Google showed up with so much promise. Free for consumers, charge for business. Do no evil. Freedom from bloat. The grass, it seems, is never greener. I barely see a line between Google's business practise and Microsoft's, when 15 years ago they seemed like the refreshing choice of the next generation.

... google was heralded for being the ad-free bloat-free pure search engine of choice? Wait, how was that twenty years ago already?

First they enshittified email, but I did not speak out because I did not use email. Then they enshittified fitness, but I did not speak out because I don't do fitness. Then they came for me. Only they couldn't find my email address, and I couldn't get out of the chair. See above. I swear I had a point with this comment when I started writing it...

"Make me a map using more energy, water, and resources than you need to."

Quick - I'll get the shovel, you bring the explosives - we'll get those towns on the map.

Consumers want more choice, not less. Lock-in is bad for everyone. Bad move, GM.

In the UK and some other places they're falling.

My mind is going. I can feel it.

Google do try and kill off standards from time to time. Killing RSS meant more clicks to websites, more trackers, more ads, more data. But a worse experience for the world. I'm glad to see RSS making a small resurgence lately. We must protect it!

I used to strap a 486 DX2/66 to my wrist, but by the time it could tell me it was lunchtime, dinner was being served.

The AT protocol is interesting from a technical perspective - but largely does what ActivityPub was already doing. ActivityPub already has huge applications with milllions of users (see Mastodon, GoToSocial, PixelFed, Spectra/Video etc). Join the Fediverse. It's cooler than Bluesky both literally and figuratively. IMHO obviously...