YouTube has now rolled out its adblock-killing function to all users, logged in or not, Chromium or not; Tumblr has become Twitter, Instagram has become Twitter, Facebook has become Twitter, Twitter has become X and won't last into next year; Nintendo is trying to patent all game design principles; proprietary software launchers are needed to play most videogames now; and Mozilla is giving up on Windows 7 next September. This is the state of the mainstream internet right now; the end-stage capitalist state where people aren't important and all websites exist to make number go up for shareholder. Well, except this one. Obviously. If I were a megamillionaire, I wouldn't be on Neocities, would I? I'd probably be off, starting up my fourth cryptocurrency wallet service or something. I don't know; not being a megamillionaire myself, I can't really say what any of them are thinking, if they even think. Maybe they have people to do that for them.
The point is that this is not the time to abandon our old technology. Nintendo wants us to forget there was ever such a thing as a Nintendo DS; Microsoft wants everyone into Windows 11 so they can be bound by excessive SaaS terms and conditions; EA wants everyone to forget they ever published games on physical media; and Google needs us all to forget that physical media ever existed at all. The internet and home computing in general are sliding further and further into the pockets of huge corporations, governments are letting it happen, and electronic waste is at an all-time high. We need to start understanding basic computer maintenance so we can carry on using all the software that Microsoft and Apple have obsoleted in the latest version of their operating systems.
On Tumblr, there's a comic that portrays a 10-year-old laptop as an old geezer who moves slowly and painfully when asked to do normal computer things. That's the corporate feudal state talking: "your computer is old and needs to retire". There is a specific set of user-serviceable reasons why computers slow down, and none of them are "it's old and needs replacement". Does your computer take a long time to load its operating system? It's probably the hard drive. Does your computer randomly bluescreen? You probably need new RAM. Does your computer automatically open browser windows with adverts on them when you connect to the internet? It's probably got some malware. See? These are all easily identifiable, apply to basically all computers made from 1998 onwards, completely non-mysterious, and easily fixed.
There's nothing we can do about the commercialisation of the internet; it'll carry on until one company owns every website. However, we can still fight the "old is bad" consumerist mindset. Computers in 2006 used SATA ports to connect hard drives to the motherboard. Well, so do computers in 2023! They also used DIMM busses to connect DDR SDRAM to the motherboard, which we still do! They had USB ports and standardised drivers for keyboards, mice, webcams, and stuff. Well, guess what?! You know what this means? There is no such thing as an old computer, that's what it means. In all likelihood, your CPU is fine. That's the only place where it gets kind of hairy. CPUs have always been big-time proprietary, so they all have different pin arrangements, therefore most processors are not compatible with most computers. You can't get 32-bit CPUs anymore, so this will cause a problem if you're trying to fix a computer older than 2013. If you need to get your motherboard replaced, that probably means you'll need at least Windows 10, which is just so very much not a good thing. At that point, you'll need to see what you can find in salvage. That electronic waste I spoke of was just as prevalent in 2010 as it is now, so it's possible that some refurbisher someplace knows a guy who can get you a 32-bit American Megatrends motherboard and Intel Pentium 4 processor. The fact is, there are options, and none of them need to be "throw it out and start over from nothing".
I said on my About page that I can revert to 1996-level technology without breaking stride. What did I mean by that? If the worst-case scenario occurs and KOSA gets passed, I can just abandon the standard internet forever and use PuTTY to get an SDF account and Gopherhole. It'll take a little getting used to, but I can do it. Since most of what I have on this website is just text, it'll be easy to transfer it to Gopherspace, though I'll have to stop recommending Firefox and The Sims 4 Starter Kit. I also have the means to terminate my account with my wireless provider and abandon my smartphone in favour of the landline telephone service my ISP is required by law to provide. The Sims 3 and 4 are the only flies in the soup, however—I don't know how much identifying information EA Desktop is going to require of me. Anything more than I've already given them (i.e. email address), and I'll have to see about the pirated versions, but we'll cross that bear when we spill milk. The fact that I'm not saddled by accounts on 5 websites that are my sole source of human contact and information exchange is helpful, and I'll say mi shebeirach for you if your day job is Twitch streamer. The fact that I've been so resistant to advances in technology by dint of sheer cost also makes the devolution easier, as well as the fact my videogaming interests basically end with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (and the current version of Dolphin runs just fine on Windows 7). Obviously, I know this is not going to be possible for everyone, but it's a nice safety net to have.
I guess, what I'm trying to get at in this long, rambling entry is that there's nothing that Microsoft, EA, Nintendo, Intel, or any other giant multinational corporation can do to our technology that can't be undone by someone with a tenacious resistance to consumerism. Nintendo wants you to buy a Switch? Buy a surplus WiiU and crack the firmware. Microsoft wants you to migrate to Windows 11? Get a refurbished Windows 10 PC and firewall Windows Update. YouTube kills adblockers? Install Newpipe on your Android device and download entire playlists to your local storage.
Fix your old computers, kids. I'm out.
--16 August 2023--