this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Fuck AI
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A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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I don't really have an issue with nagware. You got a powerful, useful piece of software for free. I'm starting to see a lot of comments in this vein on Lemmy. Open Source is fantastic, but it's also okay to want to get paid for the time and effort put into something.
What you're seeing on Lemmy is up to you.
What I'm talking about is late 90s and early 00s, with WinZip being the prime example but others like ACDSee or even mIRC also coming to mind, where the whole shareware model for the era was companies testing out just how inconvenient they could be and still get the users to buy their apps.
The glorious counterpoint to this was WinAmp, who not only whipped the lama's ass, but was also free (for non-comercial use) shareware and users paid voluntarily, which I gladly would have if I wasn't a broke kid at the time.
This era died off completely after that, as the internet became more accessible, open source and libre licenses exploded, and many apps migrated to web browsers.