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18 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
18 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
2 years ago
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# Update Culture
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Update culture is a negative trend in [capitalism](capitalism.md) in which developers of a (typically [bloated](bloat.md)) program or similar product create frequent modifications called "updates" and force users to keep consuming these "updates", e.g. by deprecating or neglecting old versions, dropping [backwards compatibility](backwards_compatibility.md) (e.g. [Python](python.md)) or by downright forcing updates in code. This is typically manifested by a familiar message:
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*Your software is too old, please update to the newest version.*
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In software this process is a lot of times automatized and known as [autoupdates](autoupdate.md), but update culture encompasses more than this, it's the whole mentality of having to constantly update one's software, hardware and other products. It is similar to [consumerism](consumerism.md) but more about constant modifications masked as "cool updates" rather than replacement of physical products.
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A typical example are [web browsers](browser.md) or proprietary [operating systems](operating_system.md) that strive for [bloat monopoly](bloat_monopoly.md).
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The updates are usually justified by "muh [security](security.md)" and "muh [modern](modern.md) [features](feature.md)". Users who want to avoid these updates or simply can't install them, e.g. due to using old incompatible hardware or missing dependency packages, are ridiculed as *poorfags*, idiots and their suffering is ignored. In fact, update culture is [cancer](cancer.md) because:
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- **It is a huge security risk**. The developer, whoever it is, has the power to remotely push and execute any code at any time to the devices of many users. In fact this can be seen as the definition of [backdoor](backdoor.md). This is not just an issue of [proprietary](proprietary.md) software, there have been many [FOSS](foss.md) projects pushing [malware](malware.md) this way (look up e.g. the projects that targeted malware at Russians during the Russia-Ukraine war).
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- **It kills freedom**. E.g. with the example of web the constant meaningless updates of JavaScript and addition of "features" eliminates any small competition that can't afford to keep up with the constantly changing environment. **This is why we have no good web browsers**.
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- **It is a form of software [consumerism](consumerism.md)**, even if the updates themselves are gratis, they always come at a cost such as potential unstability, requiring new hardware, forcing installing more dependencies, required learning to use the new version, or even dropping of old features and malicious code in the updates.
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- **It is dangerous**, updates regularly break things, and there are cases where a lot depends on software running smoothly.
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- **The [security](security.md) justifications are lies**: a true concern for security would lead to unbloating and creating a minimal, stable and well tested software. Update culture in fact constantly pushes newly created vulnerabilities with the updates which are only better in not having been discovered yet, i.e. relying on **security by obscurity**. This creates an intentionally **endless cycle of creating something that will never be finished** (even if it well could be).
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- It is [bullshit](bullshit.md) effort, **wasting human work and creating an intentionally high [maintenance](maintenance.md) cost**. Humans, both users and programmers, become slaves to the software.their
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