While surfing the web, did you perhaps, just by chance, come across popup messages and notifications? Doesn’t it seem like there’s more of those with every passing year? Have you been assaulted by updated “terms and conditions” statements from the plethora of services you use?
Notifications about cookies abound. The GDPR “spam” is wreaking havoc. At least in the EU, surfing is becoming increasingly annoying. The first access on almost any given site leads to at least two popups, and perhaps a third one about allowing the site to give notifications, or a fourth about social media interactions, or a fifth about sharing location… the list goes on and on.
Wait, wasn’t all this meant to protect our privacy? I don’t think so anymore. Privacy could have been protected without a gazillion notifications. The respect for privacy should have been implied, not asked for. Looking at how the attack of legal notices is orchestrated on almost every website we visit, it’s obvious that the objective is to abuse the user, overwhelm the brain and basically just herd everybody into a “click-ok-to-give-up-your-rights” mentality.
The EULA (End User License Agreement) is the oldest form of legalese attack. In recent times, companies were forced to simplify it, but the old reflexes of “accept whatever” are still there:
But then came social networks and cookie spying, which caused a deluge of notifications popping up everywhere, up to the point where governmental bodies (ahem, the same ones that asked for this) are trying to find way to de-clog the browsing experience:
Nor can we forget “social networking beggars” (those websites that ask us to follow, subscribe, allow notifications or whatever else they can do to be a part of our lives):
Last but not least, how about the mobile versions of websites forcing users to use their native apps? Yes, this has extremely much to do with privacy, as this answer points out: “An app has more potential access to your phone and hardware than a website. Access to your contacts, alarms, camera, and maybe most importantly for social media platforms, notifications. Notifications to have you coming back for more and more.”
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Finally, thanks to the CLOUD act^ passed earlier this year, American companies have the right to spy for the government of the USA on pretty much anybody that uses American products. The act also indirectly opens the door for other governments that enjoy snooping in their citizens’ private lives. And guess what, major tech companies had no problem turning their back on their customers because (surprise!) the act will save them loads of cash:
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Of course, this is all done with ethics and responsibility at the forefront, in the glorious battle against organized crime. Even if I wasn’t sarcastic, this is, after all, yet another weapon in the USA’s cyberwarfare arsenal^. And the walls protecting our private lives have already started to fall^.
That’s one small step for a nation-state, one giant leap backwards for mankind.
Here’s what the Electronic Frontiers Foundation had to say:
“Because of this failure, U.S. and foreign police will have new mechanisms to seize data across the globe. Because of this failure, your private emails, your online chats, your Facebook, Google, Flickr photos, your Snapchat videos, your private lives online, your moments shared digitally between only those you trust, will be open to foreign law enforcement without a warrant and with few restrictions on using and sharing your information. Because of this failure, U.S. laws will be bypassed on U.S. soil.”
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Once upon a time, governments were major stakeholders in most large-scale technological and scientific ventures. Such projects were either built directly by the government, or by companies in which the people had a lot of say. But all that is far behind us. Now-a-days, government isn’t exactly “the people” anymore. And now, it’s corporations who build the telecommunication infrastructure for tomorrow:
I find it rather sad that as I’m typing this, I am pondering which is worse: having my digital life in the hands of corporations that will exploit it however they see fit, or (/and?) allowing governments to keep encroaching on our privacy and freedom? It’s becoming harder to distinguish between the two, especially as corporations have proven time and again that they can easily buy government.
It’s enough to look at how the political freak-show in the USA (not even a full year into its tragic, 4-years lifespan), is already spreading its tentacles across our civilization like a plagued octopus. The monstrosity is currently busy destroying what was left of “the land of the free”. Here’s how the American FCC (Federal Communications Commission) plans to eliminate the Net Neutrality^ laws that the Obama administration painstakingly managed to get through:
They call it “Restoring Internet Freedom”, and as the article above points out, the name is laughable. But then again, given the state of education worldwide (which leads to generalized compliance), governments can go on with passing draconian laws using these disgusting euphemisms.
Here are some even better law names that I’m putting forward so that governments can use in the coming decades:
“Labor Market Liberation” – a law to eliminate those pesky minimum wages.
“Nutritional Defense Initiative” – outlaws all ecological products, so that there can be no competition to industrialized, dangerous food.
