Post #1874271

2026-04-26 06:12 UTC

Ever since @thedarktangent mentioned the concept of agency to me, I’ve not stopped thinking about how much modern technology asks us to relinquish control of our data. I’ve never used music streaming services. I always disliked the idea of not owning my music. For me, the original iPod was the epitome of agency: mine to do with what I wanted, when I wanted. With the relentless march of frontier models consuming as much of our data as possible, we need more agency today, not less. Control over who has access to our data. Control over when they have it. Control over what they are allowed to do with it. Silicon Valley has given us some truly amazing inventions, but it has also welcomed some ugly things into our lives. Systems where we have very little control, very little ownership, and very little say. That needs to change. Really looking forward to @defcon this year

Replies (4)

@disco3000@climatejustice.social 2026-04-26 08:07

@dcuthbert @thedarktangent @defcon and additionally streaming is so inefficient compared to having your music locally. Its a waste of energy and network bandwidth. 🫤

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@dpp@mastodon.social 2026-04-26 09:43

@dcuthbert @thedarktangent @defcon @wendynather are you familiar with the work @inkandswitch.com is doing around local first? They are methodically applying computer science to the very human problem of “who owns this data?”

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@nopatience@swecyb.com 2026-04-29 06:29

@dcuthbert Made me reflect on the idea of "Singular Purpose Devices". There's something... pure about that, a mental declutter.

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@ktneely@infosec.exchange 2026-04-29 06:09

@dcuthbert @thedarktangent @defcon I like the picture. I was pretty happy to see that the Strawberry music palyer running on my Linux desktop immediately recognized an old iPod I pulled out of storage and can transfer music to/from it. (Not that there aren't other ways, but this is playlist management, not just file directories).

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