The line between helpful tech and quiet surveillance is blurring — and our devices no longer feel fully under our control.
Have the day you paid for.
We own the hardware, but not the experience anymore — Big Tech keeps building smarter, more connected devices, but the user experience feels more intrusive, more confusing, and less human
Submitted 7 hours ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Wigglesworth@retrolemmy.com 15 minutes ago
FaeriesWearBoots@sopuli.xyz 6 hours ago
people are experiencing innovation fatigue
What innovation? The user experience hasn’t undergone significant innovation (improvement) in the last decade
Broadfern@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
It’s enshittification fatigue, not innovation.
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Innovative data collection for the shareholders so the line goes up!
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Don’t forget all the innovative ways they’ve found to make it harder to repair “your” device.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Forced ‘innovation’ see-
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Windows 8/10/11
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Gnome 3
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Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Exactly. I almost feel like many are hungry for something new and different. So much so, that you give them something completely useless like an Ai widget, and they are willing to accept it to scratch an innovation itch.
saltesc@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
There’s kind of been an increase in things being more accessible and usable by the standard user where previously they would need to be quite savvy or know a language.
But, yeah, I can’t think of much else. Not user-based tech anyway. Just the usual insignificant increases and a bunch of bullshit no one asked for and actually ends up using, but has to pay for.
I think smartphones are an excellent example. Most people wouldn’t notice the differences between a second-hand $150 Samsung Galaxy from five years ago, and the latest flagship for 10× the price. The innovation is almost entirely unnoticeable.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
In many cases that accessibility is a full-on neutered replacement for a previous system that offered more user control and customizability, removing options from power users, so one man’s progress is another man’s step backwards.
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
As someone with a second hand Galaxy from seven years ago, yeah there’s not really much difference. Newer phones are slightly more annoying to use, actually.
xep@discuss.online 2 hours ago
I’ve been considering using my phone only for tethering, and doing anything on the go on a ultraportable Linux laptop. If anyone is doing this already, I’d love to hear about your experience.
Joelk111@lemmy.world 33 minutes ago
Do any cell phone plans allow for unlimited Hotspot data? That’s my largest issue with doing that, I use more than 50GB every single month.
2910000@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I’m working towards something like that. I’m hoping to ultimately drop the smartphone altogether, and I’ve set my current phone’s end of life (2027ish?) as the goal.
I think the other thing that’s necessary to keep the same sense of connectedness is a device to receive notifications, and I have an open source smartwatch I want to program for that. I’ve been working on a notification server too (kind of like Gotify), but at the moment it’s a work in progress
scripthook@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I installed Lubuntu on my Microsoft Surface 2 and my custom PC from 2024 that couldn’t get upgraded to windows 11 due to lack of a tpm chip. We don’t need better hardware, we need better operating systems. We need more Linux.
grue@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
We need more real Linux – GNU/Linux, with compliant copyleft licensing – not Tivoized crap like they put on TVs.
Roku OS, Amazon Fire OS, Tizen (Samsung TV OS), etc. – all technically Linux, but you wouldn’t know it because they’ve systematically butchered them to destroy everything that made Linux good (the users’ freedom).
Sightline@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
What’s the point of being so pedantic?, they were obviously not advocating for more Roku installs.
scripthook@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
We also need megadesk. More megadesk
tyrant@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
This is where the Linux and self hosting people chime in.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
I get tut-tutted by other Linux nerds for this a lot, but I think Linux is impersonal in a different way because it simply demands more of the user. Sure, it gives freedom, but that freedom comes with responsibility, and a lot of people just like like “ain’t nobody got time for that!” Which I think is a valid way to feel.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
I’ve been a developer for decades. I’ve contributed to FOSS code and do a lot of my own development.
I just want a desktop that works. No fuss.
Yes I could compile my own x11 (and have) but I would rather spend my time doing my own shit than trying to stand up a new VM for some edge issue I’m having.
Just…just give me a UI I can use.
It’s why I use Ubuntu.
tyrant@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Linux has come a long way though and it’s basically turn key for some distros. Even with flatpak or system catalogs built into the gui.