“Empowering Citizen Security” – a law that allows citizens to spy on each other for as long as they report to a central authority. I bet they’re going to call that central authority the Situational Technical Assistance for Solidarity Initiative (STASI).
I can come up with more, but I think I made my point.
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Throughout the past years there have been several high-profile occasions when apps were in the news for questionable tracking strategies. Even applications that do not use novel means of compromising our privacy are gobbling up increasing amounts of data while their creators cash in on the profits obtained from selling the user’s digital life^ to the highest bidder. At the receiving end of this deluge of spyware are we, the people.
Even for those of us that do read the list of permissions an app requests upon installation, it is hard to avoid installing certain apps because they come with other features that we need. It’s an old trick that is akin to the Trojan horse. This is how these dubious app creators get in our back yard: by offering something that is 90% useful and 10% spyware, but which must be accepted as a whole.
Devious solutions for the same old need
Smartphone espionage has gotten very clever as of late. Check these two^stories^ about ultrasonic tracking. According to one research, hundreds of Android apps with an install base in the millions include a library that is used for this purpose. The way this works is by listening to ultrasonic audio “beacons” implanted in advertisements. Humans can’t normally hear sound in this range, but smartphones’ microphones can.
When a user has one such application running and an advertisement that includes an ultrasonic marker plays on TV or anywhere around the user (for example radio or an ultrasound-emitting advertisement panel in a shopping mall), the app can make an association between the user and the played content. This can be used for simple tasks such as sending a unique ID back to a service which then sends a shop’s deals to a user, but it can just as well include a lot of other information about the device and its owner.
Some of the things this system can achieve are rather worrying. For example, it can be used for determining a user’s (approximate) location even if the GPS is turned off or out of range. This can be done by having a particular advertisement panel emit a unique ultrasound beacon. This can later be used to determine when the user is in its proximity. The system can also be used to track a user’s TV-watching habits without consent. Some of these uses are legitimate though, like pushing advertisement and coupons to somebody that has given their consent for using this “feature”. A few such apps disclose the tracking prominently. But this is usually not the case.
More recently, the Uber app was found to be capable to record portions of the iPhone screen^. The company defended itself saying that this was done in order to send images with maps to the iWatch (using the iPhone to render the map because the iWatch lacked the required performance). There’s a gazillion ways this can go wrong not if but when hackers manage to leverage this capability in order to steal passwords and other sensitive information. The feature was reportedly removed but it still shows exactly what the smartphone really is. And there’s no way to sugar coat this…
The smartphone is a surveillance device
Economically, it is used by corporations to mine data^ out of people and use it to manipulate them into buying products. The smartphone grew into a fascinating tool for mass surveillance because it comes with a bunch of features that users really want. I mean, it’s really nice to have a browser and a video camera available at all times, right? Except that all these “free” apps are just a gateway for companies that are tracking users ever since advertisers figured how to use our digital lives against us and our vulnerable minds.
Currently, the goal most of these companies have is to get us online for as much time as possible. As for the camera and the other (many) sensors inside a phone, we might end up not being the only ones controlling them. There are innumerable cases of this technology being used with criminal intent. There’s only need for one backdoor to take control of our devices and that backdoor’s existence is ensured by the producers of these devices.
Governments will of course not oppose this (they’ll even encourage it^) because the greatest concern of a government is to maintain its appearance as a legitimate organization. Investigative journalists^ and whistle-blowers^ have greatly damaged governments^ and corporations as of late. By increasing surveillance capabilities under various pretexts, governments and corporations hope to prevent the next public relations scandal. I’m not even blaming them; they’re just trying to survive^. But people who realize they’ve been sold behind closed doors won’t remain the loyal followers that these entities need in order to justify their existence.
To make things easier for themselves, governments will make sure they also have access^ to whatever technologies are deployed on these devices. One problem, however, is that the citizens of one country may use devices produced in another country. What is the percentage of electronics we manufacture in Asia? And then there’s this thing about hardware backdoors^.
Innocent bystanders
A few days ago I was waiting in line for an old lady that wanted to change the battery of her phone. It was a keypad phone of the kind considered modern 15 years ago. The image of her sitting there in front of the cashier will stay with me for a long time because, in an instant, my mind ran through the entire planned obsolescence racket^ and understood the inevitable verdict that will be given by the system this woman fell prey to.
