I've been nursing an old-man-yells-at-clouds rant for a while: I hate this current era wherein I purchase something, but the company that made it continues operating as if they still own it—and everything I do with it. To wit:

• Samsung confirms its $1,800+ fridges will start showing you ads (2025)
• Yes, Your TV Is Probably Spying on You. Your Fridge, Too. Here's What They Know. (2025)
• Some Jeep owners are being hit with pop-up ads inside their cars—and it's all part of Stellantis's plan to make an extra $20 billion a year (2025)
• Here's what Bambu will — and won't — promise after its controversial 3D printer update (2025)
• John Deere and Right to Repair over the years (2024)
• HP printers still block third-party ink (2023)
• Tesla Remotely Disabled 80 Miles Of Range From Customer's Car Demanding $4,500, Backtracks When The Web Finds Out (2022)
• Amazon gave Ring videos to police without owners' permission (2022)
• Amazon is turning Ring security videos into TV show (2022)
• Why you can't buy Kindle books on iPhone (2014)

I'm tired of digging these up, but you get the picture. I bought something, yet it still serves the company that took my money. It only works for me incidentally and conditionally.

Every device I bring home becomes a potential "delivery channel" or "metrics source" for a large corporation. And this doesn't even touch on the involuntary contribution to AI and machine learning models trained on customer activity and content.

And yeah, I understand that, according to the fine print, most of what we "buy" now is just "licensed". But 20 or 30 years ago, this would have sounded like a conspiracy theory. (There's that cloud-yelling.)

Most of us—me included—have frog-boiled our way into this or grew up never knowing anything different. But, we weren't promised jet packs. We were promised Blade Runner and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. (I've been watching Alien: Earth lately.)

This is partly why I still hack and jailbreak everything I own—when I can muster the energy. But it's exhausting, especially when it breaks stuff I need to use. So, I tend to sigh and skip it. I try to direct my purchases toward tools that primarily serve me, but participating in modern society while maintaining that feels like a weirdo lost cause.