- S.M.Y. -

this goes out to all my beloved followers ♥ 愛してる ♥

if Aoi received one more braincell he would ask Uruha out like a person instead of flirting with him online. alternatively his tweets would start making sense

if Ruki received one more braincell he would stop wearing velvet suits

if Uruha received one more braincell, he wouldn't notice and therefore nothing would happen

if Reita received one more braincell he would have a total of one braincell and might start having thoughts

Caller:…..

But this is completely different! And do you want to know why? Because, previous changes were consumer led. They came AFTER the technology had run its course, had viable alternatives, and didn’t force a majority of customers to adapt for profit. Also, Apple is lying. This isn’t innovation, it’s a purposeful manipulation of the market that makes physical ownership of content more difficult.

The Floppy Disk wasn’t just abandoned. It was replaced by CD-ROM in the 90s as a more portable & less expensive alternative. And even then, CDs had existed for more than a decade before computer manufacturers made the permanent switch in 2003. And despite the switch, the production of the floppy disks themselves continued until 2011. By the time floppy disks truly faded from production, most ppl didn’t even own one. And when CD-ROM became “obsolete,” they weren’t ripped from the market and even today it’s fairly easy to find readers that are cheap and/or included with desktops or laptops.

But here’s the thing? CD’s aren’t obsolete. Neither are DVDs, USB, and Ethernet and SDs. Not really. What is there to replace them? You could say cloud, streaming, etc. But those aren’t actually replacements, they are just different forms of consuming materials. And a majority of consumers will be inconvenienced without those things. Like how would you even connect a wired mechanical keyboard? That’s not adaptation, it’s inconveniencing consumers until they get used to it.

But it’s more than inconvenience. What all of these exclusions do is get rid of physical data. It slowly ostracizes consumers from the very concept of physical data and that is incredibly dangerous. All softwares, ad-ons, recordings, and medias being relegated to downloadable accessibility makes these things harder to pirate or share. It also encourages monopolies as it makes smaller, independent production and sharing much more difficult. It also makes the distribution of softwares tied to research & employment more easily controlled by corporations rather than people. And most of all, it takes away consumer control of the things that they use.

Like even PlayStation did this with the PS5? Do you really think not having a physical drive is an innovation? With physical games you can reuse, share, and save. I can play Spider-Man, give to my cousin, and then let any friend borrow it. And unless I bought the physical game online, neither google or Amazon can add that to their algorithmic perception of me. But without that…you have content strictly defined on individual basis and algorithms.

It’s just that all of the growing exclusions aren’t adapting. They are willful manipulations for the sake of changing how large scale consumers ingage with technology and the internet.