Post #2494976

2026-05-13 21:01 UTC

&quot;The users who grew up on these platforms don’t know what they’re missing. They’ve never used a system where they were genuinely in control. The idea that you should be able to run arbitrary code on hardware you paid for is foreign to them — not rejected, but simply absent as a concept.&quot; https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-power-user/ #diday #enshittification #digitalsovereignty

Replies (4)

@smeg@assortedflotsam.com 2026-05-13 21:35

@lenzgr@mastodon.social more dark patterns

Open ##2920951
@paco@infosec.exchange 2026-05-13 22:05

@lenzgr@mastodon.social You know what weirdly follows this pattern? #JellyFin. I tried to get off #selfhosted #plex and run a self-hosted JellyFin server. Not only can you not organize your media, they are actively hostile to the concept. I have hundreds of films and thousands of home movie files I have accumulated over 20+ years. All arranged in a directory hierarchy by my own preference. In Plex, I choose “Library” view, make that the default, and never look at their stupid suggestions again. JellyFin literally cannot do this. And if you ask on the forums (I didn’t bother because dozens already have asked and been answered), they just say that’s not how it’s done. There’s no workaround and no backlog item. Please feel free to pound sand. You dump everything into whatever, and the app surfaces them in whatever predetermined organization you select. Genre (according to some db somewhere), year, recently added, alphabetical. Anything except my way. I fought it for a few months. I even paid $2.99/mo for an appletv app that was a better client than the native client. Everything ignored my structure and imposed its own on me. So this mentality of the-system-knows-best has infected even some otherwise good open source tools.

Open ##2920952
@StarkRG@myside-yourside.net 2026-05-14 06:07

@lenzgr@mastodon.social I've always been a proponent of making beginners programming mandatory in the school curriculum. When it comes up, I often get responses like "most people aren't going to need to know how to program," but that completely misses the point. The idea isn't for people to graduate with programming skills, the idea is for people to graduate with an understanding of what programming actually *IS* and that computers aren't magic.

Open ##2920954
@hellomiakoda@pdx.social 2026-05-20 00:21

@lenzgr@mastodon.social My first computer experiences were Apple 2, and I became competent in DOS. Yes, I had to type cryptic shit to play my games... but nothing stopped me from doing anything I wanted aside from my skill level and how much computing power I had. I learned batch files and DOSShell, and made my games launchable with a click. Mainstream modern computers, and how locked and restricted they are, disgust me.

Open ##2920959