Agree. I recommended Stremio to a friend on an iPhone and it turns out it has to be "side loaded". My response is "so you can't install it?"

It's a great point. As a geek I used to think those details don't matter, but it turns out language shapes society and how humans think way more than I understood.

We need to catch up on this because the people who know how to use language for propagandizing don't have the best intentions in mind.

But using the original term is not enough. We need to combat their word-twisting by upping them. We need a way to convey "their way of installing stuff by default is inferior and an attack on liberty".

Something like:

- direct install: installing as we always did

- caged install: installing through a locked store.

Maybe somebody better at marketing can find a good way to do this. In fact, we should have a whole site and community to organize together and shift the narrative on all nerdy things: formats, open web, DRM, patents, etc.

We have been weak on these points for so long because we care much more about solving tech problems than selling them. But openness is being eaten away under our noses. Has been for years.

Yeah I listened to a podcast with Corey Doctorow (inventor of the term "enshittification") and he made this point quite well, to the point where I have completely removed "side loading" from my vocabulary. It's installing software on the computer I own.

In their defense, they clamped down following lobbying (and pressure) from Nintendo IIRC.

Part of me also thinks that Microsoft were so forward with offering what was basically a test kit because they were confident in their security.

This is what killed Linux support on PS as well, Sony was disappointed with what was being done with PS2Linux, instead of indie titles.

Hence why PS3 Other OS no longer did hardware acceleration.

I have my doubts. I suspect that Nvidia have made mistakes.

Anyway, situations like the one you describe are one to be solved by legislation requiring certain devices be sold as open devices that put power in the hands of the owner.

Well, and these systems are also designed with ratchet-type measures in place from the get-go, where holes are plugged, fuses are burned, and newly released titles will only decrypt/run on the latest OS.

So even if Switch 2 doesn't make it all the way to 2035 with zero cracks, there's a strong likelihood that any exploits found will be short-lived.

When you extrapolate out the political economy consequences of your hypothesis being correct the future looks very dark indeed. If you can make an unhackable game console it should be obvious to people on this site what sorts of dystopias you could also create.