https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/n00gwy/anyone_else_bothered_by_the_growth_of_the_web_the/

Mighty browser was revealed today. And streaming web pages, really?

The devs say they won’t be selling your data and will instead operate on a subscription basis but I highly doubt this will be the main approach once competition arises.

How long until an operating system becomes a boot loader for a web browser? Will we even be able to compete with regular software when multimillion giants invest the best talent in the world into web apps that track your every move, on an OS that doesn’t give you root access?

you mean like Chromebooks?

I think it's all going on the cloud sooner or later anyway. Wild guess is that Microsoft will slowly change to a cloud-based OS. When you connect, your desktop will be on their cloud. I don't think Apple will, but will move most of the functionality to SAS --get the app from the store, then connect to use it.

For Linux, I think it will take a bit longer. But it is a double edged thing. On the one hand, I can play games on Geforcenow or Stadia that I can't play on Linux. And run Turbo Tax online from Linux even though they don't support it natively.

On the other hand, yeah... it's not yours anymore.

When everything is a website, of course it 'runs on linux'.

A nasty byeffect is that it introduces an 'online-only' requirement into previously mundane data editing tasks you used to run natively with strong privacy and data protection.

If your account data is no longer local but stored on a vendor's remote computers, any kind of modification can be performed by the vendor - block access to the account or data export functions, charge a monthly fee, or simply do adaptive pricing (pay little, get a fraction of the features and low priority tech support - pay a lot, get all the features and high priority support).

Yeah, it bothers me because it's the sign of getting old. Our generation, who was the first having home computing available in the eighties now are in their forties. Basically, we're on our way out.

And the newer generations just don't care about what makes us happy because why would they? Did you care about your grandparents complaining how "back in their day things were just better"? No, you've continued watching TV, playing on your 8-bit micro and listened to heavy metal on your tape deck.

It's the same with those who lived at the dawn of enlightenment worried about what will become of humanity if fewer people go to the church, no public executions or disciplinary spanking of slightly misbehaving students.

Young person here (19, got my first own PC at 10 but used one wayyy before that). I grew up with mostly older hardware for my age but also knew about the newer stuff, of course.

It annoys me, too.

There's a lot of new things that are being developed and are great! It's not all bad. Change is great. But I don't like it that seemingly my own PC feels less and less my own device that I paid for and built myself, but more just something to run whatever I'm given. XP sucked but it felt less invasive, idk. It mattered what you downloaded and installed and less the damn appstore puking their solutions at you. (have you used the integrated windows photo viewer??? it takes like ages to open an image, a third party program on the same device takes way less time).

I'm sorry, I'm probably rambling. But know you're not alone, I guess. Also, from a "youngling": I love looking up to experienced people like you who grew up with a different kind of technology!! Some of those I didn't live to see in their prime and I think it's fascinating how it evolved to how it is today.

Interesting idea. I am in my 40s too, I don't think it is a matter of younger people 'making us happy' by doing things in an old fashioned way. There is good and bad about web based apps and apps on your home computer. In the 80's there was no choice, but now wise people can use the best of both worlds.