Technology Tribulations: The Advent of the Cloud - Games/Phones/Media

The Advent of the Cloud - Games/Phones/Media (My take)

I hail from a time where owning what you purchased was as important to holding books, records, cassette tapes, compact discs, DVD's, concert tickets, and band t-shirts. The fact when one owned something they worked for, it gave a sense of physical connection.

Today this component in current terms is becoming outdated. Though there are occasional winks and nods to yesteryear with regards to early technology, the fact is future generations aren't going to enjoy what I and so many older computer/gamer/tech chaps experienced with turning something tactile to transfer our energies into.

I am not saying I dislike what has transformed in what I call a heavily controlled distant apparatus. Far from it, I have to use this form of distance because of my business. Yet I've also begun employing a very crucial criticism of how this new paradigm shift to the Cloud, and this aspect which has transformed how people gain, exchange information. In a nutshell?

You must pay for it. All of it.

Gone is that ability to find technological something with great care, and researching various options. There isn't exactly a kind of freedom today in pushing forward because of how limited the scope or targeted audience. In this case young teens. This isn't an indoctrination, more in line with less connection to the very component of 'things' into 'invisible' but always there.

They aren't free from various types of speculative manipulation either. Most are unaware of being able to piece together research with weighing pros and cons of cloud like services. What takes real skill is being able to discern who is selling a lie versus truth. That in itself takes keen skill to deduce. Yet even that construction has been whittled down into very dumb description, where companies are clever in hiding out critical details.

Between innovation, and consumerism with technology today, the computer industry currently has become a broken cog of software algorithm litigation. What is broadcasted tempers those who have big dreams and are deflated by ego-maniacal monster mergers, and tight lipped corporate executives who could give to shits whether you or I expired.

As the old saying goes as long as they get paid i.e holding everyone hostage including the right to free flowing information. Which brings me to games, and the one last real vestige I will continue holding a death firm grip on.

Yes I concur game companies are fighting a piracy battle because of price. Smartphones now dictate the terms of an archaic and slow to keep up industry that still thinks people have disposable incomes. Of all the various titles in the recent years, in my estimation hasn't provided a decent interest since the last decade, first person shooter sequels do not count.

I can also talk about the telephone morphing into a mobile aspect where your always connected. I am thankful to have lived through knowing and being anonymous. Now I'm as networked into a world with news disguised as infotainment, unrecognizable computer culture, games, and everything else. There is no off switch, because it never stops.

Gamers especially are feeling the pinch with this apparatus because of a very real idealism with profitability. Gamers were a commodity once listened to by game companies. Gamers made the industry into what it became. The reality now is that companies could give a damn about what a gamer wants.

This goes for cellphones, computers, and portable electronics. We all have seen this concerted effort to shift control away from the user, into a tightly controlled component of corporate interference. The lines of being a free spirit are now heavily regulated, and often monitored.

With the releases of Sony's Playstation 4, and Xbox One, the circle is now complete. As Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft all are in favor of micro-transactions, mostly by these companies whom align themselves toward shareholders, profitability is completely singular to that narrative.

Users have no control over the right to their own information. I value holding onto my information. I don't want to have what I own carry stigma, or give rise to some unknown supposed ethical issues. I enjoy having the ability to not be sucked into what the 'supposed' industry wants. I've elected to back away, and watch as the lines become drawn. 

I am definitely more concerned of how this will translate for those of us on the outside of the youth circle. Seeing from a distance while observing with open eyes is very concerning to the overall picture.

I am but one man, who feels that there is a form of legalized extortion happening. Data plans, cloud services, music streaming, etc. Ownership of anything is now passing into a realm of an uncool and dated obscure 1970's exploitation film. With technology breaking society in ways of information control, who has it, and the ability to take what we do in our spare time to monetize that bothers me greatly. Thanks for reading.

B.