[fouronnes3]

It might be time to accept that the general public does not need "general-purpose computers". We're at a fork in the road, and both paradigms of computing are here to stay. It's up to us to make sure our branch of the fork is great at what it does, not fight the one that's backed by the giants. It's not all grim, there are some wins for consumers, not the least of which is security and user friendlyness.

[thomasahle]

There is strength in numbers. If most people stop using general purpose computers, those will stop being available except for people with special licenses. When arguments are made about general purpose computing being dangerous, the argument that a tiny minority of nerds like them won't win much support.

[cft]

They will be available from China. China is less monopolized economically than the West, especially in hardware manufacturing.

[api]

The general public doesn't understand the difference, but what they do understand is that an unmanaged open computer gets malware while a locked-down machine is much less likely to. This translates to: locked-down machines are more reliable and thus better.

We have to make general purpose computers secure or they die out except for servers and hobbyists.

[floatingatoll]

Every time we try, communities such as HN share around ways to disable the security features for their own simple convenience or preference. Thus, a correction:

We have to make GP computer users accept the inconvenience of security, or GP computers will die out.

I don’t think that’s a viable plan.

I’ve seen countless HN and HN-alike folks talk about how they hold the root ssh keys to their kingdoms on a Mac that they’ve disabled SIP on, simply because it inconvenienced them one time (and not for genuine technological necessity).

If you can think of a way to change our collective minds, you have my support, but I’ve tried everything I know and essentially given up talking about such things on HN anymore. Everyone who understands is already doing the right things; everyone that isn’t talks as loudly as possible about their way of doing it, and swarm to shut down any suggestion that they should burden themselves with security.

Good luck.

[isodev]

Indeed, it is not all bad at all. Ecosystems are so well integrated that as a consumer it really makes sense to just pick one and try to stay within the realm of what works out of the box. While advanced users are able to "mix and match" and get deeper into how certain tools work or how to replace them, that's not a task for the usual consumer.

[BiteCode_dev]

No but society does.

[ASalazarMX]

The future might be going towards affordable jailed devices to the general public, and expensive general-purpose devices for specialists. Definitely most people just want consumption devices.

[BiteCode_dev]

Want != need.

There are many people that wants child rapists to get death penalty, a lot of people liked Bush, Trump or Putin, or believe some guy living 2000 years ago did wonderful things against the laws of physics. They are not really thinking about the consequences on society, they don't know how a computer work and what is going to happen if behemoths get in control of their entire life, which is well on its way.

Because a computer is not your regular run off the mill appliance. It drives the way people communicate, think, consume, are informed and monitored.

[hulitu]

Whatever your smoking... There is no security where all your data goes to google or microsoft.