this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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As much as people love doom mongering about big-tech coming for your PC, I just dont see it. There's a temporary price spike in some components atm yes, but that will end when the AI bubble pops. Further than that I just dont see what people think is going to happen, outlawing linux? Banning the import of PC components? The amount of damage either of those would do to the economy is so huge It just wouldnt happen.
Age verification, id verification, mandatory DRM, only allow certified apps from official app stores, block systems not on the approved list from login onto sites, issues using school and government sites. Then payment processors get involved to refuse cash to those not following the program.
It's a slow squeeze instead of outright ban that leaves Big Tech boxes and Dark Web boxes.
None of those exist or, as far I am aware, are being proposed for computers though? Yes there are some restrictions being brought in to block access to some content on the web (DRM, ID and age gating) which are shit, but I've heard nothing about using any of that to block access to general computing.
Apple has always banned you from sideloading anything on an iPhone and now Google is following suit. Soon Google will make sidelong a giant pain in the ass and only available to "developers" with the reason being to scare normal people into thinking doing things how they are done now is "too dangerous" and that they need to nanny us and not give us full control of our devices.
Microsoft is still desperately trying to shove everyone onto their Microsoft store and their "universal" appx bullshit or whatever. Once enough people have been switched over, its game over for traditional executables.
For context the Microsoft Store came out in 2012 and was a big reason why Valve went all-in on Linux because they could see what Microsoft's long term goal was here from a mile away.
It's been 13 years of slow build up to this.
You are the frog in the slowly boiling pot.
I dont really consider Phones to be general purpose computing device because they have always been very locked down, yes google is making android worse but it has pretty much always been a walled garden with a rusty but technically open back door.
I think the fact that microsoft started trying 14 years ago to push people away from standard executables and still has not made significant inroads tells you all you need to know there. Window's fundamental value proposition is its backwards compatibility, Linux has no interest in locking things down even if it did it would be forked to a free version in hours. The only one where there might be a case there is on mac.