I set up a new computer, and it was one of the most aggravating little experiences I鈥檝e had and emblematic of a greater overreach from our technological overlords.
It鈥檚 not because I鈥檓 not tech-savvy. I built my own personal rig that I use at home. No, this is all software, and the insidious ways tech companies have taken away things like ownership from us.
It all started because I needed to replace my laptop since my current one dies too quickly when unplugged. I found a fairly cheap one online, but with a good battery life, because I like to write when I travel anywhere.
I ordered it, waited a couple of weeks, and yesterday I opened it up to make sure it was running before taking it to work.
Short, painless process, I figured. Install a couple of updates, skip past all the usual offers, then transfer over some programs and away I go.
I didn't even get to the offers; instead, I was greeted with a screen that forced me to either create or log in to a Microsoft account before I could do anything.
See, this is a mundane, little thing that I definitely got too worked up over, but I found this incredibly aggravating because it didn't even give me the option of setting up or logging in later.
This physical product, which I paid my hard-earned money for, was sitting there taunting me. I couldn't remember my password to my last Microsoft account, of course, and I couldn't make a new one since my email had already been used.
I spent an hour trying to get in, only to run out of confirmation codes because at some point, two-factor security was activated, and it wouldn't let me use my email twice.
I could have avoided it if I wanted to, I suppose. I could have taken it and erased the hard drive to install Linux instead.
But this was supposed to be quick and easy, like it was when I bought my previous laptop. Just a few years ago, you could buy a computer, not just a laptop, boot it up and bam! It鈥檚 yours and running fine.
You didn鈥檛 have to make an account. You didn鈥檛 need to give them an email address. You just turned it on, made a username (if that) and away you went.
More importantly, what happens if I somehow trip one of Microsoft's many different terms? Will I find my laptop a glorified paper-weight, will all my files be locked away?
That's not hyperbole; Google has already done this. People who have used Docs for years of writing have found their works abruptly deleted and made inaccessible because Google deemed them 鈥渋nappropriate鈥�.
Why should this even be something in the realm of possibility? What gives these companies the right to decide what we can do? It's the terms and conditions we all sign, they say, as though that absolves them of their decision-making and prying.
The police can鈥檛 search your home without a warrant, can鈥檛 pull your car over without reasonable grounds, can鈥檛 even do much as look in your mail with a judge鈥檚 approval based on evidence and submissions.
Yet these companies have decided that we own nothing, and even our own private thoughts can be monitored and thrown away if they aren't approved.
Next time, I'm skipping straight to installing Linux. At least that has open source systems that don't belong to a massive corporation.
Brennan Phillips is a journalist with the Penticton Western News at Black Press.
