alt Hacker NewsThis line in the closing epilogue really resonates with me:
> It’s one thing to revisit those old machines just to relive your own years of (likely imagined) glory, but yet another to see people see them as inspiration: to encounter computers that were simpler, unencumbered, unenshittified, and with software you could understand, remix, and own.
I feel as though we have strayed so far from this in modern times and yet it seems to be beyond nostalgia, but firming up to actually be ideal. The idea that your personal computing experience is truly malleable.
We're at a crossroads and where we end up a few years from now, either a personal computing dystopia or utopia, is really up in the air.
We're long overdue for an explosion of new forms of truly liberated personal computing.
Replies
"I feel as though we have strayed so far from this in modern times"
I don't know, some years ago I just accepted the system level UI problem's as they are and at most made a suggestion somewhere - and now I can just point claude towards it and achieve more or less exactly what I want that same day. So I am closer to a system that is personalised to my needs.
The Big AI Lab LLM Industrial Complex does seem a pull back to the era of thin clients & thick servers. You will own nothing.
Recently I showed my 7-yr-old son and a friend of his how they could build their own little video games with the Claude app. Simple stuff, make me a maze game, make the walls move sometimes, make it bigger, make there be a score.
The delight they have at, video games aren't just a thing to play, it's a thing they can design and change, share with each other... I think that dream of a truly malleable experience is still there, I think this "explosion of new forms" you talk about is happening right now with AI, and I think this time it is going to be bigger than ever.