I mean, imagine a future where every computer is just a chromebook, phones are no longer phones but just a “terminal” that streams the actual OS which runs in the cloud.

I mean, with 5G, I think its possible to make it seamless. And I think corporations push for this because they would love to have your data in the cloud, both for surveillance, and to charge a subscription for storage. I think this enshittifications would eventually happen to digital storage.

“You would own nothing and you’d be happy”

So how likely will this dystopian future happen?

I’d predict a 90% chance of this happening, and almost everyone would be okay at first, until they start overcharging for cloud storage subscriptions, but by then it’d be too late, there’d be a monopoly.

  • @[email protected]
    2•20 hours ago

    I think we’re already there but not in the way OP describes. People haven’t had great experiences with Chrimebooks and storage is cheap

    Think of your Google drive, OneDrive or Apple drive. The most common scenario is you use local storage for reliability and responsiveness, but it’s always aynching to the cloud. Many of your files may not even exist in local storage but it looks like it does

    Or consider Apples approach to photo storage. You can choose to use iCloud for photo storage and it keeps only a thumbnail on local storage. Your basic browse and search operations are reliable and responsive, and but you download the full photo as you need it