stackreality

They didn't pull the software off your computer. They stopped hosting the box, but you probably bought it at Best Buy and still have it laying around!

And you can no longer use the 2008 version of Gmail. Adobe moved to a subscription model that has allowed them to stay alive as a business without monetizing you as the product like many other ad based businesses. Adobe gets trashed endlessly for this because we had a taste of the perpetual license long ago. But the perpetual license doesn't make sense with cloud based updates and document sync that everyone also expects in modern digital tools. Imagine creating software today with perpetual licenses but no updates or sync across devices. You would laugh it off your machine.

> fake news spread through WhatsApp

aka people communicating as they have for thousands of years. People love making up stories and spreading them. We need to stop blaming software for human nature.

What is the way to go?

In this case, an inevitable outcome is likely the privatization of more of these industries. Let companies like Palantir take over the job and ensure we have some solid regulations to ensure Thiel can't read our emails.