I'm hearing an impassioned cry from someone who is devastated by the sequence of events that lead to modern computing being a system to control the masses instead of a system where the masses were free.
It used to be that you could do almost anything with impunity on the internet, trade books and mp3's, bitch on forum posts anonymously and anything less than the CIA getting a federal warrant (which they never did because even if they could see what you were doing it was obvious you were just being an edgy teen) would mean that your bullshit would be hidden and lost to the annals of time.
Now if you post something edgy on Reddit and someone takes offense to it then they can track down your twitter and insta and fb and swat your house and get you fired and turn you into a social pariah.
Hopefully this is obvious hyperbole, just saying that I get where they're coming from. From before the Matrix made the internet seem like it was cool and full of vigilante Jesus bullet-dodging ninjas with infinite guns and everyone wore black leather and hacked into the mainframe. There was a time when the internet was mostly text and pretty much sucked but that was still amazing and beautiful and now it's an all out slugfest between 5 billion people all bickering and posing for points, fame and fortune from the other 5 billion humans on the same 5 websites while corporations spur the up and comers into greater feats of dickishness in order to garner attention that can then be used to possibly sell some random cream made by child labor in Morocco to fight off a butt wrinkle or something stupid like that that doesn't matter.
The internet is an amazing thing and computers are amazing but this ship did not end up where its original captains were sailing it and no one knows if we could ever turn back.
