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Tech Disillusionment

by bernt & torsten

For four decades, I have worked in the tech industry. I started in the 1980s when computing was raw, full of potential, and mainly about solving problems rather than creating new ones. Over the years, I have witnessed incredible progress, some genuinely transformative. The ability to apply for a loan online without facing a bank clerk who might judge you unfairly is an improvement. The ease of checking into a train without a long queue is another. These are the kinds of advancements that made technology feel like an actual force for good. But somewhere along the way, we lost the plot.

I’m tired of pretending that technology always makes things better.

I’m tired of kidding myself that all these apps, chatbots, and so-called tools are doing anything but dragging us into the mud, calling it progress.

I sat down at a restaurant the other day, hungry and ready to order a meal. There were no menus at the tables - just a QR code on a plastic puck. I had to scan it to read the menu online, but pop-ups kept urging me to install the restaurant’s custom app, further delaying the process. When I finally got through, I had to order through the app, specify that I was dining in, and - of course - give up some personal information like my phone number and email address. After completing my order, the plastic puck beeped when my food was ready, signaling me to walk up to a counter and collect my plate. All this to get a meal. What happened to a traditional menu? What happened to a waiter taking my order? Waiting tables is already one of the lowest-paid professions, and now we’re replacing even that job with an app. It’s a sign of desperation in an industry struggling to survive.

This isn't an isolated issue. Businesses everywhere are cutting staff, replacing real human interaction with automated systems, and calling it efficiency. Restaurants that once had a full team of servers now rely on a skeleton crew, with customers expected to do all the work via an app. Grocery stores have shifted to self-checkout machines, reducing the number of cashiers. Banks have closed branches, pushing customers to mobile banking. Even retail stores now have fewer employees on the floor, with shoppers left to navigate confusing self-service kiosks. Everywhere you look, technology isn't improving service—it’s replacing workers.

Tech’s rhetoric frames every new product release as revolutionary—when most are just minor, incremental, or even unnecessary—casting anyone who questions their worth as out of touch, anti-progress, anti-everything. We’re stuck in a cycle of tech creating barely functional solutions to problems it caused in the first place. Nobody asked for social media, but now that it’s eroding our mental health, we’re being flooded with apps and tools to "help" us digitally detox, all for a monthly fee.

We’re drowning in a cesspool of AI-generated content while being punished by AI-content detectors that can’t tell a human from a bot when we try to write an essay or even apply for a job. We have so many bloated SaaS tools that we’ve started swiping our credit cards for SaaS tools to manage them. And in all of this, there are hidden costs: complexity, attention fragmentation, dehumanization, manipulation, and the abdication of free will.

For the past 20 years, tech has promised to make things more efficient while making almost everything more complicated and less meaningful. Innovation, for innovation’s sake, has eroded our craftsmanship, relationships, and ability to think critically. Even the phrase “deep thinking” has been co-opted by AI companies. We have the paradox of choice—more tools, options, streaming platforms, shows—everything except clarity or satisfaction.

We keep adding layers of technology to reduce friction, but all we do is add more barriers. We abstract ourselves from our neighbors and communities while forcing clunky, barely functional, and always extractive apps into every part of our lives. Everyone wants my phone number, email address, and device data. I have an entire folder on my phone just for apps I was forced to install to access basic services—banking, food ordering, e-commerce, security, tax, health, and transport apps. Is this progress?

Even parking has been hijacked by tech. I travel between cities, and every city has its parking app. Some parking spots support multiple apps—regional or national—but you only find out which ones when you arrive. If you don’t already have the right app installed, you must download it on the spot, register an account, and input your car’s registration details to park. What happened to the old-fashioned ticket machine? That was a great technology—simple, effective, and anonymous. Now, parking companies are profiting from parking fees and likely from selling our data in the background. It’s yet another example of unnecessary complexity disguised as progress.

I suspect that all these apps, these automated systems, have eliminated countless jobs. A single banking app now handles tasks once done by entire floors of employees. AI-driven customer service systems replace human representatives. The “convenience” we are given is another way to say, “We found a way to cut more jobs.”

The worst offenders are phone-based automated systems. You call a company, and the robot greets you: “For English, press 1. For French, press 2.” Then: “Is this about billing? Press 3. Is this about an outage? Press 4.” On and on it goes, until finally, they need to authenticate you. “Enter your billing number. Now enter your social security number.”

This type of automation existed before the mobile app boom, but at least back then, there was an expectation that you might eventually reach a human. Now, we have apps that promise to streamline everything but often worsen it. And in the process, we lose real human interaction.

Not every technological advance is terrible. Some innovations genuinely make life better. But we need to ask ourselves: Who benefits? Who profits from the added layers of abstraction? And most importantly, is the loss of human connection worth it?

We have a responsibility - to ourselves and each other - to reject technology that does not improve our quality of life measurably and tangibly, rather than following trends. I am tired of pretending that every new app and automation is a step forward. Sometimes, it is just another wall between us and the world we should live in.