There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of “planned obsolescence”.

  • CalcProgrammer1
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    1 year ago

    I don’t disagree that things like Windows 95 were “dumbed down” from the things that came before it, but a lot more is hidden and obfuscated in mobile operating systems than even on the latest Windows and Mac.

    Probably my biggest concern is that you cannot develop software for an Android or iOS device from itself. Every computer from the Apple II and Commodore 64 up to the latest Windows and Mac desktops and laptops have the ability to develop software for themselves, even going as far as the entire stack from the bootloader to the application layer. The computer is self-sufficient in that regard.

    Mobile computing breaks this model. Mobile OSes generally can not run their own development environments, especially not full stack (for kernel, driver, etc.) development. Few mobile OSes even allow root/admin permission to even see how the underlying code works.

    The abstraction is on an entirely new level and that’s concerning to me.