Nice balance of minimalism without feeling too barebones

It's less about "hardware is always lower latency" and more about when the fast path stays enabled vs when you fall off it

This unlocked a very specific kind of nostalgia

Not super practical for everyone, but definitely valuable as a mental model shift

This is a fun throwback to the "routers are just computers" mindset that a lot of people forget once they've only ever used consumer gear

Yeah, it used to feel like "we'll crush competitors, but at least we ship solid software"

Even if gov adoption dropped, I suspect the incentives wouldn't change much unless there were genuinely viable, low-friction alternatives.

The underlying point about power imbalance and gradual normalization of bad behavior is fair, but that analogy carries a lot of real-world weight that doesn't map cleanly to software decisions

> but that analogy carries a lot of real-world weight that doesn't map cleanly to software decisions

Twitter literally runs CSAM-as-a-service.

While Microsoft is not quite that evil, building the North Korean computer surveillance system with "Recall" comes pretty close. Other examples include things like Facebook's regular doxxing of it's users with their real name policy.

It's a crass comparison, but not unreasonable on both sides. Abuse goes beyond just physical violence, and the practices of these tech companies really do match those other kinds of abuse. The other half is that software has eaten the world, and these changes really do affect people's lives.

> but that analogy carries a lot of real-world weight that doesn't map cleanly to software decisions

It's imperfect. We have way more choices in domestic partners than we do with operating systems but I think there are a lot of similarities though too. User-hostile software like Windows is intentionally designed to develop dependence and learned helplessness in users. Windows will gaslight you. Microsoft will victim blame. Many shared tactics. It's a fair comparison to make.

One more similarity is how hard it seems to be to break up with an abusive partner: when I saw the "Windows anounces Recall - Linux increases its Steam market share by 25%" meme, I checked under https://www.gamingonlinux.com/steam-tracker/, and yes, in May 2024 it went up - from 1.9% to 2.32%. But in February 2025, it was back down to 1.45%. It has rebounded since, to 3.38% in January this year, but dropped to 2.23% in February. Not sure where these big fluctuations come from - maybe Linux gamers don't really play that often, so they only log on to Steam sporadically?!

saying victims of domestic violence should chose better is also victim blaming ma dude.

> saying victims of domestic violence should chose better is also victim blaming

You're the only one saying that, not me.

The rollback only ever applies to the thing people noticed. Everything else quietly becomes the new normal.

The pattern is pretty familiar at this point:

1. Ship something user-hostile 2. Wait for backlash 3. Roll it back partially 4. Get credit for "listening"

Also called the door-in-the-face method.