| Warm Metal, Cool Future Switching from clunky, plastic Microsoft computers to sleek, user-friendly Apple hardware was nothing short of a revelation. When the cold metal casing warmed up in my hand, it felt like the MacBook was alive. I was hooked.
What I recall most about those days is how excited and hopeful we felt about the future of technology and its place in the world.
The rot economy had not set in, the barons of big tech actually cared about product integrity, not justmaking shareholders rich, and these companies weren't lazy monopolies yet. It was still cowboys. Where have they gone? Replaced by Kinsey consultants and bean counters.
Today's race to the bottom kills me because I remember how special the industry and products used to be. Big tech isn't even pretendingto care about their users anymore. They're openly degrading products, squeezing us with subscription services, and making our experience significantly worse so executives can point to a graph that's eternally going up.
The Watch That Time Forgot I reviewed the first gen Apple Watch back when it first launched in 2014 and just bought myself one this Christmas. I didn't use a smartwatch in between. I couldn't help but laugh that over the past decade, a trillion dollar company didn't really add anything groundbreaking to the device. Yes, it's "smart," but still not clever enough to deduce I started a HIIT workout without me telling it. Overall, it's still pretty much the same watch I tested back then. This would be comical if it weren't so lame.
Apologies for this maudlin take, that wasn't what I set out to write. After a week watching big tech mess with their American users, this just poured out. And I'm not even American.
Tech wasn't always this way and it doesn't have to stay like this. The solution is achingly simple: break up the monopolies, worship at the altar of exceptional product design again, respect and serve your consumers, and give up the ghost of never-ending record profits.
It's on us to demand quality products, more ethical business practices, and tech that truly makes our lives better. You in?
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