I'm Tired of Being on the Network

The writer describes growing exhaustion with the always-online life: once a passionate early adopter, he now finds the smartphone a compulsory tax that’s impossible to opt out of. Civic and commercial systems in Denmark - Aula, Rejsekort, MitID, e-Boks - plus airports, hotels and gyms make the device mandatory; offline alternatives are token gestures. Upgrading phones feels ritualistic and meaningless, storage and app behavior are out of his control, and every surface of the device pushes ads or more apps. Streaming and social platforms have become homogenized and self-referential, podcasts and shows interrupted by intrusive commercials, and live platforms like Twitch amount to a bleak, attention-economy circus. The internet’s early promise feels dead; participation has become compliance.

To escape, he turns to a contained, offline hobby: a MiSTer FPGA retro gaming setup. It installs quickly, runs without Ethernet, and uses NFC cards (TapTo/Zaparoo) as physical shortcuts that recreate cartridge-like simplicity. FPGA reimplements original console logic for cycle-accurate behavior, avoiding emulation quirks and endless menus; the result is focused play that preserves the original games’ pacing and mechanics. Playing Crash Bandicoot on this rig reconnects him to arcade-style engagement and the tactile joy of a device that simply works without onboarding, EULAs, or ad interrupts.