Last time I went to NW I got myself a Google 8 Pro, really nice camera. Cannot stop it from asking me to activate the backup for my pictures and videos. I dismiss it today, it will ask me again next week.

I wonder WHY Google wants all my pictures and videos on their servers...

Because the lead of the google photos team in charge of that enrollment funnel will get a pat on the head for having solid Artifacts detailing how many tens of thousands of users they got to sign up. I don't think there's any nefarious scheme, they just want you firmly and permanently locked into their ecosystem, and every little step helps.

Plus, it's one of those things where 90% of tech-illiterate people probably do want it. So it can make some benign sense to spam it a bit -- though that obviously sounds excessive.

if you believe that they won't train their models on data from their users I have a piece of land on the moon that I want to sell. I'll give you a good deal if you interested

There's a certain serenity in it. Maybe its akin to making furniture in a way, working with you hands. Certainly at some point in the future writing C and raycasters may be closer to woodworking than to the status quo of software development.

Sadly raycasters and fiddling with bits is a difficult way to pay for food and rent/mortage. Slinging yaml and json pays better.

Maybe one day I can retire from professional programming and become a hobby programmer...

Oh, don't get me wrong, I still work a full time job. There are still some good challenges that gets me motivated on my day to day at work. I mentioned those projects as a hobby. I like computers and i think I'll ever will. They will not take away the joy of it for me

I love to work with me hands

Same for me. I was looking at Ratatui to do some TUI games in Rust. There's a joy in simple creation, I think, that seems to be lacking with all the AI stuff.

Sometimes our capacity for metacognitive reason is in conflict with our capacity for selfconscious motivation. I feel you. Still, I encourage you to persevere where able. Imagine a world where DnD-style fantasy magic appeared over night, and your friend refused to learn it because the looming threats to their occupational identity made them sad... I think you'd try to appeal to their reason, in the long term!