The internet is turning into the worst parts of a dystopian novel...

- As of early March, Youtube videos still sometimes by default are blown up larger than my phone screen when using the web version. This was a mild annoyance in the past but now it covers up the like/dislike and comments section effectively cutting off access to those features. Using the "view desktop version" gets around this, but this work around is extremely kludgy, slow, and the screen elements hop all over, turning making what was a quick comment into a sick, infuriating, and time wasting arcade game.

- For months now, Youtube has been trying to emulate TikTok by turning videos into "shorts", whether the creator wanted it or not. It's unclear what triggers this mechanism as it does not appear to be strictly based on the length of the video, but this effectively cuts off the ability to make a comment without "the app". A workaround is to replace /shorts/ with /watch?v= but who knows how long it will be until this "hole" is plugged?

- citizen.com/explore is extremely useful in finding out what crime is going on in your neighborhood, almost in real time. Except the comments has a glaring flaw: You _MUST_ use the app to be able to post or even read the commentary. Even a full fledged desktop computer, or a mobile browser whether set to "use desktop version" is forbidden to access this feature. You must use the app.

- There are no longer any good public search engines that function as a search engine without all the politically correct/DMCA censorship. Either they are a 'skin' of Google (pretty bad), Yahoo (very bad), or they are low maintained or specialty search engines that are no better than what was around in the 1990s.

- Apple announced last year that they plan on scanning users iPhones "for signs of child abuse" but this isn't the real reason they are introducing this kind of gross invasion of people's rights and property. They want a framework in place so governments can look for vaguely defined
threats to their authority and other 'unpatriotic' activity, amongst other
things. And the Applebots will gladly accept this because "for the children" and they don't want to give up their happy shinies to 'impress' their fake fast "friends" with.

- On Slashdot, I read this: "Amazon Devices Will Soon Automatically Share Your Internet With Neighbors", forcing users of those devices to "opt-out" if they don't want to be part of this experiment. Aside from the possible prison time this puts unsuspecting users of those devices at risk for should illegal material be transmitted, Amazon said "fuck you, oh well, we are going to mess with your stuff". Remember, you only LIE-SENSE those devices you paid for, you don't actually own them.

Expect every other company under the sun to follow suit, like with every bad idea.

- It's amazing how Google, Microsoft Amazon, etc.. put on a charade of caring so much about a user's privacy, when these companies are the worst offenders of them all. And people are stupid enough to fall for this.

- The amount of attention whoring by phone apps as well as some websites and PC programs these days is just truly astounding. "Rate this, rate that! Look at me! Please tell me you think I'm cool!". Recently, I installed an app on my phone that literally would not let me do anything unless I "rated" it. Seriously, what the actual fuck? How can I rate an app before I even used it? There is no "too low" for the bar to be set.

- On Slashdot, I just read about "eSim"s which is a so called software sim permanently soldered into the phone. It's very obvious who this benefits (hint: not the consumer), and of course, manufactures and the service provider cartel are creaming their pants like crazy at the thought of forcing this anti-consumer feature on everybody. And they will do it. Forget being able to swap the sim out of your dead, swollen battery phone to use in your old backup phone so you have one until next paycheck, there is profit to be had! (by them). Yet another item on the big list of freedoms that are disappearing.

- I've lost track of how many supposedly "viral videos" I've tried in vain to look for the original, unbutchered copy of. The copy that shows the truth, instead of being warped to fit the popular political narrative of the day, along with braindead commentary and plastering stupid music over the original audio. My conclusion? These were not "viral videos", instead the media is lying about them being such. Bought and paid for by them, and warped to further manipulate minds.

- Aparrently, software development houses consist of a building full of nagging wives. Nag nag nag! That's what software does these days. If people ever wondered how nagging could drive somebody into violence, now anybody with an electronic device gets to find out.

- Search engines are next to useless in 2021 as keyword stuffing, paid ranking, and "AI" has destroyed almost all ability to zero in on what you want. Double quoting search terms rarely works anymore. Google is the worst offender, as they actively drop keywords (missing- must include:) playing their sick twisted games with their users. Clicking "missing- must include:" just gets another keyword dropped.

- Everything is "smart" these days. Except "smart" means you getting second guessed, endless telemetry, endless control by companies ("I won't work at all unless you connect me to the internet!") Of course, the brain dead sheep gladly accept always on/reamed.

- It's frightening how much abuse people are willing to take for imaginary price-cuts. Such as OS's that update themselves whether the user wants it or not, and having to spend a fuckton of money to not be abused in this way. Of course, the army of useless idiots chant "free market" like the stupified zombies that they are. Until a forced update "bricks" their hardware, then their tune changes very temporarly.

- Kids are growing up damaged and addled, in huge part because of the modern Internet. They have also reverted back to oogs and ugs (textspeak), and cave paintings (emojis).

- Adults are increasingly becoming heartless and machine like, with no empathy in large part due to the same.

- Gaslighting seems to be the brand new trend amongst websites. You click on a link expecting it to be what it says it is. However, something else entirely opens instead. I thought I was fucking up or misclicking somehow, but it is really another tactic for companies to trick users into viewing more ads. A form of "cooking the books".

- And related, the amount of fighting I have to do with websites to just get the tidbit of info I need keeps increasing over time. It often gets to the point I drop the phone or keyboard, say "fuck it", and just give up. User-friendliness is "sooooo 1990s". Now it's user-hostile that is the aim of all companies (ad revenue comes first, no matter what).

- The trend amongst major web sites is to remove features that are useful and valuable, and replace them with crap, worthless baubles. The hordes of user protests are of course always ignored.

Imagine finding your big tool box full of Craftsman tools replaced with Playskool pretend versions. It's very much like that.

- Ditto for forced software/firmware updates. Imagine if Maytag broke into your house in the middle of the night, and tore out parts from your washing machine, and replaced some of the circuits with useless lights and noisemakers?

- Forget any semblance of a normal user experience if you are using any 'mobile' device. It's all "GET THE APP!""GET THE APP!" "GET THE FUCKING APP!". And many sites will redirect you, trick you with fake expand buttons, place holder boxes in place of text, ad nauseum. Never mind the security risks and extra privacy invasion this introduces, users should be able to use the fucking web browser to browse web content.
The only work around is to use a browser that lets you spoof the User-Agent string, but expect Javashit to rat you out (which I suspect is already happening).

- Javashit interferes with normal web operations on mobile _EACH AND EVERY TIME_. Just now, I was trying to copy+paste into a field by long pressing into it, only to have it promptly disappear. "YOINK! No C&P for you!". Expect more and weirder 'bugs' to follow as time goes on.

- It used to be 3D AAA games forced users into a hardware upgrade treadmill.. Now it's bloated, disgustingly huge websites that provide no more content and features than HTML/php based sites did 15, 20 years ago. Of course, if you are stuck with an "Obama phone", with a measly 2GB data cap, and need to access critical, life saving services, you are SOL.
'Not that it matters' because a phone like that is "socalism", and as all Americans have been monstered into thinking, will cause us to be under the hammer and sicle and addressing one another as "comrade".

Even those of us with All American 100% Capitalist phones feel the sting, because every mobile company has (slightly higher) data caps as well.

- According to the book of Slashdot, expect more invasive advertising in vehicle "infotainment" systems that cannot be disabled, with the cameras used for the drive system being used to scan roadside billboards and "provide more info"

- Websites are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, loaded up with MEGABYTES of Javashit frameworks, bloating up pages to an extreme size.