I mean, imagine a future where every computer is just a chromebook, phones are no longer phones but just a “terminal” that streams the actual OS which runs in the cloud.
I mean, with 5G, I think its possible to make it seamless. And I think corporations push for this because they would love to have your data in the cloud, both for surveillance, and to charge a subscription for storage. I think this enshittifications would eventually happen to digital storage.
“You would own nothing and you’d be happy”
So how likely will this dystopian future happen?
I’d predict a 90% chance of this happening, and almost everyone would be okay at first, until they start overcharging for cloud storage subscriptions, but by then it’d be too late, there’d be a monopoly.
Yeah the mass of goo will probably embrace it for the convenience, and the resistant few will be demonized as likely terrorists and go underground. I can see a Republican US Congress passing an Online Freedom Act that bans private storage over the amount needed to run Windows or MacOS and blaming viruses on Linux and Mexicans.
Local storage will always be needed in business environments, either for security reasons (sensitive files that can’t go online), or technical (speed requirements or offline access).
Good point, I didn’t even consider business.
It’s why SD cards are still relevant. A professional photographer takes thousands of photos during a wedding and needs to process them in a computer. Cloud is not feasible or economical.