> The pace of 'upgrades'? Way, unnecessarily faster

Not only that, but the availability of easy upgrades has incentivized companies to sell unfinished software and hope to patch fast enough in response to user complaints, instead of even bothering to actually finish the product as marketed.

"Options? Less."

How so, given that more people are able to write software, and it's easier to create something than ever before?

"And when the business dies now? Now you're fucked."

How is that any different than before?

You've answered your own question... more people are learning to program, from fewer and more professionally run sources, which preach a gospel that prizes engagement, conversions and ease-of-use, over empowerment, functionality, or choice. Plus, with this larger and more mainstream community, where 'coders' are pulled in off the street with little technical knowledge (let alone passion) who never grokked complex apps anyway, produce what they know. The end result is a sea of gimped, appliance-like 'apps' that do little more than funnel users towards business objectives.

And when the business died, their software still ran. Hard-won expertise kept it running. No stupid CEO or developer could stop you, and neither could they pull the rug out from under your feet with a sunset or some other shitty move. You bought your software and that, mercifully, could be the end of your relationship with that publisher.

This doesn't really address my point. You still haven't explained anything regarding choice, or any of your other points.

> On nearly every metric that matters to power users software is worse.

Citation needed.

Citation: myself and the other power users I have talked with. WTF is this, wikipedia?? Robot.

You worded your initial response like you were referencing actual stats about software. I'm sure you think you and your colleagues are reliable sources, but to the rest of the world, they aren't.

Every single one of those statements was subjective. Don't be fooled by my use of the word 'metric'. It is, frankly, amazing that people here expect one to have facts and citations for every little nitty point.

It's not about having a "fact or citation for every nitty point"... It's about having even a tiny grain of self-awareness before making a statement about the global state of software in 2017, and perhaps having the self-awareness to know that, generally speaking, your anecdote ("citation") is meaningless.

I guess at some point I need to stop being surprised that HN comments are really no better than Reddit's.

I'm going to challenge those citations, then.