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]
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    113 minutes ago

    It’s pretty funny how I’ve seen posts exactly like this one 10-15 years ago, and nothing has really changed that much from a consumer perspective.

    It’s just simply cheaper, more reliable, and more convenient to have local storage.

  • @[email protected]
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    If by “seamless” you mean that wireless data speeds can soon match locally attached storage, there will still remain a political question of autonomy. We might some day have light terminals without storage or even serious processors with all the data and work still done in our cellars garages and and attics via 8G or whatever grade connection. If there will be enough demand for market and politics for devices to be available, of course. So yeah, I think, culture and politics hold the answer.

  • partial_accumen
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    1415 hours ago

    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.

    It will get close to happening for nearly all computing, then it will swing back the other way to local storage and compute, then after 15-20 years it will swing back toward centralized compute and storage. This has already happened 3 times.

    • Original computing was mainframes. “Dumb terminals” that had zero local storage and only the most rudimentary compute power to handing the incoming data and display it, and take keystrokes, encode them, and send them on.

    • Then “personal computers” became a thing with the advent of cheap CPUs. Dumb Terminals/mainframes were largely discarded and everyone had their own computer on their desk with their won compute and storage. Then the Netware/Banyan era began and those desktop computers were networked to have some remote shared storage. (there’s a slightly different branching with Sun/HPUX/DigitalUnix and Workstation grade hardware)

    • Then Citrix WinFrame and Sun Ray stateless thin clients showed up once again swinging the compute and storage almost entirely remotely to centralized heavy powered servers with (mostly) dumb terminals, but these were graphic interfaces like MS Windows or Xwindow.

    • Once again, powerful desktop CPUs showed up with the Pentium II etc compute was back under users desks.

    • Now phones and tablets with cloud has show up, and you’re asking the question.

    So what I think will swing primary compute and storage back to the user side (handheld now) is again, cheap compute and storage on the device. Right now so many services are cloud based because the massive compute and storage requirements only exist in volume in the cloud. However, bandwidth is still limited. Imagine when the next (next?) generation of mobile CPUs arrive, and with a tiny bit of power you could do today’s bitcoin mining on your phone or process AI datasets with ease in the palm of your hand. And why would you send the entire dataset to the cloud when you can process it locally and then send the result?

    So the pendulum keeps swinging; centralized and distributed, back and forth.

  • @[email protected]
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    4821 hours ago

    Almost definitely not at all. There’s just too much latency, due to the speed of light. Local storage will always be faster than cloud, by a huge margin, unless you’re using an incredibly slow medium.

    • LostXOR
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      1720 hours ago

      Yep, SSD latency is measured in tens of microseconds. To achieve that kind of latency with a cloud service, you’d need it to be just a few kilometers away or the light propagation delay alone becomes too great.

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)
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        618 hours ago

        Idea: In the future where wireless network speeds are high, the OS image just gets loaded into RAMdisk each time.
        Marketing: You get the newest OS image on every boot, with all current security patches and no (3rd party) malware, as that would be wiped with each reboot. This will also allow for even higher performance than any SSD.

        • @[email protected]
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          317 hours ago

          It better keep a local backup so it can boot in low coverage areas. Of course that would mildly compromise the security aspect

    • slazer2au
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      2119 hours ago

      Can I really? I won’t murder you for it, I am willing to wait.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashedOP
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      520 hours ago

      Oh don’t worry, they’ll cite “national security concerns” and claim that you are storing stolen classified information in order to plan for “terrorist activity”.

      There will be a no knock warrant, they’ll kick open the door, shoot anything that moves. And they will take it away from your cold, dead, hands.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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        19 hours ago

        Aren’t there enough real problems in the world to focus on without the need to go inventing more? This is just imaginative rage bait. Focus on real shit that’s actually happening.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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        519 hours ago

        Or more likely, desktop OSes will be locked down and will simply not be able to use it, while bank websites and other stuff will only work with locked down OSes.

        For your security of course.

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashedOP
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            219 hours ago

            Cant move to linux when in 2030 they make every BIOS/UEFI locked, just like some android manufacturers have already been locking bootloaders.

            • @[email protected]
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              118 hours ago

              Then don’t buy those products. I only buy phones I can unlock and install my own version of Android on. Same with computers and iot. If I can’t install my own software then I didn’t own it.

              • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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                216 hours ago

                If megacorps have their way, you won’t be able to use banking, government, social media, etc. if you aren’t running their proprietary slop.

                See Google’s Attestation API attempt. Computers can become like smsrtphones are right now.

                • LostXOR
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                  215 hours ago

                  You can always have a burner “secure” device for official business, and a privacy-respecting device for everything else.

