One of the many things which bothers me about the modern age is how almost everything seems like a step down from something we used to have.

For some reason (I know the reason, I just don't know why anyone goes along with it), almost everything requires an "account" with some central system, which inevitably requires that you agree to a legal document you aren't qualified to read, which always includes a clause that they can update it whenever, even though they may now be holding your data or workflow hostage. Seriously, anything "cloud" should not be trusted.

Then there is the atrocious advertising overload. For some reason, many modern blog sites are dangerous to view on some of my systems since they will consume all system resources and grind the system into a bad state... all to serve ads. The content is the same few kilobytes of text it always was.

Then there is YouTube, where my time is wasted in uninteresting "content" to fuel the distraction addiction which has grown out of my waste of a humanity. The site mostly works but the search is almost useless and it seems like there are more ads than actual content (and they are those annoying "skipable" ads so you need to keep getting up to click a button to not be mired in a 10-minute infomercial for some scam or terrible service every few minutes).

I am terrified to say much about the sudden push for an international surveillance state since just thinking about it reminds me I am not long for this world as I will soon become incompatible.

Then, there are some things which somehow feel like the future we were promised. Things like Duckduckgo are just a search engine, and that is all. I have been using them for 15 years without disappointment. Far superior results to Google and the company is privacy-conscious, so they aren't fixated on tracking you.

Another impressive one is Tubi. It is video-on-demand with fewer ads than old TV stations, isn't constantly forcing you to login or agree to crap, and has a good collection of content. I was very happy to see Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (both seasons - I hadn't previously seen the second) but today just realized that they also now have all of Lexx. Of course, I bet this one will eventually become part of the "login all the time and provide personal data for ... reasons" but at least it can be enjoyed in the present.

Why aren't more people less tolerant to this terrible treatment?
...Nights