful song at full fucking volume.

      Fucking inconsiderate as hell.

  • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    103
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    The proliferation of tiktok and other extremely short-form content, and parents being comfortable with their kids using it.

  • zoostation@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    88
    ·
    1 year ago

    Baseball is unwatchable to me anymore because of ads the announcers read during innings.

    Everyone hates advertising, but it’s an unavoidable part of life and it’s never bothered me when there’s a 3 minute commercial break. I’ll mute it until the show comes back on and look at my phone or get up or something. Or I’ll fast forward if I have a buffer.

    But baseball TV and radio announcers reading frequent quick ads between pitches or between at bats can’t be skipped/muted and it’s like fingernails on a blackboard for me. After 30+ years watching baseball, I’m essentially done with it now.

    Everyone complains about ads but I seem to be the only one who thinks real TV with its easily skippable commercials is the least bad option. Streaming services aren’t going to let us control the video stream the way DVRs do.

    • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m from the UK and the bombardment of adverts you guys have in sports has always been ridiculous, but it’s getting even worse.

      Anytime there’s a break in play, they’ll bring up an ad at the side of the screen. And literally everything has a sponsor. They’ll show footage of a previous game and tell you it’s brought to you by Dunkin’ Donuts, or something.

      • Apollo@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        Watching the superbowl on the bbc its always funny how much time the broadcast spends in the studio, because they can only show so many ads on uk tv.

        Every single break in play!

        How the fuck a 60 minute game can take 3+ hours to play is beyond me.

      • SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah plus baseball like cricket is perfectly suited for advertisement withjts frequent breaks unlike smth like football that has just the halftime

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      an unavoidable part of life

      It may be impossible to completely remove ads from your life (without going all Ted Kaczynski on every billboard you drive past), but an ad blocking DNS, uBlock Origin, youtube premium, and sketchy websites to watch your shows and movies on go a looong way

      That being said, I was forced to watch an ad while getting gas the other day, and I may actually do some praxis if that hits my preferred gas station. Hello FBI algorithm

      • constantokra@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Start hitting random buttons along the side of the screen. Most of the time one of them will at least mute the ad.

    • cubedsteaks@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Everyone complains about ads but I seem to be the only one who thinks real TV with its easily skippable commercials is the least bad option

      I completely agree and I’ve had lemmy users go completely unhinged at me for enjoying ad’s. It’s unreal.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    87
    ·
    1 year ago

    Ridiculously bright headlights on cars, in particular those the driver cannot control when they dim. I can’t fucking see when driving at night against incoming traffic. Yet the majority of people seem to love them somehow.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    78
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The centralisation of all web browsing in the hands of a handful of aggregated front ends that basically monopolise on content provided by other people. Goodbye websites and independent communities.

    Hello auto generated websites that exist to push ads and optimise SEO.

  • Sho@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    71
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m with OP on this one, I can’t stand that everything needs an app to do simple tasks either. And subscriptions are getting way out of hand, the whole technological scope seems way more intrusive then it needs to be.

    • ares35@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      i can’t stand the apps and crap either. no i don’t want to browse your menu from my phone–hell, i literally can’t (flip phone). no i don’t want to use the app or ‘order ahead’ for an ‘exclusive’ discount. that just tells me you’re charging everybody else too much. no i don’t want to pay with a card or debit and pay extra for that ‘convenience’. no i don’'t want to just ‘sign up’ either, why do i need to do that to read or consume ‘free’ content or to use a ‘free’ app or application?

      ad placements and ‘shrinkflation’ are out-of-control, as is the incessant need for companies to nickle-and-dime you to death–and that’s on top of the usual greedy price increases ‘just because’ they can, which are also out-of-control the last few years. the push to the subscription model for everything is part of the latter.

    • ashura@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ditto. Subscriptions for something you should just pay once is ridiculous. No, I do not owe you a monthly sub for an app that I already paid for.

      • HouseWolf@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        1 year ago

        Worse is went you’ve already paid for a lifetime license and they pull the rug out saying they’ll no longer honor it after a certain date.

        That’s the quickest way to to get on my ‘Always Pirate’ list

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        If a piece of software doesn’t have a perpetual license, I’m not using it. I wish more people would do the same, so this predatory business model dies.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Subscriptions are definitely out of hand.

