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Google fucked a whole generation with Chromebooks, and now they're fucking the next generation with AI
(slrpnk.net)
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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Enshittification
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What is enshittification?
The phenomenon of online platforms gradually degrading the quality of their services, often by promoting advertisements and sponsored content, in order to increase profits. (Cory Doctorow, 2022, extracted from Wikitionary) source
The lifecycle of Big Internet
We discuss how predatory big tech platforms live and die by luring people in and then decaying for profit.
Embrace, extend and extinguish
We also discuss how naturally open technologies like the Fediverse can be susceptible to corporate takeovers, rugpulls and subsequent enshittification.
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This is kinda a bad take imo. I don’t think it’s chrome books that has ruined tech literacy. Maybe it’s younger exposure to even more addictive social media than previous generations?
I’m pretty young. My first mobile device was an iPod touch 4th gen. I figured out how to jailbreak it and I was like 12 at the time. If I ever felt one of these walled garden devices was holding me back, I enjoyed finding a creative solution around that. Since that iPod touch, I jailbroke my Wii and recently a kindle. I also modded a gameboy, but that was different than jailbreaking.
Not to mention that Chromebooks are Linux (so can be modded for basically anything), but these days have official native support for sideloading any Linux distro you please. All it takes is a flashed USB drive and one button click, then you're totally unrestricted and out of ChromeOS.
If any kid wanted to, they could do that far easier than I could when I was in school. If they become adults, buy a Chromebook, and choose to do nothing with it other than watch YouTube, then it has absolutely nothing to do with the technology that was provided to them during school.
I thought you had to remove a write protect screw and flash a custom firmware.
Have they stopped that now?