I think they will definitely stop when their insolvency catches up to them and they can’t pay anyone to wage the war or make the war machines.
The US is already being effectively retaliated against economically, it is just not abrupt and flashy. As the USA’s global financial power continues to wane, so does their global hegemony. I shudder to think what will rise in its place, but it will have a hard time being worse.
I think you might be surprised. Generative AI has limited utility and costs a lot to operate; so much, in fact that t does not appear there are enough natural resources on the planet we’re on to ramp it up to the scale that is intended. Soon, the hype-based funding will dry up, and the free and subsidized generative AI tokens will all disappear. Only then will we see the true cost of using it and if users will bear that cost. If it costs a lot of money to ask it to do things, people will go back to doing a lot of those things themselves.
Agreed. They run on dump drucks of burning VC capital. I don’t see how LLMs stick around in any meaningful way when the dump trucks stop pulling up.
That’s entirely the fault of the TV cartel. If they could get their collective act together, these TV add-on modules would have gotten off the ground.
You could have a TV monitor with a couple of empty sockets on it to put a streaming module or NTSC antenna card or DirecTV card or whatever.
Consider that things are the way they are because the involved companies are short-sighted, collusive, and uncooperative on standards, and the fact you need cable spaghetti and half a dozen remotes is due to a lack of consumer protections, not a lack of bells and whistles in your TV.
I don’t really agree that is conceptually okay. TVs and computers have drastically different life cycles. That TV will still be kicking probably a decade after the internal Smart TV computer is uselessly underpowered. This same problem is arguably even worse with cars.
Windows progressively worsening and Microsoft’s dubious practices are entirely independent issues from whatever is going on with Linux, though.
People interested in and well-suited for Linux use may take that route, given the situation, but even users with no inclination toward or intention to switch to Linux can and do still have legitimate grievances with the company and its software direction.
Almost everyone has to interact with Windows and Microsoft at some level throughout their lives whether they like it or not, so it is natural and constructive for them to make their opinions known. Microsoft may not respond to these criticisms in a sane or useful manner, but that is their failing, not a failing of the criticisms themselves.
I find it helpful to consider the substance of the complaint and evaluate it on its own merits, as it sounds you may have already been doing. For example, someone that is solely spouting negativity with no concrete examples of what they dislike about this company and its products is not constructive nor contributing to the conversation, but if someone states specific grievance with a software or company behavior is contributing, whether or not Microsoft takes the contribution.
If you, personally, have not encountered any problems with Windows or Microsoft that give you any pause or problems in your life, go nuts and use Windows, but knowing that alternatives exist is empowering. At the rate of decline in the quality of the Windows OS, it is not impossible that Linux could become superior in every meaningful metric without even improving. However, it is also conceivable that a user’s needs are such that those quality declines have not impacted you specifically.
I had a Windows 7 machine for like a decade without a single crash or BSD, and now, a decade later, I have multiple brand new PCs with Windows 11 installs that came on them that have lockups, crashes, and other buggy behaviors right out of the box. It is not unusable, but its stability is more reminiscent of the Windows of the 90s than an improvement on the Windows of 2010. Again, if that’s not your experience, count yourself among the lucky ones and continue to use Windows and be lucky.
I think the rabid evangelism for Linux around here may have convinced you to try it because of their fervor, rather than their reasoning. I hope you continue to have luck with Windows, but if not, feel free to switch any time! The angry nerds don’t have to impact your decision one way or the other.
Subscriptions make much more sense if they are actually providing a continual service, such as MMOs or newsgroups. They stop making sense when you have to pay retail for the software, then also must subscribe for it to work. Companies that do that are having it both ways by selling you the product and then still charging you rent on it.
The only software that needs to be updated regularly is stuff that needs to be secure; locally running self-contained games and other software do not. So, I absolutely should be able to buy once and then be entitled to updates for at least some period of time, then be able to opt into renewals or not based on my needs.
You can’t sell me a hammer, charge me every time I swing it, and take a percentage of the profits of the thing I built with it, but that is exactly what many software companies are being allowed to do. The fact that the product is not tangible makes that fact less obvious, but still just as true. Getting paid forever for work you did once is a societal ill.
Are you reading the hate on Windows?
Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar international mega-corp, and their software is meant for enterprise use as a tool to get a job done–a means to an end. All of its other uses are distantly secondary to that.
In that context, the tool becoming progressively less reliable, fast, and predictable makes it ever less fit for purpose. Sure, you used that time for something else productive, but when you need your computer for something important right now, it failing to work because its maker broke it when you weren’t looking is a lot to take. Dollars and jobs can be lost because of Microsoft’s cavalier attitude toward quality.
Contrast that with Linux, a free program made by volunteers in their spare time. Its own updates can cause problems like Windows, but they are ever less common, while the opposite is true for Windows. Furthermore, if I have important upcoming use for my PC, I can delay or ignore updates as long as I want, even forever. The owner gets to control the computer’s use, because they’re the owner, a fact Microsoft does not respect at all, and seems to be taking measures to change.
People do not like to be told what to do, nor when or how to do it. People that know how computers work and use them heavily understand how to maintain their computer, and those people are heavily represented here. They are getting their skilled PC management replaced by forced, shoddy, automation of that task and it causes them unnecessary problems, often at inopportune times.
That’s why Windows gets hate here–Microsoft keeps kicking them in the balls and they hate that.
I think the inverse might actually be preferable. If there’s slop in the code base, that will be harder to avoid than whole modules that you can just not install.
While neither is preferable, putting it in the development is more insidious.
Good? No.
I think it is telling about Signal, though, that despite being in a privacy-unfriendly jurisdiction, federal authorities can only extract data from it when its users mess up.
I don’t think you’ll get much better until some of these other services mature more. Some of them seem painted into a corner where improving them further seems to involve rewriting big sections of them, like Matrix, so I am less optimistic about those.