Wow this is dark. I wish I could say you're wrong. But some version of this is where we seem to be headed. The scariest thing is how many people are not just indifferent to their gradual technological and political indenture but welcome it with open arms. On the tech side, I'm baffled every time I see people at work get excited about some new software feature that is obviously designed to lock them in and control them even more, sold on the most transparently bogus promises of some marginal benefit. No suspicion, no resistance.

Those applications may work for some, but they are no replacements for Lightroom in my opinion. My Lightroom 4 installation from 2012 (I never upgraded after Adobe went all in on subscriptions and cloud) still beats the latest Darktable/Ansel versions, hands down. The only things I'm missing are a CLI for automation and a few features that RawTherapee has, like switching to a view of one color channel with a single key. Other than that, Adobe somehow got it incredibly right in terms of workflow and features back then. Using the software feels like it was made for photographers, rather than software enthusiasts.

Still, I'm in the same boat as many who wish they could migrate their decades' worth of photos with all their adjustments to a FOSS alternative. For me too, Lightroom is the last application that keeps me from dumping Windows for good. It already lives in a Windows VM on a Linux host these days.

I have found most interviews to be such undignified and humiliating theater already that this will barely make a difference. That said, if my experiences with regular interviews had been better, an AI interviewer may well be a reason to walk away.

I hope tons of web developers see this project and take note. How much more enjoyable could the web be if it moved in this direction, cutting out the bloat in favor of dense, useful content.

I also find the whole site a trove of well-researched information and well-argued points of view on sustainability. Truly refreshing to find something that does the math instead of regurgitating the latest hype and buzzwords.

One thing I come away with, and have realized more and more lately, is just how much we are getting in our own way and preventing ourselves from getting on a sustainable path, continuously chasing "innovation" when so much of the technology we'd need has been around for a long time. I'm not too optimistic we can break our growth addiction before things get (much more) ugly.