alt Hacker News> if something doesn't work the way you want it you can change it.
This sentence here is my biggest heartbreak with modern “computing.” I came up in the Windows 98/XP days and over about 7 years from 98-05 basically gained full mastery of basically every aspect of Windows and how to change it, and also from 03 on started using Mac OS X daily and found it to be just as customizable or more, in most ways that mattered. I felt that my computer was my own and loved having full control, making it perfect for me.
None of that is possible now. You cannot even select your own notification sound for Messages on MacOS anymore. Only the 20 sounds packaged with the OS. What. The. F%$k.
This is because in any monopoly/duopoly/oligopoly, the product inevitably stops being about what the user wants, and becomes about what the monopolist wants. They're removing features like this because simplifying configurations translates to reduced support costs, and reducing their costs and padding their margin is the name of the game for a monopolist, they believe there's nowhere else for you to go, so they can and will hose you over and over again.
We're now paying the piper for many years of accrued monopoly effects, it turns out the way our IP law is structured, the rights we've granted corporations to sue people who attempt any kind of reverse engineering etc. all privilege the monopolist and encourage the formation of the monopoly, because the entire legal and regulatory system is designed to juice corporate profits and pesky old laws like the Sherman Act which got in the way have essentially been ignored for decades.
One really important thing for people to understand is that until there's a serious change to these dynamics, IT WILL GET WORSE. Mac OS will get worse, FOREVER. So will Windows and all other monopolist products. This is why you really need to switch away from them as soon as you can; life will be an order of magnitude more miserable for whoever's still using these products a decade from now. They will just keep on squeezing whoever's left, harder and harder until the heat death of the universe.