u/into_fiction

The idea of streaming really seemed great when there was just about one big name around Netflix. Pay once for the entire collection, no commercials, and no geographical limitations. Now everybody wants their platform, and all of a sudden, your favorite movie ends up requiring five different subscriptions.

Now it seems like we’re back to cable, except there’s also region locking, disappearance of the movies, and restrictions on sharing passwords. There are those who paid for their streaming just a few years ago but went back to pirating because it seemed simpler than finding which platform to subscribe to.

It seems that the industry forgot why the piracy rates dropped in the first place.

Some impressive changes have been suggested by Android 17. The first impressive update brought forward by Android 17 is the feature where tasks can be continued from one device to another with the help of the "Continue On" feature. This feature performs almost the same way as the 'Handoff' feature on iPhones. The second impressive feature added in Android 17 is the redesigned media carousel along with the blur effect introduced in Android.

Coming to my part, I feel that the improvement in terms of system optimization, improving battery life and making it faster are more important than introducing the AI feature everywhere. It is hard for me to think of companies removing all the pre-installed applications in the coming future, but I will still be happy about it.

Initially, social networking sites were supposed to provide an open forum where there would be free speech for all, enabling everyone to communicate their opinions to anyone in the whole world, but today this concept seems to be dying out. Nowadays, everything on social media seems to be controlled through platforms, advertisers, agencies, and even algorithms and moderation systems. One cannot simply see anything; what one sees today is something which the platform thinks is supposed to get to him. It almost seems like everything that goes on social media today is not natural but rather filtered because everybody is careful about whatever they say knowing that the post will get buried, reported, demonetized, or worse still deleted.

While checking memes on Instagram for 5 minutes, I somehow got myself checking out shoes, keyboards, skincare products, and other gadgets that I haven’t even tried searching for.

It seems all the apps that fall under social media are working towards becoming Amazon. For example, TikTok Shop, Instagram Shop, product links on YouTube videos, and creators going live selling products online. In fact, every other post seems like an advertisement nowadays.

The craziest part is how everything seems connected now. Once I search for a product on Amazon or just talk about one product, Instagram automatically shows me advertisements related to the exact same product.

There was this feature on Instagram before which actually allowed you to see what your followed friends were up to. The stuff they liked, the people they followed, the comments they posted, everything.

I can still recall browsing that tab blindly and finding out about memes, crushes, drama and entire friend groups just from people’s actions.

In hindsight, it’s actually crazy how this was actually seen as a perfectly fine social media feature at one point in time. Just imagine how people would react to something like this with current internet culture.

On the other hand, it also gave Instagram this sort of unique feeling of being more alive than it is today.

In my school days, having a phone in higher schools was a luxury. Now, I notice children in primary schools walking around with a smartphone loaded with Instagram, YouTube, and all sorts of games.

My personal opinion on this matter is that there is a difference between providing your child with a phone in order to make calls to their parents and buying them a machine which is connected to the internet with all the algorithms working 24/7.

What I have noticed is that the common argument from many parents is "all the others already have one" and honestly, that peer pressure is more important than real necessity.

The most fascinating thing is that there are several countries discussing or even implementing bans on social media usage by minors younger than 16 due to various reasons like mental health problems, addiction, lack of concentration and online safety.

It makes me think whether we are going to regulate smartphones among children the way we regulate other age-based products.

Every time I trade my old cell phone, I do a factory reset, but I am never sure if the data is truly erased or just hidden somewhere to be overwritten.

Especially considering how the data is sometimes recovered using special software that gets back everything including photos, chats, and files from your old device.

So, do you trust it or do something else?

Just like any time I start a video, I am able to change from 144p to 4K quality almost instantaneously without having to wait for the entire video to refresh.

Does YouTube have copies of the same video saved in different qualities? What determines the quality of video downloaded based on internet speed?

I have always wondered about this given that many people are using the service at the same time.

At first, they were those basic captchas using distorted texts.

But then the bots became more intelligent and the sites would ask us to pick out traffic signals, bus, bicycle, crosswalks, and everything else.

Afterwards came the image recognition capabilities of AI making captcha puzzles dynamic and infinite grids flashing on screen every other second.

Some even track mouse movements, patterns and behaviors of how we use the site to determine if we’re bots or humans.

It’s almost as if it is an eternal struggle where humans have to prove themselves as humans just for robots getting better at impersonating us.

Since the whole debate right now is “AI will replace every job”, I keep wondering if CEOs would also be replaceable at some point.

As an example, most of what CEOs do involves working with data, decision-making, forecasting, meetings, strategy, cost-cutting measures, marketing analysis, and more, all of which AI could excel at.

However, on the other hand, investors believe in people, employees are loyal to people, and a company still requires someone who takes accountability for mistakes.

Subscription is available in all applications in 2 simple clicks: a big and glossy button, free trial period, Apple Pay, that’s it.

But as soon as you need to unsubscribe from the service, it turns into a kind of treasure hunt: hidden settings pages, unclear phrases such as “cancel membership”, retention offers of any kind, and even direct contact with support for the cancellation.

Once, I spent more time unsubscribing from an application than subscribing.

It takes no more than 10 seconds to create an account, but it takes forever to delete it because it seems like a top-secret task devised by the company itself to keep its clients.

They make sure that there is no option to delete an account in the application on seven separate menus, worst part is that many apps still do not even offer a proper delete account feature inside the app. You have to email support, open a website manually, or just give up halfway.

In all seriousness, I really believe it would be best to make deletion of personal accounts available to anyone at any point in time.

Whenever I download an app nowdays, it asks me allow notification permissions before i even open it. Somehow, this app needs my permission to send notifications at all times.

Why does every organization need to send us notifications all the time?

They are usually meaningless notifications such as "join back", "you have missed out", "someone has commented", "limited offer", or some kind of meaningless streak challenge to get you back on their platform.

"Don’t allow" is saving me from all those notifications.