As IoT becomes more ubiquitous, the people who plaster their houses in tin foil will become less ridiculous.
In fact, I have newfound urgency around this because I'll bet very soon I won't be able to find any Windows 8 computers on the market.
Its pretty easy to find computers that aren't Windows 10 (e.g., OS X machines are readily available, as are Chromebooks, and there are even sold-with-Linux computers); its harder to find ones that are Windows-but-not-10, but that's a different thing.
But they're still readily available. I just checked a Dell Precision tower workstation and it comes by default with Win 7. The Dell Optiplex Mini Tower comes by default with Win 8.1, but Win 7 is an easily selected choice.
Still, I've been buying OS X machines exclusively for over a decade. There's not a lot that Windows offers me, except their nice Freecell game. But I'm not a FPS gamer, so that probably makes a big difference.
You can just buy it, ignore what you don't want, and use it 'traditionally' (though still digitally..).
You can opt out of using the smart features, but the presence of wifi and bluetooth stacks and cameras and microphones means that you are living with a long list of vulnerabilities and potential intrusive/abusive behavior.
The good news is, display manufacturers all make very, very high end models at relatively low prices without any smart features or gizmos at all: they are called signage displays.
Think of the screens at the airport with the tiny bezels ... you can buy those. They're awesome.
I couldn't tell if that was because they are engineered to be on all the time, or if manufacturers just jack up the list price so they can maintain margin on discounted bulk pricing for 3,000 panels or whatever.
2020's hottest new major: Archaeological Computer Security
No, you just turn those off. I bought a TV recently and didn't have any option (for this particular model line) of getting a "non-smart" version. I simply turned off the TV's networking. The only cables attached to the TV are power and HDMI, so it's effectively a dumb TV with zero attack surface.
Then -BAM-, anyone who wants a decent looking model with decent functionality is stuck paying rent.
Companies have many consumer-hostile tools to force people to do things that is against their best interest. And mark my words they are salivating at the thought of all that recurring revenue.
There will be tons of such appliances from the mid 20th century and onwards available on craigslist, flea markets, probably even ebay amaon et al. for quite a while.
I fully expect to see a gradual boiling of the frog. First it will be free features and benefits tied to an online account, then it will be new features that are only part of a subscription plan, and once they have critical mass, killing the free tier or making it near worthless.
Sure there might be a market for used devices, but again, it will be the minority. The rest of the marketplace will be screwed.
If no theater around you shows non-3D movies at all, that might, but that's more a consequence of your decision to live in an area where 3D movies are apparently unusually popular (or non-3D movies unusually unpopular) than anything else.
Not being on Facebook is conspicuous enough already. :/
> Pop open the cover and install an aftermarket control board that runs Free software.
Appliances will get redesigned so that it's hard to do it. If they really want to drive the message home, then like 'maxerickson said, it's epoxy time.
> Eventually, this will be more user-friendly (better interface one doesn't have to relearn every monthly update)
See mobile.
> convenient (better software features)
See all software.
> and economical (how many appliances are thrown out due to software malfunctions).
Again, see mobile.
I haven't opened too many post-infopocalypse appliances but the ones I've seen have been dead simple, apart from their over-"engineered" control boards. These things used to run off mechanical timers, and that is still the underlying philosophy, with new "smart" features mostly UI-based.
It seems to me that one could design a general sequencing board to run many models. Some types would be harder than others (washing machines with brushless motors), and moreso if manufacturers start to add digitally-communicating sensors, but these don't seem insurmountable to handle pretty generally. So a total end-user installed cost of say $400? That seems within the price differential between "low end" and "high end" models that differ in software.
It just takes will since it requires not just picking from what the advertising says, like anything Free. But IMHO this is a social momentum issue and the disadvantages of proprietary trash-land will only be more and more pronounced as there are ever-more features for manufacturers to fuck up.
And as far as epoxy? Manufacturers don't really care if you mod things they've made, they just don't want to be on the hook for supporting this. The protectiveness is rooted in thinking their shoddy software is some kind of "competitive advantage". Completely replacing the control board sidesteps this.
Ironically, the all-in-one controllers also tend to be missing some of the more popular pinball machine models, as the IP owners for those machines had the legal muscle to boss around the companies that make the all-in-one boards. As a result, some of the more popular pinball machines are dying as their control boards wear out and they cannot be replaced, because even the popular manufacturers either rotated what they make or went out of business / got bought. :-p
This isn't an exaggeration. 50%.
Turns out drag-and-drop between folders had been implemented, but no one had decided to code drag-from-folder-to-desktop as a feature.
... I wish I was kidding.
One broken machine isn't an indicator of much of anything.
I've installed and run Linux on many computers over the past $WAY_TOO_LONG. Anecdotes aren't data, but your experience is an outlier these days.
Regardless. I gather that you're trying to slyly imply that your bad experience with Ubuntu means that Free Software is synonymous with low quality or something.
That's a silly thing to do.