You’re not wrong.

But also, I’m old enough to remember being into tech as being part of the subversive counterculture. Having a modem, sharing schematics and software via BBS, automating processes with naught but solenoids and a soldering iron, these were things weird people did. I could relate to Data from the Goonies or David Lightman or Wayne Szalinski or Chris Knight, because I was into that shit.

Today, everyone is into tech. The douchebros that drove Camaros and wore sharkskin suits are now techbros selling AI-infused engagement algorithms that tweak the user’s dopamine processes and accelerate KPI growth quarterly.

So now we return to our roots. The mainstream pathways are overrun with profit-seeking data hoarders, so we need to abandon the market leaders. Discover new FOSS and jailbreak your hardware. Communicate off the grid, and build something solely for the sense of adventure.

Eschew convention. Abandon Meta and Microsoft and Alphabet and Xitter. Be a part of the underground, and lend your effort to the revolution.

Some day, someone will monetize what we’re doing and bring the slavering masses to this new frontier. And when that happens, we should be glad to have people follow the trail we blazed. Because that’s a good thing. It’s good now that everyone recognizes the value of technology. It’s good that schools teach STEM in Kindergarten and the gender barriers are slowly eroding. It’s good that everyone is expected to be able to connect a device to the internet and search for an answer to common questions. It’s good that anyone can share their voice and join the international community. It sucks that commercialization and exploitation have turned these things into nightmare versions of what they used to be, but that’s not a reason to lament building them. It’s a reason to dive back into the fray and try to create a newer and better tech that is harder to commercialize and exploit.