Bring back personal computing!

The Death of the PC

I recently found this article while net browsing. its about how the concept of a personal computer has basically become extinct in the mainstream market. Mostly because everything comes with a subscription or a "licence", and we basically can't own anything digital in the traditional sense. Not even our own data. I think this resonates with a lot of people in this group. The state of mainstream social media is a good representative of what these practices can cause. How we feel obligated to sell our identity and privacy to partake in addiction, which is now common practice in our society. 

Back at the start of the decade, I was outraged by Adobe's rewrite of its ownership contract. It didn't exactly affect me, coming from a third-world country where pirating adobe software was common practice. But I was alarmed when I realized this might become common practice in the future. For, if Adobe was able to maintain its profits or increase them, other companies would follow. Furthermore, as an avid gamer, I worry of the consequences of what a digital licence implies when it comes to my steam library. To the preservation of core memories of my life. And of course, as a person, I don't like the idea of being considered a product for companies to freely sell and pass around each other. These are the reasons that motivated me to make an account in Spacehey, and learn more about how I can protect myself and my data.

The author does an excellent job to explain how this is a systematic issue. To create an answer to this problem, we need more than an individually-leveled solution. It's not enough to switch operating systems, virtually migrate to indie social media, and use open source software. As the author says, these are good solutions, but they will not make lasting change. I think its unfair to weigh all of the responsability to the consumer. And although the article is centered in a US perspective, due to the global nature of modern technology, I think these issues affect everyone in our society.

The article itself is short and sweat in its delivery, and a very pleasant read.

My request to you!

The reason I am sharing this through a permanent post in the forum is to open up a conversation about this. I know this group is centered on the web and the internet; which does not include the topic of computer usage as a whole. But I think this community is interested in this topic, and I would like to read other people's opinions! So let's exchange some thoughts! :]

Of course, if this topic is really out of place here, I won't mind if its taken down or if i have to delete it(i dont know how that works in spacehey groups lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) 

Anyway thats it!