In the past years I’ve become increasingly aware of the hideousness of hyper-consumerism^. But this situation has put a face on it. Of course, the shop couldn’t help her. The only option for the old lady was to switch to some other phone, most probably with a non-replaceable battery, so she can be forced to change it every few years. Not to mention she must adapt to new software every time it happens and probably be at the receiving end of automatic updates that will change features in her phone, which is exactly what an old lady wants from her device (not!).
With corporations making money from data and with governments drooling over the private lives of its citizens, it’s no wonder that phones with replaceable batteries have disappeared off the market (using “water resistance” as a cheap excuse). Yes, there is a likely connection between forcing people to upgrade their phones and the need to make sure that those people voluntarily carry around the latest and greatest in spying technology in their pocket. Hey, some people will even queue for days and pay outrageous amounts for these things.
Reasons & solutions
But why is it like this? The answer is terrible in its cruel simplicity. These are the rules of the Human Game^ at this point in time. What’s terrible is that even though we are directly responsible for creating and tolerating these rules, we also face an extremely powerful opposition to change them. The machine has grown into a huge, lumbering beast whose behavior harks back to our most ancient instincts, such as the imperious need to survive. Corporations need to earn money. They exist for this purpose and this purposealone. So it is no wonder they buy governments and do whatever it takes in order to survive in the jungle of a (stock) market^ that is the very heart of the machine.
Can this all change? Of course it can. And the solution is wonderful in its beautiful simplicity. We just need to change the criteria with which we purchase goods and services and with which we vote. It’s as simple as that. We need to change the rules of the Human Game. Stock market processes can be changed to encourage responsible and long-term investment. Governments can be encouraged to invest into research and education. Corporations will have no alternative but to transform themselves into entities that value the environment and respect their customers. Because otherwise, nobody will purchase what they’re peddling. There’s only need for one commercial entity in every field to prove that this works. This will generate a mass extinction of the old business model. And it’s us, the consumers, who can trigger and sustain this.
The very reason I write these words is because I strongly believe in this change. And what’s beautiful is that the change doesn’t even need to be sudden (and therefore potentially violent). Actually, it can’t be sudden because this modification in people’s mentality will not occur overnight. It will take time until more of us are ready to champion this cause and for it to spread. But it will happen. Of that, I am sure. I just wish that it will happen before another disaster strikes our civilization.
A lovely (even if sad) wordplay
In closing, here are a few other factoids from the war against privacy (I noticed that ZDNet has a pretty good section about all this):
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Machine Learning is all the rage these days. Be it computer vision, speech recognition, pattern matching or high-speed decisional capabilities, this century is the century of software. Like all technological revolutions, there’s potential for miracles and catastrophes.
Large corporations have started to realize^ that Machine Learning is a way to prevent smaller competitors^ from threatening them. This is because small companies can’t (yet) afford the huge infrastructure and Big Data investments that ML requires. It’s not surprising then that Microsoft, Google, FaceBook and others have open-sourced ML platforms, trying to attract developers and smaller companies to their ecosystems.
This post will touch on but a few of the changes we can expect in the coming decades thanks to the upcoming advances in Machine Learning. Looking at our history, we can see how the industrial revolution has supercharged our progress as a species. I believe that the Machine Learning revolution will make the industrial revolution seem like a snail in slow motion. This is both hopeful and scary.
The purpose of any post in the Futurology^ category is to launch a wild, boundless speculation regarding what the future holds regarding a certain concept. To get things going, here are some of the things I imagine can be accomplished in the near future (coming decades) by Machine Learning. Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments below. With your approval I may integrate these in the article, giving proper credit.
Speech recognition is already quite advanced. In the coming decade, most day-to-day electronic devices will understand what humans speak. Additionally, these devices will form an interconnected sensorial mesh via the Internet of Things. Privacy will obviously be a major concern.
Without any prior technical knowledge, people will soon be able to talk to the robots that are about to enter our daily lives, both indoors^ and outdoors^. Countless jobs will be transformed or outright eliminated. Companies will jump at the opportunity of cutting costs. While some of this will have beneficial effects on some (company stakeholders for example), society might be negatively impacted as there will be plenty of those that cannot find a new job in a world that is increasingly robotized. Hopefully at least a part of the next generation of superrich few will empathize with the disadvantaged many.
