I too miss these days. What we have now is far, far worse. This isn’t nostalgia — just the way software and computers/smartphones are now is utter crap.

Back then, we called them applications, or software, or sometimes just downloads. It’s hard not to drown in nostalgia over those good old internet days, when a free app almost never meant that you were the product. The industry was dominated by a few big players and a lot of software cost well over $100. But there were also independent developers making all kinds of amazing games and utilities.

Computers have been getting less useful yearly for about the last decade or so, with it really ramping up around 2014. It’s a huge loss. The “bicycle of the mind” has been melted down and smithed instead into a manacle.

I used to love computers; loved working on them, figuring out how to make them do things, and the joy of discovery. Now I mostly just tolerate them or actively hate them as they have turned into nearly-useless surveillance devices with most functionality removed.

I really did think the future would be cooler.