I'm losing my love for technology

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I'm actually still a big techie person. I've run computer networks. I've built and repaired towers and laptops. I've been a hard core linux user (now moving on to BSD, it seems) since the 1990s. And more.

But the creepy garbage so much of modern tech comes with these days makes me move away from a lot of it. My web browser is hugely locked down (and I mostly use text-only browsers, for more of my browsing). I look for and enjoy the so called Small Web much more than the modern Pop Web. I have a modern smartphone, but I've moved everything but phone and texting off of it (with occasional map use when in the car) to my tower. I'm rediscovering using flashdrives to save and move files, instead of the cloud.

It's like technology is wonderful, but it's often sullied by the same kinds of creeps that ruin religion, government, workplaces, and more. I don't like that part.

It's the increased encapsulation that turns me off these days. They've decided that users don't need to know what's happening, they just need to see the input/output of it all.

I grew up in a golden era of tech I think. When it was getting capable of some really awesome stuff, but it was all still understandable. Now, so much is happening on remote servers, everything is moving towards services, everything is interdependent. Our computers will end up as little more than thin clients.

I find it hard to get excited about. And I also worry about a world where everyone is going to be entirely reliant on technology but a very small number of people actually understand how it works or have access to the infrastructure it runs on.

As progressively more appliances become "smart" (e.g., software-controlled), we may find that our "ownership" of those appliance is -- at least partially -- a myth.

It used to be that once you bought an object -- any object -- you owned it.  You should be able to lift the hood, unlock it, modify it, repair it without asking for permission from the manufacturer.

But we really do not own our stuff anymore (at least not fully); the manufacturers do.  Because modifying modern objects requires access to information: code, service manuals, error codes, and diagnostic tools.  Modern cars are part horsepower, part high-powered computer.  Microwave ovens are a combination of plastic and microcode.  Silicon permeates and powers almost everything we own.

This is a property rights issue, and current copyright law gets it backwards, turning regular people -- like students, researchers, and small business owners -- into criminals.  Fortune 500 telecom manufacturer Avaya, for example, is known for suing service companies, accusing them of violating copyright for simply using a password to log in to their phone systems.  That’s right: typing in a password is considered "reproducing copyrighted material".

On the opposite I love how accessible modern technology gets. There are open-source or proprietary, but free toolchains for almost everything you can buy, there is PCB fabrication available for runs under 10 boards starting from $2. If you look into it, modern technology is actually kind of easy to work with, e.g. many modern BLE capable chips still have intel 8051 core from 1980s. I can single-handedly built some stuff it would take a whole team of people and a lot of equipment to build couple decades ago.

In the early 2000s, I was very into tech stuff, especially computers. Desktop mostly back then.

First, I agree about the old internet. The one that had just enough data sharing speed to send you the content without intrusive ads and auto-play videos all the way. Many websites had a visitor counter. There was lots of file sharing on P2P and mostly before torrents even came around, before streaming.

Over the years, I kinda lost interest. I can do a lot of software work, but I'm not into following any trends.

Oh, and a friend of mine did his IT certification and his teacher was all Win XP. That was only a few years before it was discontinued.
I have never installed Win 10 on any of my machines, but did some for other people and but it seems stable enough.

I still like programming but this is the reason I jumped ship from an interest in computer building to more of a software emphasis. It just seems like the same recycled crap (except programming, 3d printing, and build your own electronics). In short it has been commoditized as other's have mentioned.

100% agreed. So much modern tech is just inherently polluted.

I prefer to simplify things. If I buy a mobile phone why do I want to go on the internet? What for? I can buy a computer or a tablet for that.
And if I buy a tablwt, why do I want to phone people from it? I can buy a mobile phone for that.
And if I want to take photographs, I buy myself a camera.

I don't get why people want everything on one gadget where the one gadet is not that good at doing any of them compared to the gadgets that are designed just for that one use.

There is just more to go wrong the more complicated we make it, and also they are harder and more complicated to use.