      I’ve looked at a few wearable fitness things and most of them come with subscriptions to access the data you want from the sensors, it’s insane.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Yeah, the subscription thing is called Software As A Service, or SAAS for short. Lots of entrepreneurs have been jumping on the SAAS bandwagon in recent years, because it allows them to grow a large user base and passive income, with very little up-front investment.

      AI image generation is a good example. We suddenly have a bunch of SAAS image generator apps, which are basically just two or three programmers and a GPU crypto farm rig acting as a server. It’s a relatively small up-front cost (at least when compared to traditional businesses which can take upwards of a million dollars to get started,) and your only real support for the service is keeping the AI model up-to-date and making sure the app’s API is working properly. And your only real ongoing cost for it is the electricity to keep your server running, and an income for your software dev (bonus points if you’re the only software dev, so 100% of the income goes to you.)

  • lustrum@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    67
    ·
    1 year ago

    Subscriptions. Why is everything a sub now?

    I understand the need for some subscriptions and their benefits when there is ongoing content added to a platform.

    However i’m not paying a subscription for software I could just buy and own forever, i’m not paying a £6.99 subscription to get some shitty cloud features in an app that is costing several cents a month to host. I get hundreds of gigabytes a month for less than that with Backblaze.

    I’m not paying a subscription to read every second news website. I’m not paying a sub to access remote features of my car. I’m not paying a subscription to remove ads in an app, just let me pay once.

    • Littleborat@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      33
      ·
      1 year ago

      Fuck all that, I went back to pirating because of this.

      When Netflix was good there was a brief window when I did not download movies, music and other content. Needless to say that’s long gone.

      You can pirate anything by signing up to one or two private trackers, not 15 subscriptions.

      • lustrum@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah I have a single £4 a month Usenet subscription.

        With the radarr and sonarr setup. Pirating is easier

      • averagedrunk@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Back in the day I sailed the seven seas with the best of em. It started with Napster. Then Netflix and Hulu had most of the things I wanted and I stopped. Now I have a dozen subscription services that come free as credit card perks, cell phone perks, internet service perks, or whatever. I don’t even know what all I have for free. So I don’t pirate because I have loads of perks. But the day that stops I’ll likely be back unless I’m too old and my mind is too far gone to figure it out.

        I’ve pirated two movies in the last several years. Neither were available from any service at all. They’re just gone from the civilized world.

        With all that being said, I’ll still pay for Shudder. It’s got content I want and they always have a sale when it’s time for me to re-up. Maybe instead of pirating I’ll only watch bad horror forever. There are way worse things for me to live out my life.

    • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      Same here. I’m subscriptioned out. Can hardly even graciously donate to something anymore without them expecting me to sign up to have money drawn from my account every single month. I’m so done with that.

  • CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    67
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Not exactly a trend, but I’m really worried about this next generation of kids that’s coming up. During COVID they were locked down for a bit, which I think has caused some of them some socialization problems, and then they were just dumped back into school and there were no vaccines for kids so a lot of them just sort of got COVID freely.

    We still have no idea what’s going on with long COVID (and it seems to sometimes do something to the brain - people losing their taste and smell, brain fog etc.) so between missing out on key social milestones and a potential plethora of long-term and poorly understood health issues, I’m worried we’re gonna have a really weird generation of people coming up in the next couple of decades.

    • phillaholic@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      ·
      1 year ago

      Generations grew up breathing in lead from gasoline and everything turned out fi……shit.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think a lot of kids, especially junior high and high schoolers, were not as dumb as people took them for and knew how they were being screwed over for political points. I know it’s a complex subject, and feelings are probably conflicted (like wanting to be back with friends while also knowing how they couldn’t be), but I think they do know that they were used as pawns to win political fights, and that their safety was put at risk because of it. “We need to open schools again for the kids”. I think that’s going to have an effect when voting age comes around

      • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        problem is, the democrats are the ones who declared the pandemic over. there’s nobody who’s actually pro public health to vote for

    • LongPigFlavor@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ve seen this talked about in some small subreddits, they were pushing back against the “kids are resilient” mantra. Sadly, I don’t think much will be done to address the issue and we’ll keep chugging along as business as usual.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    64
    ·
    1 year ago

    Microplastics showing up in our organ tissue and managing to pass the blood brain barrier. We’re going to cure Alzhemers just in time for Plazhemer’s to take us down.

  • xkforce@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    1 year ago

    Im still pissed off LAN was removed from every video game and that even single player only games require an internet connection.