this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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As much as I don't want to give LTT credit, I think Linus has a point with Chromebooks. Google is playing the long game with them. Students almost exclusively use them these days, and anecdotally, most of them are getting chromebooks and the like for college now that they're getting to that age. That's at least been the case for almost every family member I've had that's started college in the last 5 years.
It's only going to continue as the average Chromebook legitimately is becoming more powerful, and Steam compatibility is improving. You're going to see a whole lot of people who see no need for a PC/mac.
Most people just need a phone.
In general life? Sure. Students? Absolutely not, at least not once you get to college. Sure you can get away with only using school computer labs, but trying to do homework without a computer is borderline impossible these days. Most online homework sites either outright don't work on mobile or are such a pain in the ass that they may as well not.
Some websites/apps just aren’t possible on mobile devices. Those people would need a capable screen. Like a tablet.
To be fair, in my uni only the programming courses depend on using computers for homeworks. Most are still (thankfully!) on paper.
I had basically the opposite experience. Probably 90% of my homework assignments required some sort of janky website to function.
For a while recently, I had my laptop not working properly so had to use just a phone before the needed part arrived. And after that, I refuse to believe someone could willingly and longterm live with just a phone as a primary device. No. This is actually frustrating.
Most people just have a phone.
Which is good in the short term and bad in the long term imo.
It's good because it gives Microsoft and Apple competition, so they'll be forced to adapt to these users who have found that they don't need the desktop app stuff. More services will move to the cloud (like Office), which means less vendor lockin for client devices.
In the longer term, it means more stuff is in the cloud, which means less individual control over their data. That means vendor lockin must shifts from client devices to services, but now you can't just use a compatibility layer like WINE if you want to switch. So we'll then play a cat and mouse game with regulations like the GDPR as companies innovate new ways to screw you over.
So yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about Chromebooks. I'm personally teaching my kids to use Linux (if they want to play games, they use my Linux machines), so hopefully there's enough people pushing against everything going to the cloud to maintain some amount of competition to keep them in check.
I think I generally agree with all that. One good side effect is I think this will be the push that gets Linux a bit more mainstream*. It's pretty easy to sideload Linux onto most Chromebooks, so I think a good chunk of kids that like tinkering with stuff are going to try it out, more so than the past. ChromeOS is a lot more restrictive than windows, so there's a bigger incentive to get around it.
Yeah, same. But then again, if Linux really did a push to appeal to the mainstream, it would probably lose what I like most and it. That's basically what ChromeOS is (bundling popular, proprietary nonsense), and I'm not a fan.