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                       | |_) | | | | | (_) | (_| |
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                       |_|    ...2022-12-23 |___/ 

My relationship with modern technology

I'm not a luddite! I'm an alternate-timeline technophile! New tech sucks for the opposite reason old tech did * Software used to be delivered on cassette-tape, floppy disk or ROM cartridge. - If your brand-new game or program had a bug, tough luck.. * Now software is downloaded on-demand, or is running partly or entirely hosted by the software provider. + If there's a bug, it can get fixed easily, with an automatic update or even totally seamless while you're using it! Back then, if the stuff you got was great, fear not, it stays that way forever. Now, if you really enjoy the _current_ version of something, tough luck, it may change or disappear at any time.

I'll take the former gamble every time. The incentive to get it right is

incredibly strong when your stuff is going to be physically manufactured, when it's off to the factory to be written in ROM or stamped on CDs or written to floppies, and then sent out to customers, once and for all. There's very little incentive to get it right when you can always fix it later or "see how much of a problem it really is". There's very little incentive to keep it beautiful and good after the initial inrush of cash from new purchases. But there's a new incentive to explore alternative ways of generating profit from that product you already got paid for.. So you'll add seasons, and "passes" and in-game purchases and extra features.. There's a strong incentive to make a full-price "base game" and intently cripple it so you can sell DLCs and "ultimate" editions later.

Sometimes, you're forced to update for other reasons, like some authority, or

even worse, "movement" decides they don't like the content you put in (and that people paid for already!) so you'll censor the product post-sale.

You might decide that your product has generated the cash it can.. But you're

still paying to keep some required online infrastructure online.. How long will you do that for anyway? You might decide that keeping all those old files available for download is not profitable, or that your "users" need to migrate their logins to some new online platform to be able to access the product they bought.

What I do about it..

Movies: LaserDisc for old stuff, non-copy protected downloadables for new stuff. Music: CD's or vinyl, and flac files locally stored. Games: Physical media for older stuff (where it will actually work without a release-day software update!), for new stuff, I prefer non-drm releases like can be found on gog.com, for the rest, I treat it as a rental, and hate it. Hardware: I avoid "smart" things where I can, I don't need my fridge to go online, I don't need my washer to talk to my phone. Go away. I don't put anything online that does not inherently have to. I'll skip any games console that does not work purely offline, I gues Ps4 is the last one?