I disagree with that. from what I read data centers are going to have some real world negative effects on human populations

After Onedrive uploads all of your data to the cloud without your consent it sets all files as online only. Meaning the file will not live on your computer unless you click on it, then it will download a copy of that specific file to your system.

If we didn't have criminals in our government right now I would think that this would be a huge anti-trust violation worth perusing.

I had to completely nuke OneDrive from windows.

With a 2 terabyte SSD I'm unlikely to ever run out of space.

Automatically opt in and make the settings deliberately vague and obtuse- companies that have FAITH in their product don't need to do this.

Why bother with windows though?

And pray it doesnt get reinstalled and it automatically moves your data back to the cloud again. I had this happened to one customer of mine, not quite sure of the circumstances.

I have seen one drive silently reinstall itself, I think it does this as apart of an office365 update.

This is a common dark pattern. Go through the hassle of disabling some 'feature' or service; and it just magically reappears at the next 'update'.

Microsoft is just one of the companies that routinely does stuff like that.

>This completely unpends the tenuous balance between creators and consumers. Why would a writer put an article online if ChatGPT will slurp it up and regurgitate it back to users without anyone ever even finding the original article? Who will contribute to the digital common when rapacious AI companies are constantly harvesting it? Why would anyone plant seeds on someone else's farm?

I have been thinking about this. I was pretty amendment a few months ago that AI is going to make a lot of thing worse for everyone because of the externalities of the technology (Data Center Creep, lock in of models, ect) and it probably still will. But then someone suggested to me that I use Claude Code to upgrade my SSG site to the new version because I had been sitting on my ass as the years went by, missing deadline by deadline. I just couldn't put my self into gear to upgrade it. It was massively out of date 10 years plus and I knew it was going to be a nightmare to deal with the problems. I probably was making it more harder than it really was in my head.

So I purchase Claude Code pro and the thing upgrade my site pretty well. There were things it missed because I didn't know the problems existed in the first place until the upgrade was complete, but I had a working updated site in less than an hour. If I had done this myself it would have taking me days/weeks.

So at that point I realized something. Its a tool that can handle good amount of tasks I throw at it as long as I am specific. I think the problem with most people is they expect it to respond like a human. Thats not going to happen, IMHO. Maybe some day it will be more than what it is but right now its just a tool. I don't care what anyone says about AGI and the likes. Its not going to happen with the current iteration (the pattern recognition type) We are going to need more than that if we want to simulate a human brain..

The point is. And I know this is not going to be received very well, mostly because this tech is in the hands of people that are gatekeeping it, is that maybe someday we might reach a point where all of humanities knowledge is put into these things and we can use them to better our lives. Maybe at some point we don't need to hold onto or hoard things as if its the only way we can make a living? And instead we can build things just for the sake of creating it and improve humanity in the process? Obviously the commercial model of these things is not great, that is going to have to be dealt with, but I can see a future where we might be able to fix a lot of humanities problems with this technology as more and more good people put it to use for things that help humanity.

You raised a point and then never answered it. Why would anyone plant seeds on someone else's farm?

Because maybe, someday, somehow, we will realize that these farms we are creating are all connected. When we share resources we prosper more than we would if we were all separate. But that wouldn't happen right away, enough people would have to have buy in for this to happen so I understand the concern.

Well, maybe because life is not a zero sum game? Sometimes you do things just because.

Yes that may be true, but parents are being misguided by efforts that are trying to control aspects of data.

If you, as a parent, make yourself open to this attack, you will find that you are making us less free of a society by expecting others to parent for you.

If you oppose minimal, sensible parental controls, you open the door to whatever someone can jam down our throats that also happens to implement parental controls as a side effect.

If you oppose the law to force liquor stores to deny service to minors, but people are still upset about minors getting alcohol, you have no right to be surprised when the next proposal is to ban alcohol for everyone, and you have no right to be surprised if it passes.

Worse, they are making society less free for their children - the parents themselves will be either dead or too old to care by the time the consequences are in full swing.

Until they making CA a requirement, then disable changing the CA settings and it defaults to Microsoft. Then you are fucked.

That would make extremely inconvenient if MS ever need to revoke a certificate.

> While I agree entirely that Linux in 2026 has never been more usable… how much actual work is being put into Office and 365 tooling native on Linux?

Why the hell would you want that? Office365 is a buggy piece of nightmare.

Because even though you don’t like a thing, the entire world of business uses it.

Hold your nose and work on WINE if you need to think that way. But MS has moats, and office is one of the widest.

I think business are going to be forced to change their thinking on this. Im not interesting in emulating windows progs in wine. I switched to Thunderbird a long time ago and other programs that give me the features I need with-out sacrificing my freedom.

Thunderbird UI is absolute trash.

LibreOffice also has bad UI choices and glitches.

It’s not like we’re talking VLC vs OS Media Player here.

You can stomp your feet, but the world uses Exchange and Office and not for no reasons at all.

I left GitHub for GitLab because i knew this was coming.

Yep. OS level stores are just way for the org to exercise control over installs.

I have stay far away from that process for a long time. Apple MacOS seems like the worst in that department IMHO.

what do you mean? mac doesn't require the use of the store at all, or even an apple id to use your computer

It doesn't require it, and neither does windows store. It centralizes control over apps. Apple leverage's its OS to create friction for installing apps from the web.

Microsoft and Apple uses their OS store to slowing take away control and ownership from device owners.

Good luck with that.