Welcome to the Internet in 2020, where content is approved before it is allowed on the tube. What is left of the idea of freedom through a networked world which once inspired the creation of the great tubes is now a shell for business, government and corporate interests. You shall not pass is the new greeting many will recognize. Your communication is surveiled, filtered and censored. For your own good.
Your comment incidentally reminds me of the term "boob tube" (slang for television, for those who may not have encountered the term). I suddenly wonder whether that's what we're heading for, with the Internet. Throttle it until it become the latest form of "boob tube".
[The term boob can describe a rube or idiot, not just a female mammary, so the term is a double entendre.]
Ultimately, we ("the people") need unfettered control of at least one physical medium supporting the Internet. Route around the damage.
He has a problem with proprietary software. All of the problems are due to proprietary softawre and his examlpes with Apple produced closed software is just the tip.
This is indeed an unhealthy trend. The past years nearly all major desktop environments have been adding stuff like window compositing, shadows, translucent windows and other graphics gimmicks which just add bloat, bling-bling and no usability value. In many cases usability even suffered. For example, KDE4 removed a lot of configurability that made KDE3 such a malleable environment. It's fashionable to remove choices from the user and do windowdressing instead.
Ever had to drill down the network settings in Windows Vista control panel? As soon as you're past the initial window and at the TCP/IP settings tab, you're suddenly back in Windows XP land with the @#$% tiny list of interfaces, having to use both vertical and horizontal scrollbars, and no way to resize the window, thank you Microsoft. But at least the Start Menu looks like a glossy magazine, and have you seen the translucent taskbar? Wow! That's what we needed!
No, of course not. Window compositing is a huge usability feature. It made me switch from xmonad to Gnome 3, because it just feels so much faster and responsive. Also, live miniatures are almost necessary (at least for me) while dealing with 5 terminal windows and another 6 emacs frames. And you lose nothing (well, ok, you do, in some cases it can be slower, take few more resources and so on, but that's the case with only some apps, not general). Making compositing and using accelerated video HW the norm is a step forward, not an unhealthy trend.
Some developer liked them from iOS, made a widget and then this widget became really popular with other developers. It is actually sometimes used too much, so some stuff might be changed in future again (normal checkbox or something else).
Streaming services are not reliable, neither is the cloud. Hard currency is the value, its not like storage is expensive any more, there is no reason to not own your own collection and be the boss of your domain.
> there is no reason to not own your own collection
There are reasons. The-all-you-can-eat model certainly makes much more music available, which is better for discovering new music. Also, if you regularly listen to a lot of new/different music, Spotify/Rdio/etc would be cheaper than iTunes/Amazon mp3.
Personally, I'm in a kind of "stuck" position where I'm trying to decide whether I should continue to buy music from Amazon, or should switch to an all-you-can-eat streaming service.
But the ability to own my own music isn't going away because I'm paying for Spotify. If I stop, then I'm in the same position that I was before. I've not got music any more, but I'm not paying any more. If I decide to start paying for Grooveshark instead, then I've not lost anything.
Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you have to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some Nujabes, do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my work PC, my laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you get into the pain of syncing stuff onto your phone...
I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate.
(I picked this example because it is both what I am listening to now, and for the irony of it being unavailable on Spotify.)
> Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you have to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some Nujabes, do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my work PC, my laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you get into the pain of syncing stuff onto your phone...
This sounds like a technological problem, and one that could be easily solved if someone put a little elbow grease into it.
> I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate.
Well, Spotify customers are clearly paying for the inconvenience of having Facebook have access to all their data as well. I'll take piracy over Facebook having access to my information any day.
And I don't know why people make piracy sound like such a difficult thing to do. It seems absolutely trivial to me.
Still I think my freedom and the artists economy and thus a free uncontrolled culture is far more important than my convenience.
I am however developing something that will make it far more easier for me to listen to all of my collections on all my devices any time, it will be even more convenient than streaming services since Ill be in control all the time.
Nujabes. What can I say, good choice lad, good choice. You know about DJ Okawari?
