Imagine VR so real that someone severely allergic to cats can know what it’s like to give one scritches and feel it purr. Imagine someone who is paraplegic knowing what it’s like to swim or climb a mountain. Now imagine how much money Mark Zuckerberg will make when it’s $22.95/month with ads and requires you to put in your Social Security Number.
I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better
Submitted 3 months ago by juergen@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/im-tired-of-pretending-tech-is-making-the-world-better/
Comments
frezik@midwest.social 3 months ago
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Yep, I also been growing older and I have nostalgia for old times. But I’m well aware that grass is only greener on my memory, as it has always been.
formulaBonk@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Yes and no. It’s objectively true that things like streaming services, food delivery, and online communications got worse not better over time. It’s not true for all things but there are definitely things that simply got worse for profit
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
That’s not tech. That’s company policies.
Streaming services, as a tech has evolved and it’s a better technology that it was before. New encoding formats allow for transfer of more data over less bandwidth for instance.
Online communications, as in forums as such, as also evolved with new and better ways of posting, and better security (I remember when websites just stored your password in plain text).
What people complain about are mostly company policies, not technology.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Tech was ruined in the 90s when capitalistic influences (microsoft being the dominant force but far from the only one) propagandized the industry and eventually populace at large with the idea that competition in the industry is what drives innovation.
Granted, much of their work was already done for them thanks to western influence perpetuating this ideal for ages. But when the frameworks for open standards, interoperability, and collaborative development were being proposed and put into place they were shot down and/or actively sabotaged
As a result 40 years later we have this mess. A landscape filled with nightmare tech. Fragmentation everywhere, design heavily influenced by a small handful of sociopaths with no empathy and active disdain for users, the idea of open standards is something that requires government intervention (and still rarely occurs), interoperability is something that has to be hacked around and frequently breaks as a means to encourage purchasing a competing product.
What could have been. Tech designed for people’s needs rather than tech designed to extract income
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Tech was ruined in the 90s
40 years later
Pick one. I’m 41 and was born in 1983.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
tbf, the past few years have felt like decades
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
My basic math skills have been terrible lately. I made a basic math error in a post the other day too. I was a strong student in math too
Is this cognitive decline? I’m not even 40
Xerxos@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Tech could make our life easier, if only the fruits of increased efficiency would go towards us all instead of the few rich people at the top.
DJDarren@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
If only the goal of the tech firms was to make the world better while making enough money to achieve this, rather than their goal being to make as much shareholder value as possible while ekeing out improvements on a schedule that fits their need to maximise profits.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Tech definitely is. Gate-keeping, stupid pricing, etc. done by few corporations and individual isn’t.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Is it a shocker most people in tech are selfish, short sighted, and self-aggrandizing?
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Science and technology under capitalism is a regressive force for violent control.
ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Consumer technology I can see being very toxic and also toxic for the environment because people don’t know how to recycle or purchase correctly. Commercial tech like IoT is going to help save the planet and support the majority with them knowing.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
We’d all be better off if we learned to question tech as a gift and see it for its grift.
FIbynight@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I saw the writing on the wall when we started getting itunes updates that no one wanted.
demizerone@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Worst thing to happen to tech is ads.
Tja@programming.dev 3 months ago
People weren’t willing to pay with money. Usually every tech product with ads has an “insert coin to remove” option. If you don’t insert coin, advertisers will.
Tamo240@programming.dev 3 months ago
Paying for the product and paying to not be inconvenienced by ads have become separate things. The first is standard business, the second is extortion.
MusketeerX@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Technology has started to make it easier and easier to be anti consumer. To maximise how much you can extract out of consumers.
It is making it easier to understand and control exactly how they use products and services. This allows you to structure your price and offering to give them the minimum amount they’ll accept at the maximum price. Allows you to strip features out and offer them for extra. Allows you to hide things behind ongoing subscriptions. Allows you to better lock people into products and services, making it more difficult to switch/leave.
All of this was possible (and being done) before, but technology makes this so much easier/better.
Technologies often start out by making something easier for the consumer. But beyond the early stages, it’s all about making the world better - for the corporations developing and selling products and services.
VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
I remember Andrewism’s take on Luddites dispelling a lot of common misconceptions (and results of propaganda, iirc) on the topic
Halosheep@lemm.ee 3 months ago
First world problems: the article.
Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I am once again linking the sick sad history of computer-aided collaboration:
aesthelete@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The overwhelming majority of software ever written is fucking terrible and causes more problems than it solves.
Since software is easily copiable and mutable, that small sliver of good software gets replicated all over the place and serves as a foundation for other software, both good – and at the risk of repeating myself – and mostly bad.
People would be better off considering new tech as the tool it is rather than seeing every piece of software as inherently better than the thing it replaces.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Technology and progress were at one time closer to synonymous but those definitions have forked widely. It’s important to identify what is a development that brings value and pushes progress and what is a use of technology that punishes us, controls us, or simply makes life more complicated. The vast majority of technology now falls into these categories.
randyyy@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Ah look, it’s in Antwerp. Wolstraat to be exact.i used to work in front of that place.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Weird seeing an Australian using a picture from a place in Belgium
scarabic@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Some parts of life have gotten massively easier. The other day I called my pharmacy to delay my next prescription refill because I still have pills. I was able to do this entirely through voice interaction with an automated system. Huzzah. I get texts when my scrips are about to be filled or ready, and reminders if I don’t pick them up for a while. I can also see this info on demand in an app if I want. What’s not to like?
My entire medical group runs on an app now. I can make appointments with my doctor, see the documentation from prior visits, pay bills, see test results…
Oh but boo hoo this author had to download an app to order a drink. First world problems…
MITM0@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Why don’t you live in a cave then & why are you even posting this ? Be the change you want to see bro/sis ?
socsa@piefed.social 3 months ago
Something, something, the industrial revolution and its consequences...
Litebit@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That is what naked apes they said about clothes
ricecooker@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
I think this headline is slightly misleading. Here are some better ones:
ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Wait. Is this satire? Like these suggested versions have been generated by running through a LLM AI?
qarbone@lemmy.world 3 months ago
This is weird take on an op-ed. OP didn’t alter the title. The onl ways I can conceive of a headline being “misleading” is when it declares a falsity (this doesn’t; it’s an opinion) or doesn’t match the content of the titled text (this doesn’t; it matches the text).