  • @[email protected]
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    Yeah the mass of goo will probably embrace it for the convenience, and the resistant few will be demonized as likely terrorists and go underground. I can see a Republican US Congress passing an Online Freedom Act that bans private storage over the amount needed to run Windows or MacOS and blaming viruses on Linux and Mexicans.

    • @[email protected]
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      717 hours ago

      Local storage will always be needed in business environments, either for security reasons (sensitive files that can’t go online), or technical (speed requirements or offline access).

        • @[email protected]
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          516 hours ago

          It’s why SD cards are still relevant. A professional photographer takes thousands of photos during a wedding and needs to process them in a computer. Cloud is not feasible or economical.

  • @[email protected]
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    1219 hours ago

    Cloud storage will only last till they get a monopoly then when they start charging through the nose when they start the Enshittification phase . The scramble for local storage will begin but by that time they will outlaw it or some other bullshit

    • Björn Tantau
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      218 hours ago

      Theoretically you can host everything at home. You just need a connection that is fast enough.

  • Em Adespoton
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    1821 hours ago

    “Cloud” is just a 2010+ term for multihomed server. Before around 1995, almost all Internet-related storage was “cloud”, with people using terminals and terminal emulators connecting to the mainframe servers that hosted their storage.

    And yet, even back then, people stored local data on floppy disks because sometimes you needed something when your online storage wasn’t available for one reason or another.

  • @[email protected]
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    818 hours ago

    It’s already happening. Microsoft’s push to onedrive and m365 was to get everyone off of legacy apps.

    Next will be ARM devices that have a multi-day battery because it’s all just cached apps accessing your cloud-saved data.

      • @[email protected]
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        116 hours ago

        I’m split. Outlook and other apps have turned into pigs but have very little competition to force innovation. Customers are just as complacent, and demand things not change at all.

        Moving to PWA web apps has turned the industry around. MS is dumping all of the old code that causes so many issues.

        I find other IT people expecting MS to not make even small changes, while also complaining about battery life and app reliability.

        I’m looking forward to New Outlook. Supporting HTML and https is so much easier than map I and legacy client code with dirty plugins.

  • Pyrin
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    1019 hours ago

    where every computer is just a chromebook

    It’s horrible. We already have suffered a decade of Chromebooks and it’s only contributing to e-waste because of how restrictive Google has made them and every manufacturer just falling over it.

    We’re already here with cloud storage and it’s already a bad idea. Any seemingly good idea that comes across the minds of tech corporations, they will overwork themselves to make it the shittiest idea ever by their execution.

  • @[email protected]
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    1121 hours ago

    I would say it is unlikely - storage is so cheap that some form of local storage is likely to stay.

    A terminal device still needs some form of storage to run the software to access the cloud. That might end up being some small storage on a chip but the difference is not between none and something, but some and more.

    I also think there are enough people who want storage they own and control that it’ll persist as a concept. Also having devices that work when networks are down is a benefit in itself - attempts to make devices dumb terminals get exposed as a productivity nightmare when networks do go out.

    I think big business will certainly try hard to lock people in to their ecosystems. Remote storage, remote computing/graphics processing are all ways they will try. But conversely there are vibrant communities pushing independent & private alternatives that I don’t see dying - whether thats Linux on PCs, or Graphene OS to take control of your android device etc.

  • Theo
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    821 hours ago

    Likely, never due to the three storage backup rule: save on local device, save on external, and save one copy on cloud. So you don’t lose your work or media.

  • lurch (he/him)
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    Unlikely, as cloud storage providers can’t be trusted completely. They be like “but it’s encrypted. trust me bro”, but every time they get the chance, like when a weakness is detected in the cipher, they will peek or let some government peek. This is how magically your competitor ends up with your business secrets.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashedOP
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      They cant be trusted, but I think the average person will just trust them.

      I mean look at how many people who (supposedly) just sext on facebook or instagram or just SMS/MMS, or even send confidential information thats not end to end encrypted. People don’t give a shit about privacy.

      If the majority is okay with it, then they could just stop selling devices with local storage. And you’d have no other choice.

      • lurch (he/him)
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        115 hours ago

        Yes, but there will always be an important crowd that does care and that’s why cloud storage can’t completely replace local storage or home NAS. It can maybe replace it to like 50% max or so, but never completely.

      • FiveMacs
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        219 hours ago

        The average euser does not trust them, they just don’t care…until they should have cared.

  • HubertManne
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    421 hours ago

    Like others I don’t see it happening but I could see a fast persistant storage merging ram and disk into one feature.

    • DarkThoughts
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      120 hours ago

      Very unlikely. You can already create swap files on your drives and that’s painfully slow, because your drives are so much slower and further away compared to your ram. It’s a very different means of storing and accessing data.

      • HubertManne
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        220 hours ago

        There have been a variety of endevours to make non volitile ram. Im not talking about with current technology. Im 100% certain storage will be merged in future.

  • @[email protected]
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    218 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