They want you to lose your data

I open a drawer.

Ah. There it is. The super-duper-mega-powerful maximum harddrive I bought to have a solid backup for all the cute digital video stuff I have randomly taped over almost eleven years as a father.

There they are: the rocky clips of little J meeting her great grandparents for the first time. The oh-so-produced five minute interviews I always do with the kids on New Year’s Day every year. (They are the best. I ask just a few questions, some practical, like “who is your best friend?” or “what’s your favorite food?” and some of the more existential kind, like “what is the difference between moms and dads?” or “when will you be an adult?”. Five minutes a year. Do it, parents, it’s the alchemy of kid videos!)

All those clips are priceless to me. I have an old digital video camera, so there is the actual DV tape version. And the harddrive version. Plus, I have some of it stored online. So I should be in the clear, right? I will always have access and control?

Well. Soon, I won’t be able to get a machine that can play those DV tapes. Soon, I won’t be able to plug that USB chord from the harddrive into any Mac computer, since they won’t be supporting that technology anymore, oh, and the firewire is gone too. The online version? Fine, as long as they support the format. They don’t always.

On a trip recently, I re-read Walter Isacson’s magnificent book about Steve Jobs. If there is something I absolutely detest about Steve Jobs’ legacy, it’s the silly notion that he himself personally always knew what’s best for… everyone and everything.

That notion was not just a curious trait. It was a notion that ended up killing him.

Jobs was so certain that there was another and better way to treat his aggressive cancer that he just didn’t let the doctors get to it and do their job.

It may be one of the saddest stories I have ever read in my entire life.

And that terrible notion, that massive fullofhimselfery, really is the core and key explanation to the usability problems that today have become a true Apple trademark. Apple is trying to run things the Steve Jobs way — but without his intuition and genius. It leaves users of both hardware and software behind. Examples are piling up.

It all can be summarized differently, too, of course, depending on your level of cynicism.

I can’t help but thinking: they tech giants want us to lose our data. They want us to learn the hard way, to give up, to stop hunting for adapters. They want us to give it away, give it to them, giving up all control and flexibility, holding on to us by just making us too tired, too bored and too scared to really pick this fight.

Conclusion? The tech sector lies wide open for a company with a true consumer perspective.

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Andreas Ekström is a journalist, analyst, author and award winning keynote speaker — based in Sweden, but working all around the world. He writes on Medium most Tuesdays. (Well… some Tuesdays.) Read more here: http://www.andreasekstrom.com