Welcome to 2025 - Cyberpunk without the cool aesthetics but all the downsides.
I realised the last time I was in a major city (I live in a village) at night just how close we are, ebikes wizzing around with youngish adults wearing corporate logos all over themselves while using e-cigs, gangs of others waiting outside each restaurant for a pickup.
Straight out the opening of Snowcrash but without the cool car.
We really did invent Torment Nexus from the classic cautionary tale "Don't Create The Torment Nexus".
I love computers, I love programming (and have for 35 years), I really really am coming to detest larger and larger parts of the modern tech scene - consumer tech and the Microsoft/Meta/Googles of the world.
The things companies can get away with in America is insane. Amazon really feels like Weyland-Yutani.
I'm not in the U. S. but when I tried to cancel my Bitdefender subscription last week (substituted Windows with Linux) - surprise: there isn't a Cancel Option anywhere on my account pages. No chatbot, no e-mail address, no phone number. I opened a ticket with them and the answer I got was: cancel via snail mail with the service provider. I live in a 11th century 200 inhabitants village and the next post office is 10 km away.
These practises have got to stop. We've got to regulate this away, it's borderline fraud.
Assuming it's credit card, file a complaint with your credit card company and do a chargeback - or request a new cc number such that the old one is retired. If you have to justify it with the bank, just tell them Bitdefender has no process for canceling a subscription once started. If they press further, or get pushback from Bitdefender, tell them the customer service rep suggested trying to send a letter to see if that might work.
I'm not in the US so I suspect some of it is slightly blunted by generally stronger worker protections but Amazon has had multiple issues here as well and we still have the "gig economy" stuff just the same.
It's not a good direction things are trending.
We thought computers were different. That freedom of information would throw off the shackles of the old order and usher in a new era of human flourishing.
Turns out computers weren't different at all, they just hadn't caught the full attention of government and business yet.
I think I became depressed because of this. I used to be so enthusiastic about computers. We had the freedom to do anything we wanted. Now they're locking everything down, destroying everything the word "hacker" ever stood for. I'm watching it happen in real time. It's heart breaking.
Computers are world changing technology. They are so powerful they could defeat police, judges, governments, militaries. Left unchecked, they could wipe out entire segments of the global economy. They could literally reshape the world. The powers that be cannot tolerate it.
Computers are different, because of zero-cost copying. It's much easier to achieve a digital monopoly than with physical-world products. That should also mean that antitrust enforcement should be stronger on software companies, and the scope of enforcement should be broader.
[dead]
So when is Johnny Silverhand gonna show up? He's over two years late by now...
The other Cyberpunk. Not that it's any better but we for sure won't have Judy there to save our asses.
Thank luck we aren’t in the Warhammer 40k universe yet.
If anything we'd be more likely to open a portal to hell for Argent Energy.
`Meta today announced a strategic partnership with Union Aerospace Corporation - the deal will give Meta access to UAC's energy network powering the next revolution in AI.`