well, it's the end of an era.

probably switching to xfce4 forever.

since my ryzen amd workstation died in august last year, i have been scraping by on an old second generation i5 processor with 8 GB of RAM.

the hardware on this workstation was first released in 2011. its end of life with intel was 2019. i am pretty sure i got it by going out of my way at the council waste processing centre, and asking about it.

after noticing how much faster xfce4 was than MATE on my similarly old and underpowered TV media PC, i am making the switch for good.

getting better hardware will not be an option for some time. i may have to wait until a special opportunity presents itself.

having to use nothing but e-waste to do all this complex and technical work is painful. the waiting, the constant locking up, only being able to use--realisitically--one "modern" bloated program at a time...

i wonder--is anyone else having this experience? how are you meant to do anything on the internet now, with any significant mass social attention, with any money?

the hard problem is the web, and everyone here i know, knows this. no-one here is sitting around on their arse merely complaining about the modern web.

this does not make the problem any less excruciating or unimportant. too many people are doing every little computing task on their phone. when i heard about major tiktok influencers doing the bulk of their video work on their phone, i think a part of me died.

sometimes i try and make myself feel better by thinking about whether i still have a good definition of the problem:

• the modern web is currently controlled by a small number of powerful and wealthy capitalist firms.
• virtually everyone accessing the internet uses the web and phone apps these firms own.
• the web is being used as a tool for a mere single purpose. economic profit.

possible conclusions:

• create an alternative method for accessing the information, and performing the tasks people do on the internet
  • free software web browser
  • alternative web apps for major platforms