Advanced algorithms are already able to take better (and much faster) decisions than humans in some fields (for example management of traffic, energy and bandwidth). This capability will expand to more and more areas. This development should not be confused with True Artificial Intelligence^, but will still mean that yet more jobs will be given to automated systems. Here’s for example how Google used machine learning to save a massive 15%^ in data center costs.
Companies that own data infrastructure will become dangerously powerful. Just look at how FaceBook allowed^ Russia to interfere^ in one of the most influential electoral contests in the world. Given the narrow difference between the candidates, it is quite possible that Russia’s influence (of which only a small part will ever be uncovered) will have been a decisive factor.
Governmental oversight could prevent a lack of balance in society, but strong lobbying from powerful corporations will continue to corrupt the purpose of government (in most countries, our representatives have long ceased representing us, if they even ever did).
The influence of ML throughout the economy means that society will have to find ways to protect those that are at risk of being crushed under the weight of the coming changes. In a way reminiscent of the industrial revolution, entire job sectors will become obsolete overnight, except that this time around the changes will come even faster and affect more people. Fortunately, we are also wiser and richer than a century ago so we are well positioned to find constructive solutions.
We may enter a period where creatives (artists) will again be in high demand. At least until True A.I. is upon us, machines still can’t create art. No matter how advanced an algorithm may be, the art it creates will still be a soulless mixture of unoriginal and random.
We run the risk of falling under total surveillance, aka Super Big Brother. This is much worse than what George Orwell could have even imagined when he wrote his 1984 novel. Super Big Brother doesn’t need humans to listen-in to conversations. It simply records everything (this is already being done, as the Snowden leaks proved). Then, somebody (like an oppressive authority that seeks to exterminate dissent) asks it to find certain information in text, audio or video recordings. If we now think that we have little privacy left, Super Big Brother will make things exponentially worse. Update 2018-04-30: check how China is using facial recognition in Guiyang^.
However, all is not so bleak. If good people act, there is another invention that will shackle Super Big Brother. That invention is open surveillance. All systems used for surveillance shall be based on open source software. All people being surveilled will be able to access their information and know why it was recorded (you were in a public space, you were suspected of a crime, etc.).
Government will put privacy back in the hands of the people. Because government has to be the people. And because lies and secrets never truly saved the world (although perhaps they helped in postponing major conflicts without, however, fixing the underlying problems). It will be openness and communication that will be proven to be the only way forward if we are to survive.
The Futurology Disclaimer: I do not claim that my ideas are original. I’m sure these suggestions are just scratching the surface of what can be achieved, but hopefully they’ve scratched enough to get somebody inspired to come up with more. I’m also sure many of these ideas are already being worked on by several organizations. If any of the ideas listed by anybody on this page are original and will benefit any organization, I expect credit to be given where it’s due.
Version history:
2017-11-23 – 1.0 – Written.
2018-04-30 – 1.1 – Added link about Guiyang use of facial recognition.
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During its first participation at the International Big Data Conference, the National Security Agency made a surprise announcement:
“We are in a fortunate position that allows us to uniquely compete with Amazon, Google, DropBox and other major cloud providers. Since we already have all our potential customers’ data, instead of charging for data storage like our competitors, our service will provide files and passwords restoration. Say you lose a beloved picture, or you forget some password. You just log in to the all-new NSA Data Restoration Portal and, for a moderate fee, you can recover any of your digital information”, declared Eddie Rainhouse, product manager for the NSA’s new Monetization Initiative that has been created within the Data Collection Services Division.
The news has already caused quite a stir in the cloud computing community. Private companies complain that they can’t compete with the NSA’s eleven billion dollars budget and glowing public reputation.
The famed American security agency has also purchased struggling hard disk maker Seagate in order to “ensure a steady and healthy increase of available storage capacity in order to accommodate more potential customers”.
So far, members of the NSA’s Data Restoration Beta Program seem very satisfied with the service:
“I accidentally wiped my iPhone. I didn’t even have to get out of the house to fix it. I just connected it to my MacBook and accessed NSA’s Data Restoration portal. Twenty minutes and ten bucks later, everything was back in working order. Even my family videos are there, along with all my applications. They even restored my Candy Crush progress. It’s an amazing service!”, declared Manny Datas of Arizona.
