Oor... Hear me out... not everything needs to connect to the fucking internet

For example?

My Ecobee thermostat, absolutely wonderful device for just under two years

They change their TOS because they're starting to push their "security" camera side of the business. I disagree with the TOS and won't agree to them. It includes grossly invasive private data sharing including data collected from the microphone on the Ecobee

Oh what? You don't agree? (There's no disagree button) Guess you can't log in and use the device any more

No problem right? Just use the homekit stuff from it and boom you can control it locally right?... Except I have an entry level heatpump... and heatpump have to have a thermometer to tell it when it can't use the heatpump due to low temps (mine is 40°for) which Ecobee sources local weather to determine that point and if you don't have it connected, you could damage a +$15,000 piece of equipment... So connect to the internet and agree to the new tos or buggar off

And that's a +$450 thermostat when all sensors are included

Can follow this line of bullcrap with cars, lawn equipment, farm equipment, you name it

Just full blown middle finger to internet connected tech from me, as well as any software updating tech is my current position. Fully standalone, zero OTA updates, zero wifi, zero bluetooth. These days no bullshit is a premium feature apparently

I swapped to red reader if I have to go there for a project search

UI is shit, and I use it way less than I used to because of that so win-win

What I find hilarious is I've had my finger on the car market pulse as I'm looking to get a another vehicle between now and 2028 (electric, I'll never own a gas vehicle again. An older unneutered diesel maybe, but never increasingly ethenol diluted American petrol)

The dealers near me hit a brick wall according to the websites I've been using, selling almost zero trucks since unleaded prices tipped past $4.⁰⁰ locally, and before that they were moving about 50% of their new stock of +$60,000 trucks each month, with over 85% moving before the 6 month mark which is frankly just danmed impressive that so many people can get that credited in this region

It's pretty laughable to drive about here and see a brand new 2026 GMC top trim truck in front of a 900ft² 1960's delapitated on-slab

I just go full anti tech, which people find ironic since I'm in the tech industry, and they poke fun at that

No matter what you do, no matter what you think or say, people will try their darnedest to poke holes at it

But what you *don't * do? That's pretty hard to poke holes at.

"I don't have a Facebook account" is a brickwall to the conversion. That way in their mind, it's not that I don't trust the company, it's that I don't even slightly value the product. I have a damn phone, I have to am required to_ pay for the damn phone. It has group chats. What is the value of Facebook again?

Marketplace? I buy everything brand new and keep it until it's dead

Doomscrolling? Bad habit, not interested

Family connections? I cut most of them off but maybe 4, who know to call/text

Now even thermostats are getting microphones and listening devices, which will absolutely be used to collect data on people from their homes see ecobees new TOS, and the new HoneyWell/ring camera integrations frankly I'm just done with the bullshit. I'm full blown get any phone home technology the fuck out of my house levels of done

But I don't say that when people ask why I changed my thermostat from the $400 Ecobee, which was a standout feature in my home when they walked in.

No. I say "their servers kept going down and causing issues when I needed it to work", because people who somehow manage to live without concerning themselves of targeted pricing or snooping practices do care about slight inconveniences, and for whatever reason "they changed their TOS to get people to agree to let them spy on them without legal reprecussions, and if you don't agree they'll lock you out of your account barring you from using half the stuff you paid to use" is less logical to their pre-occupied brains than "I got inconvenienced twice a year from down servers"

Uhhh

Wasn't that...

That was the whole point of US regulations wasn't it?

To keep Nvidia out of Mainland Hands?

And that's backfired how? Seems like it's been a great success from your own description Jenson

Play with military contracts and get export blacklisted by the US Govt exports department bigbrain

And those servers are what process your Twitchs, your YouTubes, your Netflixs and etc services

Here's why it does matter

Most server hardware thats out there right now doesn't support av1 encoding, so all of those, literally tens of thousands of them in thousands of spread out data centers have to be replaced with brand new +$1,500 a pop cards that do support it before they can use it

Never owned an iPhone

Currently on android purely for alternative os's

Next phones for my family will either be Linux, if they hold the line, or iPhone if no one does

Why would anyone pick a garbage Android device if they're as locked down as iOS and costs as much?

Make it shitty, Google. I hope companies that behave as yours are get the same enshitification ending

Theres really no eli5, this is a purposely convoluted topic

Best I could offer you is recomemend you go look up the channels Lehto's Law and The Institute for Justice on YouTube

In the US, easements have a history of being abused to render large areas of privately owned land useless/unusable, to legally trespass, and to harass landowners

There's a reason for example that American Tribes fight especially hard to prevent easements from oil or rail or really any companies

Cable companies in particular have a reputation of destroying peoples properties, have numerous times now been given insane payouts to build the very infrastructure with taxes that they just bought and in those instances pocketed the money without even a slap on the wrist. Further their involvement indicates that any further infrastructure projects expanding that fiber are basically dead, and for any that exist they're going to be on life support

Those same bailout companies just got their hands on the easements that were allowed to go to a group who at the least didn't have that history of abuse, and precedent of the that deal going through so it is more likely to start happening in more places

All of those easements should be considered as dead space and new ones will have to be allocated when expansion is taken up by yet another company on 10 or 20 years when they prove they won't upgrade or properly maintain theirs to modern needs, that means further encroaching on people's property

Think of it like sidewalks that moved another 3-4 feet into people's yards every 10 or so years which you as a homeowner are not allowed to alter or use or complain when their representatives do so

So all of the easement agreements got pushed through by google, and are being taken over by entities who wouldn't have been able to get those easements due to commujity distrust of their company

I'd sue to have the easement revoked as a community, and for punitive damages hefty enough as a punch to Google's nose to prevent that type of bad behavior from happening in the future

Not chump change, not cost of operations. Actual punitive damages enough to cut out any profits from the transaction and then some

Unfortunately the most refined usage, and money dumped sector of Ai by far is image recognition

Its where all the money from Amazon and others has been dumped (Flock Surveillance, Amazon Ring, FedEx Trucks, Wal~Mart and your choice of store)

Surveillance, ALPR, Facial recognition, gait recognition, etc. It takes a massive amount of data

Go see how much space you need if you want to secure data from 10,000 cameras at 480p/720p/1080p for a few weeks, let alone a year or two

This paired with the bedrock gdk release and changes to the file path so that we don't need to use iobit unlocker to mod rtx files is some hella good vibes