this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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Age verification, id verification, mandatory DRM, only allow certified apps from official app stores, block systems not on the approved list from login onto sites, issues using school and government sites. Then payment processors get involved to refuse cash to those not following the program.
It's a slow squeeze instead of outright ban that leaves Big Tech boxes and Dark Web boxes.
But they can't force us to buy. Say they managed to fully stop piracy, there is still the solution not to buy stuff. It's not like we need this to live, and we should do more of "vote with your wallet". Money is the only language they get.
In retrospect, we dodged a bullet when the Internet developed the way that it did, in an open fashion, at Universities, largely by hippies (and, later, furries).
Remember Compuserve? And early AOL? I remember Quantumlink (Steve Case's company that eventually turned into AoL) and how my parents had to pay for it by the hour.
Tech Companies wanted to erect tool booths on computer communication, just like the phone network, but the Internet (and it's open architecture) beat them to the punch. They've been trying to fix that bug ever since. But they figured out that if the interconnect is open, they can still charge a toll if they have root access in the hardware at both sides. Once TVs became computers, it became so much easier.
None of those exist or, as far I am aware, are being proposed for computers though? Yes there are some restrictions being brought in to block access to some content on the web (DRM, ID and age gating) which are shit, but I've heard nothing about using any of that to block access to general computing.
Apple has always banned you from sideloading anything on an iPhone and now Google is following suit. Soon Google will make sidelong a giant pain in the ass and only available to "developers" with the reason being to scare normal people into thinking doing things how they are done now is "too dangerous" and that they need to nanny us and not give us full control of our devices.
Microsoft is still desperately trying to shove everyone onto their Microsoft store and their "universal" appx bullshit or whatever. Once enough people have been switched over, its game over for traditional executables.
For context the Microsoft Store came out in 2012 and was a big reason why Valve went all-in on Linux because they could see what Microsoft's long term goal was here from a mile away.
It's been 13 years of slow build up to this.
You are the frog in the slowly boiling pot.
I dont really consider Phones to be general purpose computing device because they have always been very locked down, yes google is making android worse but it has pretty much always been a walled garden with a rusty but technically open back door.
I think the fact that microsoft started trying 14 years ago to push people away from standard executables and still has not made significant inroads tells you all you need to know there. Window's fundamental value proposition is its backwards compatibility, Linux has no interest in locking things down even if it did it would be forked to a free version in hours. The only one where there might be a case there is on mac.
No, these are things tested on gaming and phones. If it works and there isn't much resistance it'll come to regular computers too. First you had Steam for games, then came the iphone with an app store and then it became a thing in general computing. That's how things go.