Written by Theundercoverman on 2020-03-14
"But it’s all online now!"
"But this is what everyone does now!"
If everyone else was removing their genitals would you do it too? Everyone else is mentally fucked. Be different. Be “weird”.
Remember back when we went to actual stores instead of just ordering online, when we bought and owned physical media instead of just streaming it, when all video game consoles did was run video games, when video games didn’t require a working internet connection and an online account to play, when we actually talked to people instead of just texting them, and when not everyone needed a cell phone? The internet was still young and not everyone had internet. Even before the internet was invented people were fine without it. We could have been satisfied with this but people wanted more.
Nowadays it seems like an internet connection is required for everything. So many jobs nowadays require using corporate spyware services from Microsoft, Google, and Zoom. Schools require you to use these same services as well as others which collect all of your information (real name, address, birthday, etc.) and parents don’t really have much of a say on this. Even playing video games, listening to music, watching movies, or reading books requires an internet connection. Even if you buy your games DRM-free on GOG, you still have to connect to the internet to buy the games, and physical media no longer exists for PC games (and soon it’ll no longer exist for consoles either). People chose streaming and digital media over physical media. Nobody cares about ownership or privacy anymore (though nobody really owned anything and privacy never existed to begin with, which I might write about later). They just want convenience.
And it’s not just the internet that’s becoming mandatory. Smartphones are also required for a lot of things. A lot of services including “privacy-respecting” services such as ProtonMail and Signal require your phone number to register, which is bad for privacy and security because companies can be hacked at anytime, and as long as your information is in a database, you will never have privacy. Not just that, but many websites now have their own apps which are only available on Apple’s app store or the Google play store, and in order to use their services, you have to download their app. You can’t just use their website anymore. Apps are far more privileged than websites in a browser, and since all of these apps are closed source, they can insert spyware that a browser wouldn’t allow. Nowadays QR codes are everywhere from restaurants to advertisements on a TV (it’s sad that people have become too lazy to type in a fucking URL in their browser). Two-factor authentication is also becoming an option or even mandatory on some websites, and while this does add an extra layer of security, most of the authenticator apps only work on mobile devices (I did hear this is possible on a desktop), and some websites don’t even give you that option, forcing you to use SMS for 2FA.
Everything has become online, which is stupid. What happens when your internet connection stops working? Or what if a particular service went out of business or blocked you from using their services? It’s sad we need an internet connection to work, listen to music, watch movies and tv shows, play video games, read books, buying things, managing your finances, checking the weather, getting directions, and much more. It’s sad that some think that by using Netflix or Spotify, you get access to all of the tv shows, movies, and music in the world, but you’ll be amazed at all the tv shows and movies that aren’t on Netflix, and while most artists have allowed streaming on Spotify by now, there was a time where many artists weren’t on Spotify. Movies and tv shows can be removed from Netflix at any time and there’s nothing you can do. The same goes for Spotify and all other streaming services. It’s sad that people now prefer streaming over collecting and owning physical media, and soon the latter won’t even be an option anymore.
Most of this online stuff isn’t even necessary and can be given up. For thousands of years everyone was fine without the internet, but now everyone thinks they need the internet and today’s kids can’t imagine life without shit like Netflix and Spotify.
"We used to go to stores?"
"We used to have books?"
"We used to watch TV?"
"We used to have paper menus?"
Seriously we could just give up everything and run in the woods, or join the Amish. They seem to be doing just fine without technology. Of course we wouldn’t be able to play our favorite video games anymore or listen to music (music which after hearing many times, can be played in your head as much as you’d like), but would we even miss it?
And this is what everyone wants. The world has gone to shit and it’s only going to get worse.