Technology
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Maybe at some point. More practically from their perspective they will try to make hosting one's own data increasingly inaccessible and unaffordable. The Internet is the landlord's final frontier as there is no more physical space left to enclose on Earth.
They won't have to make it illegal.
Data storage is going to become a niche. Apple and Microsoft will stop supporting data storage in their software, and once every business and the average person stop buying data storage mediums then the commercial availability will drop off a cliff.
The only people who will store data will be Linux nerds that build custom machines from parts imported from other countries. For 99% of people data storage won't exist, no laws required.
Yeah, that's a good analysis. I've gotten in to it with friends over "consumer choice", where they tell me "Oh, the customers didn't want x thing that's why you can't get x thing" and I'll hit back with "The manufacturers decided they didn't want to support x thing for whatever reason, or that they could squeeze people for more money without x thing, and they have hegemonic control over the market share for that kind of product, so they can force the consumers to do what they tell the consumers to do" and they look at me like I have three heads. : p
Makes me think of the guy who, afaik, is the only guy in the world who is a reliable source for working floppy disks. The little ones, the big ones, the really big ones that are from before even my time. He works really hard to track down any intact ones he can get, then re-sell them to people who have ancient, ancient systems running key infrastructure.
Dammit someone turned on accessibility features and now there's confetti on my screen whenever I click. 
Ted stop messing with my machine!
You just gave me horror shivers, what a dystopian idea. But I can totally see devices coming with just 64-128GB of built in flash for the OS and system files and all storage for anything else just defaults to their own cloud services.
They don't make things illegal. They just make them the default option and most people don't have enough knowledge to change it.
Stop giving them ideas!
Nah just kidding, I think they have been working on this idea for a long time already. It just isn't feasible yet. When it becomes possible to stream a screen in high quality, high resolution, relatively low bandwidth, to most of their customers, all big cloud providers will jump right on it. And I think it can be possible soon, if someone figures out how to make an AI-based streaming compression method that works better than streaming compressions we have today.
Silicon Valley middle out compression, but for real
i dont think itll be possible to enforce esp in the globalised world.
like piracy is supposed to be illegal but even in the west you can do it perfectly fine with a VPN/Seedbox. Outside west, you can do it without any protection.
FWIW the Canadian supreme court made piracy laws unenforceable on purpose, so you also don't need a VPN in Canada.
I've never used vpn even in the US. Private trackers and encryption have been enough for me. Also, it seems like my ISP doesn't care. Some basic caution is sufficient to avoid consequences.
I think a lot of it depends on your ISP. Some of them are nosier than others.
I think that ISPs care insofar as they don't want to piss off copyright holders which are enormous companies. My last 3 ISPs have messaged me about brief periods I was accidentally off VPN while downloading TV shows. I think they just wanted to stay on HBO's (and other huge media companies') good side.
Back when tapes, CDs, MiniDiscs, all the old generations of data storage that you could write to at home were first circulating the media industries tried real, real hard to make them illegal to privately own.
Source?
I have no idea if blu-rays or DVDs are still printed for sale.
Is this a serious take? It's a 5-second search on Google or any large store.
Gimme a sec I'll see if I can hunt down an article.
Okay here are some start points
https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/27/how-the-content-industry-almost-killed-blockbuster-and-netflix/ - Broad overview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc. - Here's the wiki on a really critical case that basically decided the future of media
I love that Fred Mother-Fucking Rodgers, ie Mr. Rogers, ie "I fought the Klan and I won" Fred Rogers, had a critical role testifying in front of the supreme court in favor of allowing people to record things at home for later viewing. Such an incredible man. |
If you're not familiar with it check out the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, probably one of the most destructive censorship regimes in terms of sheer scope in human history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
Another one to check out if you weren't around for it, the Sony BMG Rootkit Scandal back in ought-5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
Is this a serious take? It's a 5-second search on Google or any large store.
I just don't have any installed physical media drives anymore. Haven't for years, so I haven't bothered to look.
Citation for the drama around betamax recording, including Mr. Rogers testifying to Congress: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29686/how-mister-rogers-saved-vcr
They won't make it illegal, there's no point. But, it might become impractical.
Imagine this, you have your whole desktop online, you pay for space as you use it, you don't need to buy drives, your space just expands for your needs. Do you want to play games just for a short time? Well, you can just pay for the time when using a vGPU. In fact, a game could even make requests for a certain amount of GPU power, and you get billed accordingly.
Everything is on the cloud. So, what happens then?
Well, people would instead of buying a PC just buy some low power ARM based terminal. In fact, it's likely many cloud services would include one at no extra price in the contract.
When the majority of people are using this system. What happens to the now "niche" home computer builders? Well, first parts will become expensive. Making less of the home based stuff will make it more pricey. Choice will become limited. It will be prohibitive to build your own. But also consider that online games might well also prevent you playing on your own hardware. It's far easier to cheat on your own hardware than it is on strictly controlled cloud hardware.
I don't think it'll come to this, or if it does, it won't be for quite a time even though this is entirely possible now (look at shadow PC for example). But if cloud computing in this form did take off in a big way, this is how it'd likely be and there'd be no reason at all to prohibit home setups. They would just become less practical and affordable all the time.
Sounds like a Chromebook with extra steps. Today you can install "Cloudready" to turn your desktop/laptop into something very much like a Chromebook.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=cloudready
News to me update: Looks like their next version is ChromeOS Flex and it is available at:
https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/ Yay- Googleify me!
It would be similar. But would actually potentially need even less power. Since it wouldn't even need the web browser. Just enough to decode the live stream and encode hardware back. Which is generally included in a lot of SoCs and if not already, they would be.
The main difference is going to be that the entire desktop of everything will be hosted remotely.
"The Cloud" is just another name for someone else's computer
Good analysis! It fits perfectly into this emerging techno-feudalist "you will own nothing" trend.
I’ve come to terms with the reality that if you can think up something shitty that fucks end users and consumers, it will happen.
I've come up with a few novel ideas that were pretty bad, and I have never discussed them online out of caution of someone actually running with them.
I'm no Nostradamus but I don't see this happening because the companies that make their revenue on storage would be crying foul. I don't see any successful pushes to make local storage illegal. Put it this way: I hope I'm right.
Taking the logic too far, I think. There is also a business interest in selling you storage and storage devices, it's not just Hollywood calling the shots.
Of course, in a totalitarian system (North Korea style) the ownership of storage media will probably be tightly regulated and controlled, but that's a wholly different scenario.
I think bandwidth and data caps are a hindrance to this. Looking on the bright side, at least something would have to be better in this dystopian future.
