Linking your account stores your activation key on your account. For most people, this means they never have to bother with programs like Magical Jelly Bean and writing the key down somewhere only to be lost.
Using a local-only account doesn’t increase your ownership in this case.
The cloud is just someone else’s computer. If we could normalize people holding their own data, that would be fantastic. I get that your grandma has a hard time backing up to multiple locations (and testing her backups). Convenient? Definitely. I just don’t think your average person understands the ramifications of trusting these for-profit monopolies with complete control of their data. It seems like a magical refuge to far too many.
First, isn’t the operative problem “for-profit monopolies”, not “cloud data storage”, as in, it just needs to be state-owned and open?
Second, in the vast vast vast majority of cases, people don’t care because if someone stole all their online data, the problem would not be the data stolen. It’d be having to set up a new account as the password got changed, getting the card blocked and getting a new one, etc. It’s like a wallet being lost, it sucks and is annoying but we don’t all glue the wallets to the inside of our pockets just to prevent that. Meaning, even given knowledge of the issue, most would say the downside is not an actual downside to them given the convenience and the time it saves. (That’s why it works in the first place, mind you)
Yes, please put everything in the cloud so you own absolutely nothing
Linking your account stores your activation key on your account. For most people, this means they never have to bother with programs like Magical Jelly Bean and writing the key down somewhere only to be lost.
Using a local-only account doesn’t increase your ownership in this case.
The cloud is just someone else’s computer. If we could normalize people holding their own data, that would be fantastic. I get that your grandma has a hard time backing up to multiple locations (and testing her backups). Convenient? Definitely. I just don’t think your average person understands the ramifications of trusting these for-profit monopolies with complete control of their data. It seems like a magical refuge to far too many.
Although, the usual two caveats still apply:
First, isn’t the operative problem “for-profit monopolies”, not “cloud data storage”, as in, it just needs to be state-owned and open?
Second, in the vast vast vast majority of cases, people don’t care because if someone stole all their online data, the problem would not be the data stolen. It’d be having to set up a new account as the password got changed, getting the card blocked and getting a new one, etc. It’s like a wallet being lost, it sucks and is annoying but we don’t all glue the wallets to the inside of our pockets just to prevent that. Meaning, even given knowledge of the issue, most would say the downside is not an actual downside to them given the convenience and the time it saves. (That’s why it works in the first place, mind you)
Everything is better open source.