I fear that it will have to get really bad before everybody agrees on this, and it might even be the case that people like me who worry about free software are wrong about our fears and everything will be fine... ultimately time will tell.
I fear that it will have to get really bad before everybody agrees on this, and it might even be the case that people like me who worry about free software are wrong about our fears and everything will be fine... ultimately time will tell.
What exactly are you worried about ?
I'm of mixed feelings about the situation, but tend to agree.
The biggest sign of hope that I see is that many programs use either open or simple enough standards that non-authorized/non-supported software can open it. However, this is always subject to change.
The companies that offered those services have the right to shut it down. It's not really a public utility that's funded by the people using it or tax payers or anything like that.
It's up to each individual to archive what is important for them. But a lot of what we publish online is across different devices and on different platforms. It's not as easy to manage all that data as it could be.
I do buy Kindle books now.
What is funny is that there are Kindle books on Amazon that you cannot read on your eInk Kindle!
For example, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forcing-London-Mathematical-Society... has as its format "Print Replica", which I like for math books as they are basically just high-quality PDFs. But you cannot download it to a Kindle Oasis, for example! Funnily, after you remove the DRM, it just becomes a PDF, and you CAN download it to the Kindle Oasis.
That's just ridiculous.
Because when the medium over which we write (the "paper") becomes a digital computer-based system it becomes possible for some actor other than myself to gain control over this extended portion of my self and my mind.
And while this has always been possible to lose control over one's writing (other actors may steal and/or modify them, etc..) with digital computer it becomes possible to remotely do this in better and more efficient ways (...etc)