I actually think that, objectively speaking, it seems pretty silly to go around using a machine running a multi-user OS designed for a server environment and capable of doing maybe a hundred thousand times more than anyone ever asks of it, rather than an appliance that just does its thing. What I think is even more silly is that we pay hundreds or thousands for these multi-user über-machines and then in a year or two, regard them as morbidly redundant. Would you do that with a good saw? a washing machine? a book? a classic wooden boat?
Alas, the world does not agree (being pretty stupid, on the whole), and thus like everyone else here, I have little choice in the matter. The chief illustration of that fact can be the observation that here we are on this forum, which is a PITA to access using many of the machines we converse about with such enthusiasm. As much as one might regret it, in short, families and schoolchildren these days can't actually do without the web for many and even most purposes, which has the unavoidable implication that any 68k or early PPC machine is a poor substitute for a more recent computer that can actually do the web-based things people need them to do.
Where connectivity is the name of the game, in other words, and where the rules of the game are in constant (and perhaps deliberate) flux, machines that cannot make connections because they can't play by the rules are pretty much curiosities. Call it what you will — a mistake, a shame, progress, a money-making racket, whatever — it is just how it is. And until users change the game being played, perhaps by government regulation out of disgust at the mountains of e-waste (which it is in more ways than one) being generated, it will continue that way.
Alas, the world does not agree (being pretty stupid, on the whole), and thus like everyone else here, I have little choice in the matter. The chief illustration of that fact can be the observation that here we are on this forum, which is a PITA to access using many of the machines we converse about with such enthusiasm. As much as one might regret it, in short, families and schoolchildren these days can't actually do without the web for many and even most purposes, which has the unavoidable implication that any 68k or early PPC machine is a poor substitute for a more recent computer that can actually do the web-based things people need them to do.
Where connectivity is the name of the game, in other words, and where the rules of the game are in constant (and perhaps deliberate) flux, machines that cannot make connections because they can't play by the rules are pretty much curiosities. Call it what you will — a mistake, a shame, progress, a money-making racket, whatever — it is just how it is. And until users change the game being played, perhaps by government regulation out of disgust at the mountains of e-waste (which it is in more ways than one) being generated, it will continue that way.