Ask Lemmy

I blame the big tech companies. 10-20 years ago they were not that big so they didn't buy every competition to kill them. Now any time we get a new company or product that could change the world, one of the big 3 (apple, amazon, google) will buy them to keep the tech, code, or people for themselves.

Wanna see what not being bought by big tech is like? Look at what FOSS is doing. Look at Home Assistant, Jellyfin, AOSP is doing, it's making huge leaps without big tech.

I'm 22 and I feel the same way. 2012-2014 PC hardware was better and I do not care what anyone says. It's probably the software that was better but damn nowadays my 6 core 12 threaded CPU feels so ass in any task compared to my old ass Pentium. I have 32 gigs of RAM and shit can still be slow and unresponsive. Games are poorly optimized because they just focus on making it pretty but it barely looks better. Best example is counter strike 2 vs CS:GO. I played csgo on integrated graphics then on a 1050ti game was always smooth and looked good. Now CS2 looks blurry even with taa off. Runs like shit and sure it looks better but not that much better for it to run how it does.

Edit: another example is vermintide 2. I upgraded my hardware since I played the 1st one but it runs way worse than the 1st one.

I used to customize my desktop like crazy with the dumbest 3D effects. I was on a Pentium using Ubuntu 14.04, integrated graphics. Now I can't run discord and 3D effects without noticing the difference in performance.

Software is getting worse. Because it's getting more and more complex. Now even basic things back then are rough to do now.

I don't have proof or know enough to prove it but I can feel it.

I'm young enough to tell you that it's not just nostalgia. Most new tech now is like "cool but impractical" at best and "I'm worrying about how this will be used to make the world worse" at worst. Nothing to make me think it's the future.

Nah, people always think thing "peaked" during their era. Its probably nostalgia. Tech back then is, in my opinion, terrible.

I was born around 2000-2003 (not giving exact year for privacy reasons)

Examples:

When I got my first phone (like around 2015 or so), it was an android phone that didn't have great encryption. You had to manually enable encryption and its not File-Based encryption like in today's android phones, its Full Disk Encryption which mean alarms dont work if you reboot your phone. And it takes like an hour or 2 to first set up the encryption.

Phones have so much vulnerabilities. Stagefright, Blueborne, etc. Luckily, I never got hacked (or at least not that I'm aware of) but it was just unsettling to know your phone is vulnerable, and you're even already on the latest update. Also there was a lot of screenlock bypasses. Updates typically is only 1 year OS update and 2 year security updates, if even that. Updates were also very slow to get rolled out.

Security was so bad, I can root my android phone with a random app I downloaded by searching "Android Root", don't even need to connect to a pc. Like can you imagine a random app being able to just take root privilages on your phone.

Nowadays, phones are much more secure, even the cheapest samsung phone has 4 years of OS updates, 5 years of security updates. With better encryption.

Phone plans were expensive AF, well I was a kid, but the normal plans had those "Unlimited Data" but with a huge asterisk, data slows after like a certain amount like 5 GB or something, I was unlucky, my parents were a bit cheap so the family plan that I was on only had 30MB of 4g internet, then throttled to 128kbps. Unusable unless you are at home and have wifi.

Nowadays, unlimited plans have become the norm, the plan that I was on even got a free upgrade to unlimited high speed data.

Oh and HTTPS wasn't default in most sites, some didn't even have it. And no HSTS as far as I remember.

Back then, there were no such thing as Airtags or Samsung Smarttags that are so cheap and allows tracking misplace items or even your pets. (I mean there are privacy concerns... still, very useful if not misused)

There were no smart watches that can detect a heart attack. (They're not exactly accurate, but still...)

There were no phones that detect a car crash or even use satelites to make a sos call. (I'm talking about the iPhone 14)

I mean yes we have so much enshittification today, but that's not really a tech problem, its a corporate greed problem not doesn't just affect technology.

Technology isn't bad, its just the way we use it.

Like nuclear technology can be use to build bombs to destroy, or used in power plants to create energy.

Tech has advanced technically (for lack of a better word) but yeah, it's being used against us more than to our benefit a lot of the time.

Every dog has its day, I suppose. Smart phones were exciting when they first emerged on the market and no one knew where the tech was going. Today, they're an every day appliance and a bit more ho-hum as a result.

At the moment, my tech junkie sights are set on micro-mobility. There's all sorts of fun stuff coming out of ebikes, scooters, and other contraptions, and the sector is still innovating hard and experiencing some growing pains and backlash because it has yet to move past that disruptive tech phase. In other words, it's awesome!

For some, yes. Automotive is one that comes to mind. I miss dumb TVs. I'd say laptop, but then I'm rocking a decade-old Thinkpad, so I might be a bit biased here. I also miss phones that aren't as locked down. I hate what the current streaming service industry have become, and how social media is filled with AI trash.

I'd say that our personal needs for shear computation power have peaked within the last ten years. Yes, people have been saying this since the dawn of personal computers. Yes, servers keep getting more powerful. However, the fact that some schmucks just released a thousand dollar laptop with more or less the same RAM & CPU specs as my decade old Thinkpad kinda proves that.

Other than that, a lot of things are getting better. As an open-source enthusiast, I see things keeps improving, FreeCAD 1.0 just got released, more improvements to Linux kernel, LibreOffice handles MS Office files better, etc. Manufacturing techniques keeps getting more advanced, like 3D printing metal, and for us mortals, faster FDM printing with better plastic material that's more UV resistant. Radio technologies comes to mind; with SDR, one can achieve what people from last decade would need expensive specialized equipments for, yes you can get your hands on these for cheap.

Last but not least, don't forget this very platform where you're reading this very comment ;)