> I read the article but didn't see exactly what has been lost.
TFA contains this: "The graphical display is the servant of information, not the master of it." and "the computer being a tool we use to better our lives".
I think what has been lost is that instead of a slave (not my terminology, it's the one in TFA btw) at your service, the computer has become a master and you're the slave. At the mercy of a few gigantic corps and states spying your every move and turning you into a consumer, instead of a producer.
It's made painfully obvious with the ultimate consumption device: the smartphone. Which are mostly used to consume pointless, debilitating, content and not to produce anything of value.
The computer as a tool still exists though: architects, 3D artists, accountants even (yup, they're needed), engineers, music creators... These professionals use actual computers, typically with gigantic screens, as a tool to help them.
It used to be only that way, for everybody, and that's what's been lost. The masses are mindlessly consuming content of exactly zero value on what they believe is a computer ("My smartphone is a more powerful computer than the computer of the 70s/80/s/90s!").
That's how I interpret it and I take I'm not very far from what TFA means.
I think what has been lost is that instead of a slave (not my terminology, it's the one in TFA btw)
Actually, it is your terminology! I used the word 'servant' not 'slave'.
It was a deliberate choice. My commentary was more about how our visual presentation now takes centre stage, often at the expense of displaying information clearly or usefully. This is a mindset shift and not really a technical issue. So master/slave didn't fit, as that has more precise technical definitions; database replication, disk arrangements, etc.
There's nothing quite as fast as keyboard navigating a text input screen, tab key going from field to field. Learning the order that the tab key takes you through the screen. Pure muscle memory, flow from entering information. Web pages have different navigation paths, or none at all, for each web page. That's one big thing that's lost.
> It used to be only that way, for everybody, and that's what's been lost. The masses are mindlessly consuming content of exactly zero value on what they believe is a computer ("My smartphone is a more powerful computer than the computer of the 70s/80/s/90s!").
I don't think this has been lost. I think there are more people than ever using computers as tools. But there are also people using computers as consumption device. And also people using computers as appliances (for example a smartphone through a very specific app, or my instant pot). At home I use my computer to code (can be seen either as tool if I'm doing something "useful", or as a hobby/practice), to watch movies (as a consumption devices), to organize my movie collection (kind of between tool and consumption device).
>I think what has been lost is that instead of a slave (not my terminology, it's the one in TFA btw) at your service, the computer has become a master and you're the slave.
The gig economy apps like Uber and Doordash always seemed so dystopian to me because effectively your boss is an app.
I think it's the height of arrogance to declare much of anything about "the masses". You don't know other people's lives, so stop judging them. xkcd managed to be perfectly relevant here years ago: https://xkcd.com/610/
I work from home now, enabled entirely by computers. I'm not in an office, no one watches my day to day activities, work gets done and that's the evaluation. By every possible metric, modern computing has set the rest of my life free.
The older I get, the more often I have the opposite thought of that XKCD. I look around and see so many different stories, each with their own main character.
TFA contains this: "The graphical display is the servant of information, not the master of it." and "the computer being a tool we use to better our lives".
I think what has been lost is that instead of a slave (not my terminology, it's the one in TFA btw) at your service, the computer has become a master and you're the slave. At the mercy of a few gigantic corps and states spying your every move and turning you into a consumer, instead of a producer.
It's made painfully obvious with the ultimate consumption device: the smartphone. Which are mostly used to consume pointless, debilitating, content and not to produce anything of value.
The computer as a tool still exists though: architects, 3D artists, accountants even (yup, they're needed), engineers, music creators... These professionals use actual computers, typically with gigantic screens, as a tool to help them.
It used to be only that way, for everybody, and that's what's been lost. The masses are mindlessly consuming content of exactly zero value on what they believe is a computer ("My smartphone is a more powerful computer than the computer of the 70s/80/s/90s!").
That's how I interpret it and I take I'm not very far from what TFA means.