A browser that puts users in control should make features like AI and advertising opt-in because there is a sizeable group of people who are concerned about those things. It's meaningless if they only put users in control who agree 100% with Mozilla's ways of thinking.

After so many times of blundering in ways that are favorable to their corporate sponsors, it's hard to believe they're not doing it on purpose.

But then again I remember spending hundreds of dollars as a high school student to upgrade my family's 8Mb desktop to 40 Mb.

Most companies large enough to have their own IT have monitoring and know what's going through their network. The larger the company, the more likely they're watching. I've personally never seen that information used against anybody unless they were looking at shady stuff (porn, hacking websites, etc.), but I'm sure they're monitoring.

Even outsourced IT for small companies will often put "security" software like Sentinel One or Sophos on machines they manage, and those can track and block web traffic, report everything being installed, and even MITM HTTPS traffic.

Personally I don't see the big deal. If I don't want my employer watching something, I don't do it on their network. I monitor what's going on in my tiny home network, and I expect anybody administrating larger networks does the same thing.

There's already loads of monitoring software available that can scrutinize, categorize, and track everything going through corporate networks. A company I worked at ~20 years ago had an internal website showing a live display of URLs accessed through their whole network, a "top 100" list, a break down into categories (news, email, games, etc.) and other stuff along those lines. They were absolutely categorizing and scrutinizing everything way back then, no AI needed.

You just don't need AI to do spell checking. It's a waste of energy, bandwidth and tokens. It's like Java Enterprise Fizz-Buzz - 1000x more complicated than it needs to be and complete overkill.

But at least you can tell your manager you're using AI!

The future is using AI to do everything, and nobody gets funded saying they're taking a small step forward.

Some of the limitations are that ham radio requires getting a license (it's easy, but it's a little bit of work and turns some people off), the user base is tiny (it's a niche inside a niche), it requires technical knowledge and specialized hardware, and legally it can't be encrypted or used for commercial purposes. That's okay if your plan is to broadcast messages without censorship, but not so great if you want to check email or browse https sites.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/build-a-longdistance-data-network-...

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/5bj5w0/intern...

At some point Apple realized the "power user" market was too small, and they were better off treating all of their users like idiots. And that's when I left.

Will never buy one if it's Windows only, though.

Or they're going to put it as a drop down from the "Repeat" button, or something stupid like that, to cause people to click it by accident.

And when you disable it in the settings they'll stop, but only for 6 months when they cram it down your throat again in a new place in the UI.

I secretly wish Spotify would fire their entire product and dev teams, allow third party clients again, and just focus their energy on increasing their catalog and paying artists more.

I don't want to see lyrics, I don't want AI shuffling, I don't want videos, I don't want concert tickets.

When (if) somebody gets Linux working on them then I'll buy another MBP. In the meantime my money goes to Lenovo.

My 2013 MBP was going strong with Debian until the battery started puffing up last year, and I finally had to recycle it.

I get it, I know I'm not their market, but it still pains me because it was a great laptop.

Even if the 4000 billionaires are ruling society, they're destroying the planet with the help of 8 billion poors.