this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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We now live in an age where software controls the user, instead of the other way around. It is now an instrument of surveillance and control, instead of liberation.
Age verification is a violation of the user’s rights of the highest order, and using “protecting children” as a justification is a disgusting and egregious hypocrisy.
This is the end of digital privacy.
When did you ever actually believe users controlled software again?
Before the internet became de rigueur, more or less. So much of this kind of top-down-control culture has oozed into the PC world by showing up on phones -- those always-on, internet-connected devices -- first.
So when AT&T owned telecommunications?
I don't think the ownership of telecom was the important bit. It was the fact that, before 1996 or so, most PCs were not connected to the internet 100% of the time.
The security implications of pervasive, persistent internet connections meant software vendors had genuine security reasons to push frequent updates. That situation, with vendors pushing constant changes in the name of security, wound up offering vendors a lot of influence they didn't have before.
This is exactly how, to choose just one familiar example, Microsoft is pushing users to have internet-validated Microsoft accounts, even to log in to their personal computers at home. "Want the security updates that come with Windows 11? You'll have to let us watch you." Which is just the way phones have been for longer.
I think this is the exact part you are illusory truth effected by, since that has never been the case. Security has always comes second to profit driven software vending.
Before Microsoft and Windows in the 80's when they pushed for the way all software is licensed out now. There's a pretty clear history on the matter you could look up.
So when it was the wild wild west of computer vending and distro sharing? And IBM monopolized the market?
Don't really know what they're talking about. Software has existed as an industry longer than it was a community. And the industry pushed back hard on the idea of software freedom in the early days.
Precisely why I am questioning wuffah. I want know when, if ever, e experienced such a thing. Because from my recollection, software was always under the control of the seller.