I feel like I have recently reached an inflection point where I have turned from being generally optimistic about the future of computing on the desktop to being generally pessimistic.
For example, I have Macs from about 10-15 years ago in a box somewhere, together with a few thousand dollars worth of professional-grade commercial software that I used to run (MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Sibelius, ...), all on DVD with license keys and everything.
I increasingly feel that dusting off that stuff and reintegrating it into my daily driver desktop computing environment might be a good use of my time and money. I feel like it might, in fact, be better bang for the buck than subscribing to today's software and keeping the hardware and my knowledge of the software updated as the software updates roll in.
On HN, one can frequently read about how the industry is forcing changes on everyone that not everyone wants to go along with. The first reaction is usually "Open source on the desktop, now more than ever". But, looking at it from a pragmatist's point of view, I don't expect the Linux-on-the-desktop experience will, at any point in the next 10 years, match the commercial desktop experience that existed 10 years ago.
As an alternative to "Open source on the desktop, now more than ever", how do you feel about "Retrocomputing, now more than ever"?
I opined during the whole installation process: something is very wrong with the modern computing industry when a user feels the need to wind the clock back 10 years (and go to the substantial trouble of doing so) to obtain needed functionality when there is no legal alternative. (i.e. I licensed CS6 in 2012, I was used to paying 600 or so dollars every few years for an upgrade, but I'm done with paying another cent for "renting" creative cloud at it's ridiculous ever-increasing price and CPU absorbing DRMware client. Adobe had me paying since CS3 - and for eight years as a CC customer). Capitalism would dictate that there should be a viable alternative, and yet, there is not.
I also found myself thinking, what have we gained in the last 10 years? Telemetry? Desktop advertisements? New icons? Loss of backward compatibility. Mavericks - to me - seems perfectly usable even 10 years later, however I don't dare to connect it to the internet for lack of security updates.
So... I too wonder if the future of the desktop is retro.
It sounds jaded when I say that if this "rolling back" becomes a mainstream thing, surely big tech will come up with a derogatory term for it: "The Dr. Who's" who somehow undermine progress.
I can't help feeling that we're experiencing multiple business monopolies simultaneously: because in Adobe's case - there was tremendous pushback against their subscription model... all to no avail. Their vendor-lock-in is as strong as it gets.
Adobe's behaviour is also enabled by Apple and Microsoft in this case, newer versions of the OS's do not support CS6, and to use newer versions of Photoshop you'll need a newer version of the operating system.
So what do we get now as locked-in photoshop users? Creative cloud ever increasing fees, Adobe CC software that wastes computing resources, topped off with the privilege of Microsoft or Apple telemetry. Back in the day it used to be called spyware.
How are we moving in the right direction as an industry?
I am completely sick of it.
https://www.riscosopen.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/
Both descendants of former commercial OSes and - at least in my opinion - way less bloated than the modern Linux Desktop.
I personally use RiscOS as my daily driver and so far i am very statisfied.
If you don't host internet accessible services locally, and don't offend any nation states or billionaires, it's reasonably possible to run quite old software behind a NAT box without grief. Know that something might come along and infect your machine, plan for it, make and test backups, and you should be good to go.
Tools should last for a lifetime, and the computer (and it's software) is just a tool. It's time to re-normalize buying something for life.
I have spent probably a total of $10 or less on software in the last decade, and I don't pirate.
The last time I used commercial software was a copy of Eagle I requested at work, but I don't use that for anything personal these days, I use LibrePCB(Not perfect but still very much good enough).
Computing is transforming from enabling tools to a means of social control and enforcement.
The market has completely turned around from demand/desire driven to a "push" market, where we are told what we are expected to own and use. I call this consumer communism.
Cybersecurity is a lost cause. We just can't fix it. And it's getting rapidly worse. The more layers of security we add (whose security?) the less desirable and usable the products become.
Stability can only be found in products that are ossified, hard wired and off-network.
Software Engineering is basically broken at the consumer level. Exploding complexity has accompanied deskilling and a reckless "move fast and break things" attitude that means working products are no longer shipped (everything happens in the maintenance phase as a long-tail SasS). The "product" itself is just bait.
Many products are just about cultivating dependency, lock-in and removing features to squeeze users.
When a non-trivial number of users see a 1990s Amiga as a better choice for serious work than the latest silicon, something has gone quite wrong.
The problem is that 80s/90s technology will eventually be unservicable. What can we do to take back tech and ensure a supply of stuff that we actually want for the future?
https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/devterm-kit-a06-ser...
b) The industry departed from original methods/beliefs/practices/teachings and is something else today, something fake/bad
c) The media is bombarding normal people with false beliefs and false images of relationships, looks, talking, thinking and also programming (anybody can become a web dev)
d) Internet is over saturated, over populated which directly leads to piling loads and loads of e-junk
e) More (RAM, faster speeds) doesn't mean it's better
f) Algorithms don't get old, they don't decay over time. (Algorithm for gausian blur from 2002 isn't old compared to 2022 one. Algorithm is in perfect condition as it was in 2002, it doesn't rot or decay. The form can/is improved to fit today's capabilities. So you may call it less improved, slower, less efficient, more costly)
g) If you were to write a 30 page textbook (no images/few small images are supplied), would it _really matter_ if you were writing it with: (MS Office 2022 on 16GB RAM i9) or (Office 2003 on 32bit XP with 3GB of RAM) or (LibreOffice Writer on Raspberry) or (some Macintosh) or ( Just some thoughts worth exploring. Maybe it all comes down on privacy/tracking and personal preference.
MS Office is just reskinning of older versions, so yeah an older version is fine, you can do okay if you are a music maker too I suppose. But when it comes to say video editing, you do need the new stuff.
A perfect use case for old hardware and software today is banks, some in my country still use XP and IE 6. It just works, and it is not connected to the public internet so there is no issue of security.