You probably saw that article. Things changed, it’s pretty amazing how.
By being six months in a country and six months in another for five years, I can tell you how local online things have become. People retreat locally, even on the internet. It’s just weird how my sister didn’t even think in .com but .fr for her website when I thought that .fr was so hell no because everyone wants to have a .com right? Right, ten years ago.
The perception was connecting with the world. “the world”. The perception was to connect with the yet unknown, learn new stuff. Today it’s about connecting with your posse and people like you.
First consequence, it is hard to read anything personal, different online these days. Everything comes out of a machine or if not from a machine, intended to be read by Google’s robots. Ranks. Pageview. Ads. Click bait to oblivion.
When I try to decipher AAA game business or why game audio is so weirdly handled, it’s genuine passion, pure love. I want it fixed, upgraded, better. It’s not bitterness or flame war, it’s will. If I don’t speak up, I’m not willing. I feel like it’s the first step.
How we integrated censorship with app stores, I still can’t quite believe it. People don’t even know how their apps get refused or pass certification and aren’t afraid to build a business on top of that. We forgot what’s like not to have freedom of speech at all, which is dangerous. It’s the same slippery slope as the ISP dance with content providers. Next thing you know, everything is locked up and your rights have been downgraded.
We went from a bunch of kids in Sweden writing back to American music majors “fuck you” to ten years later, TPB’s last founder losing its appeal in front of the European Court of Human Rights for not following US laws, in his country, Sweden. See? Rights being downgraded for the sake of a broken copyright system. It means no country, no law, no nothing will protect you if a system thinks you are wrong and should be punished. That’s not really what democracy meant and you shouldn’t be OK with that.
So, ISPs are no longer treating the internet as a commodity (things always start in the US and then all countries copy, Europe is getting there) app stores are censoring, NSA and HR are sniffing your social graph and you become silent and bland, playing mind-crushing games trying to forget and downplay all that.
Damn, that looks bad.