Another user, Lo Safeson was saved by the NSA’s PayBack Plus service: “Somebody hacked my Facebook account. I immediately logged in to the NSA portal and I used the Facebook back door system to reset the password of my account. For three hundred dollars I also got an NSA consultant to delete all stolen private information from the hacker’s computer.”
The NSA ensured us that they have a solid authentication service in place that makes sure that nobody except the user and the authorities can access the user’s data. It’s a custom built three-factor login process that uses classified biometric data.
For those that would like to enter the Data Restoration Beta Program, there is an early-hawk discount available until the end of 2016. For your convenience, the NSA has allowed us to publish a list of currently provided services:
Full Data Restoration: restores any or all of your devices to the previous state of your choosing. Backups are updated regularly for any data-capable device. The backups will not count against your data quota, since the NSA has working agreements with most Internet Service Providers and is part of International Intelligence Agencies Coalition for Data Safety.
Memories Recovery: using this feature, you can recover deleted e-mails or messages from any popular provider. You can also playback old telephone or Skype conversations, as long as they’ve taken place in the past five years.
Password Recovery: as the name implies, you can recover your password, in clear text, for any website you visited in the past decade.
PayBack Plus: provides counter-attack measures to be used against hackers involved in identity theft. You can remotely delete stolen information and expose hackers to public authorities.
Sneaky Peeky: provides read-only access to your NSA history, allowing you to gauge the possibilities of the service and determine what sort of Data Restoration operation you’d like to go for.
NSA MVC (Most Valued Customer) Subscription: also known as the NSA Prime, this subscription requires you to pay a small annual fee. Doing so will award you Data Restoration Priority Golden Elephant, as well as tempting discounts for any current or future NSA customer-centric service.
This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.
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In recent years, Intel has moved towards integrating some pretty nifty remote administration features into its CPUs. While this may be a good idea for certain enterprises, it may quickly turn into a nightmare as soon as exploits and vulnerabilities are found. And guess what^?
Software has bugs. Hey, it happens, everybody makes mistakes. But in this case, the mistakes can’t be corrected in time (before an attacker exploits them). That’s because, in typical monopolist corporation fashion, Intel is obscuring the process by not allowing the security community to analyze whatever code the company decides to shove into our machines. The same argument stands true regarding any proprietary code, especially Microsoft’s Windows, which after 20 years of fixes is still the most vulnerable mainstream operating system.
The following article describes the problem pretty well:
It’s probably only a matter of time until a clever attacker will compromise the company’s buggy code. Of course, Intel will eventually patch its security holes, but given that the company’s CPUs are used across the world in some pretty sensitive contexts, there’s no telling how much damage such attacks can cause.
As for us mortals, we are at risk of having our privacy compromised even by petty criminals. This is because there’s a large window of opportunity between the time when a security hole is found and the time that Intel moves to fix it for less prioritized customers.
And don’t even get me started on how governments across the world can (and probably will) force Intel’s hand into giving over political dissidents on a silver platter. Privacy? What privacy?
If you want to learn more, here’s another article on the same topic:
I wrote this hot on the heels of a Dissected News piece about Cyber-Warfare^. There’s additional interesting information to be found there.
[ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/00759-AllYourComputersAreBelongToUs-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’All Your Computers Are Belong to Us’ desc=’It's probably only a matter of time until a clever attacker will compromise Intel's buggy code.’]
As one of the most, if not the most powerful force for change, the Internet’s future is a cause for concern. In the past decade, governments and corporations have increasingly encroached upon our freedom and privacy. These entities will use every possible excuse to rein-in the transformative power of the Internet.
As more people get connected, the Internet is becoming a mirror of our society. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the horrible, we can all find it online. Our society isn’t perfect. With such an educational system, who can even expect it to be? But regulatory bodies can now motivate various restrictions as being “for our own good”, this being one of the age-old excuses that our masters have used when trying to deprive us of something:
But here’s the good news. The Internet is still at its very beginning. The fifty or so years^ that have passed since the first research into packet switching might seem like a lot. But really, compared to other technologies that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, it’s not. Here’s a good article driving this point home:
We’re still in danger of governments depriving us^ of what is becoming our voice as a species (more than 40% of the world population is now online). Keep this in mind next time you read about efforts to protect the freedom and independence of the Internet.
