[dreamcompiler]

The utility of ChromeOS for me is that it enabled the creation of cheap Linux laptops. For $300 plus a 128GB A2-rated SD card, I can boot GalliumOS from the SD card and have a nicely functional Linux development machine with all my important stuff backed up to Dropbox and/or Github. If the laptop gets stolen I don't much care; I just buy another one and reinstall and I haven't lost any data. (I don't use Google's builtin Linux because it's too limited--you cannot boot it from an SD card.)

[oscargrouch]

This is why i think a OS like Chrome is designed exactly to be this sort of trap. A cloud computing trap, where we are perfectly ok with alienating our digital life/data to third-parties without understanding the depth of the problem we are getting into.

The ones who control our digital properties, can control the world (information is power, remember?). They might not, but they can, and also can aid third parties with shady intentions (see all the Facebook fiasco). By the way, we should have learned this lesson already.

Also, people often forget how groundbreaking was to have a compiler (GCC) directly embedded with the OS because you could mess with the source and compile it yourself. Its very liberating to have a platform where you can code and modify it.

So i think a future where the likes of Chrome OS took over the world, is pretty scary as we ended turning our powerful and liberating computers into a sort of "interactive TV".

As i understand it, they will try to make it very easy for us to buy into this platform utopia, the problem is, in my point of view, that in the long term this will lead to some sort of digital feudalism. Lets not forget we are "digitalizing" our lives day-by-day, til the day there are very few useful things we do in the physical world.

So in the future if Google for instance want to ban your account, this could have severe problems, as a side-effect of your digital ostracism. (access to capital, bank, employment, etc..)

[dreamcompiler]

I see your point with regard to ChromeOS, but my post made it clear that I was using Linux, not ChromeOS. My use of my Chromebook is not dependent on Google at all, except for the fact that Google made the hardware exist. I'm dependent on github and Dropbox but I trust both more than I trust Google, and I could easily switch them both to servers I manage.

[oscargrouch]

Just to make it clear that im not blaming you, just that your post reminded me of the exact trap things like ChromeOS are.

They are platforms that put Google strategic plans first and the user in the background.

If they teach (and phones are teaching this) that is ok/normal to have everything in the cloud and not stored locally, we are doomed in the long term if we dont fight this trend.

You are a tech-savy person that can use Gallium instead, but you are a minority and the normal person who bought a Chromium OS wont understand why you got into the trouble in the first place.

If we forget and ditch the culture that came with GNU/Linux, personal computers will be akins to TV's and big tech corps will have absolute control over our lives.

Anyway, your post just reminded me about this trend. Not saying that you are directly involved in it, just to make it clear, but is a possible scary outcome if this thing get out of control.