If you recognized yourself in a few of these points, that doesn’t mean Linux isn’t for you. In fact, you can count it as an invitation. It just means you’ve spent a long time in an ecosystem that treats you more like a product than a participant.
  1. You love giving your data away
  2. You enjoy being tracked by your operating system
  3. You’re happy when your computer tells you “no”
  4. You prefer someone else deciding what you can run
  5. You feel uncomfortable if you get to have options
  6. You’d rather battle corporate tech support
  7. You’d rather rent your software than own it
  8. You think ads belong on your desktop
  9. You love being lied to about what’s “industry standard”
  10. You like rebooting for every little update
  11. You’re uncomfortable when software is transparent
  12. You think community-made tools can’t be “professional”
  13. You want intrusive AI everywhere, whether it helps or not
  14. You think the command line is only for hackers
  15. You never really wanted your computer to be yours anyway
  • Helix 🧬@feddit.orgEnglish
    422·
    16 days ago

    Why should I care? Linux has enough users as it is, development is sustainable. I don’t want all users to switch at once because that would flood forums with noobs asking silly questions.

    It’s their loss if they don’t use Linux. Why should I encourage them to do so? Just to have some shitty Electron apps more which I don’t use?

    It’s much more painful for me that the places I work at don’t use Linux. They won’t be swayed by such an article anyway.

    • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
      151·
      16 days ago

      Are you serious? Do you really believe linux can’t get any better or that linux is perfect for you?

      The more people that use linux the more donations it gets from people and the more people use it.

      Also if you think linux is so awesome isn’t it nice to other people to share that awesomeness with them?

      As well the more people that use linux the more apps will be supported on it. Can you say with full confidence that there isn’t a single windows or macos app that doesn’t work perfectly on linux that you don’t want? Even if linux is perfect for you, you rely on the kindness of open source maintainers to maintain linux, can you really not reserve any kindness for other people?

      • Helix 🧬@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        14 days ago

        I did not say I don’t want more Linux users. I just don’t want them all to switch at once and make it unbearable for “community support” to help each other and improve the ecosystem.

        When everyone switches to desktop (!) Linux all of a sudden, it will make both the current users’ lives and the new users’ lives worse as the community can’t handle such a huge influx.

        Organic growth is fine. You don’t need to market Linux to the masses, as that would only lead to enshittification.

        I’d rather have Linux be imperfect and rough around the edges, but with sustainable, positive growth, than have everyone use Linux and flood bug trackers with so much work that maintainers give up and move to less demanding hobbies. Then the companies would take over and well, we know how it ends (see Windows 11).

        The more people that use linux the more donations it gets from people

        I don’t know if that’s true.

        Also if you think linux is so awesome isn’t it nice to other people to share that awesomeness with them?

        Sure, but I won’t force it onto them. They can choose to use it.

        Do you know what consent is?

          • Helix 🧬@feddit.orgEnglish
            1·
            12 days ago

            Countless FOSS maintainers have lamented that millions of users use their software and nobody donates. (Lib)Curl for example is used in countless applications, basically all of them used by huge corporations, and they get flooded with bug reports for software they don’t even maintain, AI slop merge requests and pennies in donations (excuse the hyperbole).

            The lead dev of curl has some funnysad stories to tell: @bagder@mastodon.social đŸ’”đŸ«¶

      • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
        22·
        16 days ago

        That is the real altruistic, hopeful view, but there are downsides that I enumerated in my other comment. Here’s another, though - With large scale acceptance comes a flood of people who just want a tool that works, not something they can build on or improve.

        The greatest strength of this community is the love of the platform and the joy of exploration. Most are in it for altruistic or at least self enrichment reasons. Many are able to contribute when they see a gap. That can be diluted quickly.

        Then the entrepreneurs see opportunities to make money from those people, and the enshitification begins.

        • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
          4·
          16 days ago

          This is why distros exist!

          If the masses come to linux they will use distro’s like zorin os a distro that costs a bit of money but gives you premium support options so you can have the just works experience.

          My point is thay the more niche distros for people like us won’t be used by the masses and neither will there forums, and I agree there probably will be some distros that get enshitified, honestly if linux gets popular enough we might even see a microsoft linux distro. But it won’t be the distros that we use because we rely on distros built by the community, not corporations.

          This is the same argument I see people use for the fediverse but this is why instances are so useful.

    • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
      31·
      16 days ago

      I’m a bit less nihilistic about it, though. I acknowledge the benefit if being a small enough “market” that the enshittification doesn’t hit Linux like a tsunami as you alluded.

      More users means more bullshit money grubbers, more dishonesty, more incentive for greedy hackers to attack.

      • Helix 🧬@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        14 days ago

        Exactly! That would make all Linux users miserable and paradoxically more users would probably mean a worse experience for those additional users aswell.