Enshittification

I habitually clicked Not Now even though its an image.

21 Likes

8 Likes

If you want to really debloat Windows, see

and the follow-up

It uses scripts that run on install and skip/disable all the junk, or gives you a menu to enable just the junk you want. And if you’re a little techy, you can edit those scripts.

Might save a bit of time vs finding all the settings that you’ll want to change and undoing stuff after installing.

17 Likes
13 Likes
14 Likes

Lewis Black’s tale of customer “service” and tech “support” enshittification (18 min.), and how it relates to folks who wanted government run like a business/current DOGE actions:

:laughing: :cry: :laughing:

10 Likes

I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network.
I don’t want to share the file with OneDrive.
I don’t want to download an app to check my car’s fluid levels.
I don’t want to scan a QR code to view the restaurant menu.
I don’t want to let Google know my location before showing me the search results.
I don’t want to include a Teams link on the calendar invite.
I don’t want to pay 50 different monthly subscription fees for all my software.
I don’t want to upgrade to TurboTax platinum plus audit protection.
I don’t want to install the Webex plugin to join the meeting.
I don’t want to share my car’s braking data with the actuaries at State Farm.
I don’t want to text with your AI chatbot.
I don’t want to download the Instagram app to look at your picture.
I don’t want to type in my email address to view the content on your company’s website.
I don’t want text messages with promo codes.
I don’t want to leave your company a five-star Google review in exchange for the chance to win a $20 Starbucks gift card.
I don’t want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse.
I don’t want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn.
I don’t even want to be on LinkedIn in the first place.
I just want to pay for a product one time (and only one time), know that it’s going to work flawlessly, press 0 to speak to an operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone and treated with some small measure of human dignity, if that’s not too much to ask anymore.

  • Robert M. Sterling
30 Likes

:clap:t5: :clap:t5: :clap:t5:

A few items on this list make me clutch the manual of my old car and wonder how much longer I’ll be able to keep it running without caving in to Big Data. Of course, that’s only possible if my insurance company (which offered reduced rates for installing an aftermarket black box :-1:t5:) doesn’t dump me. Also my state (which started focusing on plates for vehicles over ten years old*) might someday prevent registration or ban it for other reasons.

:grimacing:

*Gotta make sure all those stealth toll collection points on the highway get a clear image, right? :roll_eyes:

16 Likes

seamen salute

Tech can be a wonderful thing, but there are limits (or there should be, IMHO.)

12 Likes

Lots of formatting functionality restricted too. Line spacing? Hyphenation?

10 Likes
16 Likes

13 Likes

Right! No one likes Teams.

12 Likes

Why not use Zoom?

8 Likes

So Grandma can chat with the gran-kids? Sure… otherwise…

Online services such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams know who is meeting with whom, when, where, and what they’re saying because users’ devices are sending all video and audio data to the cloud, which can decrypt video streams internally and see participants’ IP addresses and identities.

11 Likes

Teams is okay-ish. But a lot of people I need to communicate with aren’t on it.

I do so that, as well as other meeting platforms (too many effin’ apps). But for me and the people I communicate with on it, it is like WhatsApp, without having to expose your telephone number or convos with FecesBook. Especially when I need to deal with confidential whistleblower communications.

Fuck, fuck, a thousand times fuck.

13 Likes

So Skype had better security? Ugh, I did not know that!

9 Likes

Yes and no. Skype conversations have been the subject surveillance by default for well over a decade.

What’s sad is that it’s not only possible to create a point to point, server-free communication channel on the internet, the net was designed that way from the outset and it used to be the default. I can point to one or two minor technical changes to how the internet is deployed that would get us back to that, would be “trivial” to deploy, and a game changer for privacy and security. Those changes also would be anathema to the Internet Protocol-based entertainment industry (who, in :canada:, are also your ISP’s), the cloud provision industry, and all national security services.

So we all know how that is going to shake out.

15 Likes

I hate zoom with a passion. I use Teams and honestly I think it works pretty well for my needs, though I’m not native enough to think that it’s going to fit other’s needs

9 Likes

We use Teams at work. Most of us hate it and it’s pretty buggy at times, but most of us also hate it less than a lot of other things.

(Skype was always buggy as hell too for me anyway.)

11 Likes