It is a bit like modern cars. I hate moden electronic displays in cars. I don't mind a small display somewhere else in addition but not on the bit near my steering wheel as it is a distraction. Just two or three dials to tell me what I need to know and that is all I need. I have had more joy out of driving with just a speedometer, a fuel gauge and a temprature gauge (Just the basic stuff) then I have had from vehicles which try to display everything everywhere.
The problem is that car manufacturers assume that people who just want the basics want cars with small low powered engines that hardly have any go to them. I want a nice big engine with lots of go. I just hate the un-neccessary gadgets. I prefer a wind up window in the drivers side door as it is nicer to get the window just how I want it. Electric windows just don't have that control. And for safety also a car needs a manual way of escape. Some modern cars... The doors lock when you start to drive, so if you happen to drive into a flood where your car goes under water and the battery shorts, or if you have had a crash that has disslodged the battery terminals or shorted the battery, you have no way to get out. A big safety concern.
When Volvo used to be owned by Volvo, they would never ever build a car that had electric everything when it came to means of emergency escape. They either had manual rear windows or if they had electric rear windows, they would have a manual sunroof instead as a means to escape in a crash.

Oh yes, too much TECH. has become over-complicated - that is many human users rarely find TECH. seamless and intuitive to use!

The TECH. that best accounts for human users (are often based on older (simpler) TECH.) might just remain quite useful.

One area of interest is Natural Language Processing (NLP) SEE 'DETAILS:').

The "holy grail" of NLP (TECH. still years away from practical use) is where TECH. begins to compete with humans in understanding the context of text content. Similar TECH. developments are also attempting to allow TECH. to better understand the context of image/video content.

Google is applying a Natural Language Processing (NLP) to process user search queries - hence one example of TECH. that is seamless and intuitive:

DETAILS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BERT_(language_model)

I'm old enough to retire. I don't want to retire, but could be forced into it.

I'm not at all sure I'll bother with the Internet after retirement. I have plenty of things to do out on the farm and books to read that I won't need the Internet for much.

The development of technology always has its pros and cons. Of course, technology makes our lives much easier because it does not require additional settings. But it seems that we have stopped understanding how everything works. And in general, stopped doing something. It's sad.

I miss the days when phones were tied to the wall and humans were free. 'the things you own end up owning you.' Fight Club

I've made my living my entire career in "high tech". I could write a 55.673 PetaByte rant on this subject, but in short, I'm not at ALL thrilled with the crap being forced down everybody's throats these days. A pox on Jobs and his stupid iPhone - now EVERYTHING has an iPhone interface whether it makes sense or not. Software is increasingly horrid - buggy, non-intuitive, and latency, latency, latency everywhere. I would have been FIRED FOR CAUSE if I had written software as bad as some that I see these days. As processors have gotten faster with more memory, the more braindead a lot of software has become. I'm convinced that not only have most of these code monkeys not passed CS-101, they didn't even *take* CS-101! I see poor practices promulgated that I was taught to NEVER do! From big companies - even the biggest!

Never mind that this buggy nonsense is finding its way into automobiles. As a result of that, I'm "done" with new cars, I'll keep my old junk running until I die I guess. There was one new vehicle I was driving, that had latency evident in the HORN. Why is the HORN computerized? This nonsense just drives prices up, reliability down, obsolescence WAAAAY up - and you have to deal with a sub-par user experience the whole time. I'd like my old 1963 GMC back, please. No computers, no power stupidity, no automatic transmissions, no nonsense.

I absolutely reject the smartphone. As another poster here states, why would anyone want a do-all device that doesn't do anything particularly well, vs. devices that are actually made for their task? Never mind its obscene cost. Yet Apple, with Microsoft slavishly following, and most of the rest of the PC industry falling into line - its a constant story of decontenting. New versions of software aren't as capable as the older ones, as they think I want my expensive computer - with 3 huge screens - to be just like a crippled smartphone. No thank you.

Ads everywhere, built in spyware everywhere, decontented software (I'm looking at YOU, Apple "Photos"), ugly graphics that would have embarrassed a 1980s Atari 400; I'm now done with the whole thing and will be returning to Linux after a 20 year hiatus. I'd rather go back to CP/M than what Apple/Microsoft is giving us today.

As far as browsers go, I'm not particularly happy with any of them. I loved Firefox, but now they seem to be in a race to the bottom with Chrome (which I refuse to use for reasons everyone here already knows) decontenting features and configurability on the way.

We had the "Microcomputer Revolution" in the late 1970s. It was being touted as being able to run your own software (not "Apps") on your own hardware and getting away from the centralized model. Now we have this "cloud" nonsense being promulgated everywhere - we've come full circle!