[Dalewyn]

>computer stuff I believe has lost the allure that it once had,

You're quite right, but your subsequent argument can be summed up much more simply: Computing became mainstream.

Mainstream things aren't fun. Mainstream things are mundane.

>Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and others are the result of a late-stage technological development fuelled only by greed,

Besides Google and contemporaries like Amazon, those companies like Microsoft and IBM are the companies who led the way during the Computing == Hacker age that you feel nostalgia for.

Obviously companies can and will change over time, but to mindlessly hand wave them away as "greed" is the epitome of rose-colored glasses.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Mainstream things aren't fun. Mainstream things are mundane.

Mainstream things are mundane in the way that McDonalds is mundane and yet food as a whole is not.

The real problem is that users have been locked out of their own devices and data to such an extent that you can't easily make your own and share it with your friends, and people are disenchanted with years of eating nothing but Big Macs.

[vouaobrasil]

You are right in some ways, but I think the situation is a bit more complex than mainstream. Some things do go mainstream, such as protein shakes (at one point, whey was simply discarded), but they don't necessarily lose their enjoyment factor. The point I was trying to make is that not only did computers go mainstream, but they also have certain attributes that make them especially exploitable under the current capitalistic system.