[ax_meta lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/00744-TheUncertainFateOfTheInternet-Thumb.jpg’ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The Uncertain Future of the Internet’ desc=’As one of the most, if not the most powerful force for change, the Internet's future is a cause for concern.’]
After Google experimented with integrating a glucose level sensor^ on a contact lens, it was only a matter of time before we would see more innovation in this field. A recent patent filing from Sony describes the intention of putting a camera inside a contact lens^.
Privacy concerns
While this toy won’t exactly be invisible –at least not at first – the privacy implications are quite serious. We’re still at least a few years away from market availability, but I imagine that after several product cycles, such a camera could reach a pretty good recording resolution. Coupled with wireless transmission to a storage device, people will eventually be able to record everything they see, everywhere they go.
To be sure, there are many advantages to having this sort of camera hidden in plain sight – pun intended. For example, it could be used as a self-defense mechanism because it would give the possibility to apprehend criminals and present irrefutable evidence against them in court. There’s also the enormous convenience of being able to record important moments or useful information at the blink of an eye.
When it comes to privacy, as our technology progresses, it will be increasingly difficult to detect and prohibit the use of this sort of devices. Evidently, in the wrong hands, such gizmos can also do a lot of harm. We will likely have to adapt to these changes and hope that the path they lead us on will be a good one.
All this reminds me of an episode^ from the fascinating “Black Mirror” series, where people use a similar technology to record and relive any part of their lives. Such discoveries will drastically change our culture and society.
Potential
There are quite a few challenges that will have to be overcome, such as powering the contact lens. We are already able to wirelessly power devices, but let’s also not forget that the human body itself is also capable of generating and conducting electricity and therefore even data.
The potential of the contact lens as a carrier for various technologies is enormous. When manufacturers will finally be able to integrate even a half-decent display on a contact lens, we’ll witness the birth of an extremely lucrative business segment. The first steps towards this breakthrough have already been taken^.
So far, all our experiments regarding augmented reality have involved clunky glasses. In seven to fifteen years, we might be able to have our smartphones implanted in our eyes and ears. Many will find this prospect rather scary, but many also consider their grandparents to be woefully out of touch with technology. It might soon be our turn to be out of touch.
Conclusion
I think that we can say with a fair degree of certainty that smart contact lenses will flourish in the years to come. At least until we’re able to feed information directly to the optic nerve, their form factor makes them the holy grail of augmented reality. Perhaps they’ll never reach the high performance of larger devices, but I imagine contact lenses will become one of the most important “wearable” technologies of the 20s.
As nanotechnology progresses, humans are bound to integrate more and more devices with their bodies. I don’t know if this is good or bad. It’s up to us as a society to correctly negotiate this upcoming technological leap.
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Together with its new CEO, the software giant is embracing the inevitable: transforming its users into a data product. Google is, arguably, the company that has done this with the greatest degree of success. Jealous, Microsoft ran the “Scroogled”^ smear campaign against its competitor. It dropped it in 2014, probably when somebody decided that, after all, Google’s strategy is more in tune with the times.
Two years later and Windows 10 is phoning home hundreds of time every day, even when told not to^. The company said it will provide a “fix” for this, but as the article I linked cleverly points out: as operating systems start to increasingly rely on their companies’ cloud infrastructure, especially when it comes to Artificial Intelligence, we will be forced into all sorts of privacy trade-offs.
But what worries me the most is the fact that Microsoft is moving towards transforming Windows into a closed ecosystem, emulating the model established by Apple and, later, Google. For better or for worse, Windows’ popularity has ensured that developers have a popular platform that they can deliver products on, with few intermediaries.
However, with the upcoming Universal Windows Platform, Microsoft is taking its first steps into placing itself as a leech between developers and customers, charging not only for the operating system but also taking a profit share from producers – just like pretty much all other “app stores”. If this comes to pass, it will be particularly harmful for game developers, with games being one of the most profitable products sold in the Microsoft ecosystem.
No wonder Tim Sweeney of Epic Games is upset (while Gabe Newell of Valve started a long time ago to heavily invest in the Linux ecosystem):
In all fairness, Microsoft is making the right moves to stay profitable. Each year, there’s fewer people willing to renew their Windows licenses, so it’s no wonder that the company ponders offering updates to Windows 10 for free, while in the same time devising new ways to turn a profit. The App Store model has been implemented successfully by many companies, why should Microsoft remain behind?
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