Reader Stephen S. chimes in with this little piece of technological bastardy:
The rapidly approaching future of the Windows PC is no longer just about what’s on your desk, but what you’re permitted—by subscription—to access from the cloud. Microsoft promotes this as inevitable and, to some, the advantages are real. Yet for those uncomfortable with their digital world being defined and priced by a faraway corporation, alternatives remain.
What is worse is that Microsoft will have your data on their cloud (OneDrive) and you will need to continually pay to have access to it. On the flip side, because it is on “their” computer systems (1970’s Supreme Court Decision), they will be able to scan it and use it for training their AI. They will also be able to sell your data to 3rd parties, again because it is on “their” computers. [Microsoft has already changed their EULA to reflect this]
How does the medical profession make sure the patients’s data is secure. Although on a personal level, I’m sure Microsoft’s AI would love finding out about illness discussions, personal behavior, etc to be sold to 3rd parties. That kind of info is what insurance companies would love to know, and the users would be paying Microsoft to provide it to them.
But a larger point occurs to me. Microsoft would be getting the financial data for people and businesses smaller than the DOW 50, and that is a gold mine for them (Wall St spends millions to collect it). Again, the users are paying Microsoft to provide their financials to Microsoft, and then Microsoft can then use it.
How nice.
It has taken me a Herculean effort to stop this OneDrive bullshit from imposing itself on my paltry online existence, and I’m not even sure that I’ve been that successful. I get the occasional “warning” email that my OneCloud subscription has expired or my storage allocation is full, and that they can no longer store any more of my data — to which, of course, my unspoken response is: I never wanted you to store my data anyway, so fuck off.
I have no idea how this is going to end, or if it ever will.
I’m migrating away from Microsoft and every other big tech company. It’s slow going, but I’m getting there.
Still have to use Windows as I still have software that requires it, and have Apple stuff because there simply is no alternative apart from Google and they’re much worse.
But I’m pretty certain my next computer will run some non-US flavour of Linux or BSD (non-US as all the US variants are pretty much controlled by big tech, especially IBM).
For email I switched entirely to eMClient, a Czech product.
For software development the Jetbrains stack (also Czech) is far better than anything Microsoft ever envisioned.
OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office (don’t even get me started about Google Office).
Various non-Amazon online stores (none of them US, in large part because of the tariffs, duties, and the astronomical shipping charges US retailers demand when shipping international).
Main problem is getting rid of US controlled hardware. Especially there is very little you can do for processors that’s not Intel or AMD, or Apple of course.
I’ll be 85 in the Fall, and frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn anymore.
But you need to stay current so they can email you when it’s time to pre-register for your suicide.
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Which is why the Win 11 will be the last OS I (spit) “own” from MS and I have ALL the setup switches set to make sure NOTHING ever goes to the cloud for storage, but then how am I to know this is not happening anyway?
Already have my flash drive with Linux Mint sitting on the desk. Plan to load it onto my last functioning MS Slate device to start playing with it. If it proves to be functionally easy for one who has used MS DOS since before it was MS DOS (another story about poached engineers) it may soon work out to not having any MS at all.
Wife is an Apple fanatic, as in every frigging model/device you can think of, so she never notices all the crap, except that now Apple too is in the downloads and patches at an ever increasing rate, almost matches MS it does. I for one hate Apple logic, to an engineer it has none, to a user that is indoctrinated, it seems to work.
As to TS3, the only major problem I have observed over the past 2 years is that WP had stopped accepting my posts, the timer that keeps the screen frozen when uploading just continues forever. If I move to another website then back to Splendid Isolation and go look, my posts do appear. A minor aggravation but one nonetheless.
Carry on old chum.
“I have no idea how this is going to end, or if it ever will.”
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For me it may be starting to end right now. I use AutoCAD 2004 for my architectural design software. I have been a licensed user since 1996 and stopped upgrading in 2004. It is a WinXP machine.
Yesterday the machine failed to boot. I have another brand new refurbished XP machine that I have never even turned on. I swapped out the hard drive with the one from my failed machine but the new machine wouldn’t boot.
I’m going to try a few more things but if they fail this may be the end of my architectural design business.
I use a Win10 machine for browsing and email but I am getting bored with the fakeness of everything and the massive amount of lying everywhere.
Maybe I’ll start focusing more on my woodworking and guitar playing. I’m 71 and getting tired, tired of everything….
This is the part where my response to a story like this on (let’s just say) Instapundit would be to post the meme of an exasperated Hank Hill at the tech support desk explaining “I don’t WANT to save to OneDrive, I want to save to the documents folder! On my computer! That I own! In my home!”
When I bought my current laptop with Windows about 2 years ago, it would not let me set it up without an MS account and putting all of the data on their cloud (AKA someone else’s computer).
So, it is Ubuntu now with LibreOffice. It was however a pain to setup as while I am very technically oriented, I am not a software guy by any stretch.
My next laptop (hopefully far in the future) will definitely not be MS or Apple either. I would like to see a bundled Ubuntu or similar laptop woth everything pre-loaded and set up so one could just start using it.
“my OneCloud subscription has expired or my storage allocation is full, and that they can no longer store any more of my data ”
I get those all the time for various cloud storage services, none of which I use. Scam.
I also have my One Drive (and Chat PT etc.) beaten down. I also use a local account to log on, none of this Microsoft Account BS.
I just got a new desktop to replace the Lenovo laptop that was beginning to have some problems. It’s got Windows 11 on it and I’ve had to go through settings, etc. to turn off every Microshit thing I don’t want. I’ve turned off saving anything to the OneDrive cloud, but it still shows up above the offer to subscribe to Office 365 (thanks, but I’m fine with LibreOffice), and there are still a few things that show up despite my turning them off. I think I’ll partition the drive and work on the learning curve of Linux and go from there. Wish me luck, I want nothing (more) to do with Microshit, Google, and Meta.
I’m a software engineer by profession and I’ve admittedly been taking the route of least resistance by using M$ products. That said, I can see a time where I’m going to have to convert to some flavor of ‘nix (Linux, Unix whatever) if I’m going to continue to have access to the web that is under my control and purview. Being semi-retired perhaps I should look at router firmware and IP packet filtering in an attempt to provide a configurable app that will limit my exposure to undesirable web sites and/or IP addresses or DNS tokens. Locking down everything except the mail and web ports (effectively whitelisting – i.e. if you aren’t on the list straight to the bitbucket black hole with you). Old silicon valley aphorism: “if you’re not the customer, you’re the product”.