Peak EU mindset thinking all we need is a nifty little map application to find alternatives.
Meanwhile, tech companies are continuing to bail into the US the moment they reach significant revenue due to crushing tax and labour costs (see e.g. Oura announcing their departure from Finland yesterday)
Unfortunately the EU and many local governments have chosen to double down on crippling socialism (presumedly to "own Trump") so this continue at an accelerating pace.
MSFT is absolutely screwed, they have ruined every single product they have (OS, Azure, M365) through a combination of hiring subpar cheap devs and AI code slop, and their big strategic money squeeze bet on AI is about to be severely undercut by the market. There is very little of actual value left in the company, they're only held in place by the OS monopoly.
Whatever nostalgic love there has been for the company from the olden days has completely evaporated by now. It will take a decade for the OS competitor to emerge but once that happens, MSFT will hopefully die in the fiery blaze of death it completely deserves at this point.
This opinion comes fresh off of having to had to engage with their partner center "experience", where basic UI functions are broken beyond repair and simple form submissions have to go through three layers of subcontracted customer "support" which is best described as a broken telephone where you have to explain the problem repeatedly to an endless stack of support staff.
Not to mention Windows 11 BSODing every week and failing to make basic functions like bluetooth work on it.
This may seem dramatic but its an 100% true and accurate representation of how everything works with them these days.
One would think the finger pointing should go towards the shitty governments causing trouble and pain for their own citizens, but somehow you've managed to find an angle to blame the West.
It is truly an unthankful job being the saviour of the entire world.
You really think Microsoft has been ”cool” for the past decade or so?
First the rampant spyware, then they gradually wreck every single piece of software into unusable buggy AI-slop-mess just to play the trashy MBA valuation games.
I still hold nostalgic value for the old OSes (say up to XP/7) but everything after has been nothing but maximal profit extraction.
It would be beneficial to understand the underlying mechanics (very untransparent centralization of power to an unelected commission) and the risks involved before smugly dismissing concerns about it.
Surveillance tech is usually a derivative of other technological advancements which would still result in a net benefit.
The middle ground between infinite optimism and doomerism seems to be regulation which more often than not results in very subpar conditions. I feel there's really no other position to hold.
Kaczynski's entire opposition to technology seems to focus purely on amplifying the negative aspects of technological advancement. But after reading David Deutsch, I cannot but think all and any technological advancement is desirable and there's little merit to technological doomerism.
You're not wrong. However, if a company uses my presense (or lack of) on social media as a way to make judgements I will not give them a penny of business.