Computing is something I've loved ever since I was first introduced to it, something I love, something that I always dreamed would empower every person to be connected to everyone else and have a better life, to help society become a fairer place.

When I first hand-etched my own PCB to attach LEDs to my Commodore 64, controlled by software that I'd written, it was amazing.

When I first used a 300 baud modem to connect to a BBS and communicate with people far away, it was like a whole world had opened up. The opportunities were endless.

Now Apple with their subscriptions, artificially crippled devices so they can force the cloud upon people and monetize personal data. Artificially unrepairable devices. Removing ports to sell dongles and wireless chargers. Removing features all the time. Creating devices that are not interoperable with other devices, because that makes their victims ever more locked in and unable to resist next year's even more efficient milking machine.

So much unnecessary bullshit, and more and more every year.

In the old days computers would improve each year. They wouldn't remove stuff. This years device was like last years, but with added features. If you were thinking about upgrading, you didn't have to make a spreadsheet for yourself with what you're gaining this year and what you're losing, and how much the monthly subscription will be. Buying new tech was an easy decision.

Nobody would have tolerated any of this in the 1990's or 2000's, so why now? Why are people so resigned to not truly owning anything? How can they seriously claim that any of this is actually good?

Apple championed non-replaceable batteries, no headphone sockets, locked bootloaders, had to be forced to use USBC. Now they're championing remote hardware pairing. Every time there's the barest of paper-thin reason for it, always more lock-in, and of course no way for the consumer to opt-out of such bullshit.

Just the worst most consumer-hostile company.

But every time they come up with the latest new consumer-hostile bullshit, for some reason so many cult-of-Apple zombies come out of the woodwork, to parrot the flimsiest of pretext for why it's actually a good thing and why they're happy they're getting milked even more this time, and everyone who doesn't want to be milked is actually in the wrong or just cheap or poor or something.

They wear their special Apple release day dunce cap and line up at midnight at the Apple store to be milked for the latest phone that's half a step forward and half a step back, with an iCloud subscription tacked on.

It's so infuriating.

But the most infuriating part is that other companies invariably follow suit once the dust has settled and the latest anti-consumer behavior has been normalized, because every step is more and more lucrative, and a far easier path to profit-creating than real innovation.

Line must go up, and they're all out of ideas, so why not create subscriptions where none existed before and stop repairs so people have to buy new phones? The zombies won't care because they're just dying to put their special release-day dunce cap on again. This one has magnesium!

Somehow USBC is revolutionary because people can now save videos to external storage. What? My Galaxy Note from 2012 had microSD.

Soon will come the subscription-based hardware with remote hardware disabling. A subscription for access to particular phone features. Mark my words.

I hate Apple customers for their ignorance and shortsightedness in enabling Apple in their quest to ruin computing. It would be fine if they were just ruining it for themselves, but they're not. The trickle-down from Apple is ruining the whole industry.

Of course, I'm not excusing the other companies for jumping on the enshittified bandwagon, but Apple is the only company with zombies who will accept whatever latest bullshit they can dream up, without ever dreaming of switching sides.

I hate Apple for what they're doing to the computing landscape, and I don't care if their M2 is better on power per watt or whatever. I'd plug in and use a device I actually own.

I wish Apple would just concentrate on creating the best product they can make. Even if it had the bullshit but you could opt-out.

No bullshit and just the best product. I would buy five.

But not any of this, this is shit.

Fuck Apple.