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 5 hours ago
Self hosting doesn’t make you immune, though. See how Plex evolved, for example. Self hosting plus free software that isn’t abandoned or compromised is the way, but idealistic developers need to take bread to the table too.
So the way maybe is self-hosted + libre software + a non-profit supporting the project. And that can too be corrupted, for example, the Mozilla Foundation and Google’s influence.
Always be ready to migrate.
grue@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
This is why permissive licensing isn’t good enough; copyleft is essential. Every part of the system – the tech itself, the management, and the legal/business structure – have to be designed to resist being subverted against the user.
Fizz@lemmy.nz 5 hours ago
Oh yeah linux people have been building like crazy these past 10 years.
Sometimes the user experience is so slick its boring. But the great past of.linux is even when the usage is simple I can always tweak it or modify it to my exact liking.
On Mac it either works nicely or I’m fucked.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
They’ve been really holding back until now.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
You don’t even hold the hardware if it’s not user repairable, customizable or upgradable
ngdev@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
how big would a gpu need to be to be user repairable lmao
mycodesucks@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Repairability isn’t about the physical realities of executing the repair - that’s a user end problem to be solved and people are often eager to tackle those.
It’s about the manufacturer not being allowed to explicitly make design decisions that make it intentionally harder to do so than is strictly necessary as a side effect of the basic design.
nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 6 hours ago
I have a computer capable of outputting video like 5 different ways: over the internet, near-field EM, HDMI, yadda
I just want a fucking standards compatible dumb screen
kalkulat@lemmy.world 20 minutes ago
I heard a talk a few days ago, and the fella said that if you want a non-smart monitor, you’ll need to pay somewhat more for what he called an ‘industrial monitor’. He said the ‘smart TV’ is cheaper because of all the data it’ll collect, and they can sell that data to make the price-to-the-user lower. (Don’t know for myself, my old Samsung monitor’s only smarts were to send data out to one URL, and I was able to change that URL to a site that doesn’t exist.)
mrmaplebar@fedia.io 2 hours ago
The supreme irony of that message coming from Windows Central...
IonTempted@lemmynsfw.com 7 hours ago
I mean tech innovation has been stale for a long time, even with hardware remember how the CPU market was before Ryzen? Completely dead, Intel was sitting on it’s morals doing nothing because they were owning the market 10 to 1, but even now that I’ve got my i7-10700 I don’t see any point in upgrading.
Software side? It’s a mess companies will always be greedy, just today I wanted to upscale something with the cloud because my PC is great for 90% of the things I want to do, Upscaling is not one of those but guess what Topaz asks for credits in order to use their servers, yes CREDITS, so I said bye bye. I’ve also said bye bye to Adobe and moved on with Davinci Resolve.
Joelk111@lemmy.world 27 minutes ago
bye bye to Adobe and moved on with DaVinci Resolve.
This is the way. I skipped Adobe entirely due to how they conduct business. I really wish Resolve had better Linux support though. Like, it works and I use it, but having to use a third party tool (make resolve deb) is ridiculous.
Additionally, Gimp is just not on the level of Photoshop, at least from what I understand, I’ve never used photoshop. I mostly long for smart select tools where I can, for example, just circle a person and have them selected. Also, content aware fill would be incredibly nice to have. Of course neither of those things are worth shoveling money out of my wallet into Adobe’s.
ch00f@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
sitting on it’s morals
Assuming that’s not a typo, the phrase is “resting on its laurels”.
lemmy_get_my_coat@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
And they definitely have no morals
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
For upscaling, check out chaiNNer: github.com/chaiNNer-org/chaiNNer
And openmodeldb: openmodeldb.info
It’s quite possible your PC can do it with Vulkan just fine, and if not, you can rent something online pretty cheap.
Also, for video processing, if you know any Python check out vapoursynth.
This highlights the problem: the primary obstacle to a lot of software enshittification is accessibility, and discoverability.
Once something like Topaz or Premiere gets SEO, it starves all the other cool efforts out there as they get buried under spam.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 2 minutes ago
The poor user experience is intentional. Compare FireTV to AppleTV. Everything about FireTV is carefully designed to coerce you into spending money. Easy access to the content you already have doesn’t make money, so the UX serves Amazon, not you. Apple does it, too, but with a more subtlety.