>> How could you possibly interpret this new world of digital sharecropping ("cloud computing") as empowering?
Because it lets people - such as my older relatives - who wouldn't use a desktop and would have problems setting up and configuring one - especially for an "advanced" use case such as setting up your own private cloud.
As a computer instructor back home in west Africa, before smartphones I had students (especially older ones) who struggled with even using a mouse or keyboard. I've never had to teach a single one of them how to use their smartphone (at least for things like browsing the internet, taking and editing photos, making notes, etc). Providing things like photo editing on-device, without having to download and figure out a program like photoshop (or image magic for example) is a non-starter. Now they can edit, filter, share, make home movies- all without needing any help.
>> Where is the passion for 'personal computing' when nearly everything personal about it is delegated to the cloud?
I don't know what you mean by passion, but these people love their phones and the things it lets them do, with an intuitive UI (as well as a transferable one between Android and iOS, since they're about the same feature wise at the moment)
>> Personal computing is a box under your desk or in your pocket beefy and smart enough to solve your problems
This is ONE version of personal computing, and tbh an option only available to us "hackers".
>> without checking in with daddy warbucks and the mothership.
You don't need to check in. My country has crappy bandwidth and of course it's impossible to do things like pay for iCloud or gdrive without credit cards, so most use the phone without backups, and they're fine.
>> Nearly everything about modern cloud computing is the opposite... it disempowers individuals and creates an unhealthy relationship with things that are out of the users control.
How is allowing my students, older relatives, etc - who wouldn't be able to use a laptop or desktop machine - to go online and talk to their children abroad using apps like whatsapp - disempowering? I understand your point - I miss the days when we had computers to mess around with and learn Linux and coding on. Most of us on here came up that way, compared to kids now who don't have to see the underlying OS or tinker with it - they can just play Fortnite and watch YouTube.
But most people aren't interested in these things, or even care about machine models, OS versions etc. They buy phones because they want to communicate online and talk to their friends and family. That's it.
Before whatsapp the only way I could talk to my family was through international calls, which are prohibitively expensive, so they would happen about once a month. Once they got on whatsapp though we moved to being able to talk, share videos and pics of things happening at home, every single day. In addition a large part of getting rid of our dictator was people being able to use apps like whatsapp to share the latest information, even as he cracked down and only allowed propaganda to be published even in private newspapers.
This is a net positive however you look at it - it has brought far more people (especially in poorer countries) into the digital age. I find that very empowering in the sense of putting tools in the hands of more people, including barely literate ones (my country has something like a 40% illiteracy level rate) who use things like whatsapp voice notes to communicate.
>> How many peoples' livelihoods have been messed up because FANG decided to lock them out for some reason or another?
This is true but not really related to your larger point about computing devices and how they are being used now.
>> The server in my closet or at my datacenter isn't going to lock me out because I pissed off Google.
This really doesn't happen that much often considering we're talking billions of users.
We are on a "hacker" site where most people are skilled "tech people" so of course when things break for them they write blog posts and comments and we get to see and argue over those. Most people using these devices don't know or care about any of this, and have gmail accounts going back a decade that they've used without any issues.
In summary your version of computing (which is similar to mine) just isn't the universal version. I always find joy whenever I go back home and find taxi drivers using their phones to play music, people using YouTube to check instructional videos and post their own etc. When my grandmother died my uncle gathered all the photos, videos, etc that we have of her as a family on whatsapp, and made a nice video tribute of her life to share with us. Gathering the photos and videos took longer than making the movie itself, which was a few taps, and it was a very powerful moment emotionally esp for us family members outside the country. We were able to participate in remembering her life together in a way that international phone calls and a complex (to my uncle) photo editing app on a PC under a desk would ever have let us.
I find this very empowering, and it makes me happy how far we've come and how many more people we have brought across the digital divide. Let's not be myopic because those of us on here have the technical knowledge to disdain and even dump these platforms.
And keep in mind that American / Western users' use cases are very different from the farmer who can only afford a cheap android phone, being able to come online finally to check on crop prices so they won't get cheated, send pictures of their crops to prospective buyers, and even do things like checking the weather.