blighttown

Services are transient

I see a lot of posts about different services getting worse, disappointing. There's Cory Doctorow's excellent-but-poorly-named theory.

I think something that people need to really understand about modern technology is that services are transient. Do you like service "XYZ" right now? That's great, but it will be worse later. Netflix will pull shows from its catalog, Spotify will flood you with AI songs. Facebook will put you in a Skinner box. Amazon Prime video will start showing advertisements. XBox Live will raise their prices. etc., and so on.

If you love a service currently, at best it will disappoint you later. At worst it will either vanish, taking your data with it, or perhaps go bankrupt, selling all your data as one of its bankruptcy measures.

In general, you should use as few services as possible. (the more services you use, the worse the impact is to both your privacy and your wallet.) At all times, you should assume you won't be able to use those services indefinitely. Never get too entrenched, and don't even let yourself get disappointed. They were always going to turn the screws.