I don't think people care AT ALL about FOSS, however, they do care somewhat about privacy and sovereignty. But at the end of the day, they need to have the network of people they care about already on the platform and they need a smooth experience.
I don't think people care AT ALL about FOSS, however, they do care somewhat about privacy and sovereignty. But at the end of the day, they need to have the network of people they care about already on the platform and they need a smooth experience.
The moment the U.S. moved to ban TikTok, users immediately flocked to an even worse Chinese platform. People don’t actually care about privacy or digital sovereignty — not when convenience and clout are on the line.
It's a matter of degree. The average Joe cares about privacy and tech sovereignty too, but not to the extent that he would sign off a platform where the rest of his friends are.
I try not to be cynical, but I honestly don't think they even care about that with all things being equal.
I'm talking about the 90+% of people, not the people we all probably know. It's not about elitism either, it's just human nature. People care about the ends, not the means.
Even with all things being equal, if you offer X covered in shinies, you will win over someone just offering X. Companies like Meta are very good at covering their products with shinies, and governments are not.
Hmm, well I don't know. Not everyone like the same kind of shiny stuff. And even if you like some kind of shiny, sometime a huge load of it is just too much of it. Even the most bling bling people will die if you really put them under a metal mountain of gold.
You might think smart people will better well balance than not the poison in their drug to keep their junky customer base just afloat so business have a perennial flow of serfs. But even smart people are humans and make errors. And even if they plan with error rate in mind, they can be overthrown by one of their many far more stupid rivals. The number of mindless wannabe will always largely exceeds the anticipation power of the sharpest minds.
> I don't think people care AT ALL about FOSS
Clearly most people just don't care about freedom at all in general. They claim they do, but then will argue against anything and everything that provides even the tiniest measure of it.
Most people don't have integrity, and are moderately failed educations. They are doing whatever they do in more of a mimic fashion than actually understanding anything.
Centralised platforms have strong economic incentives to invade privacy.
Its not really about FOSS vs proprietary. FOSS is better because it can be verified, but, for example, Whatsapp is better than a FOSS platform that is not E2EE and not decentralised.
Ideally we would use decentralised, E2EE encrypted FOSS.
Governments also like centralised platforms because they enable surveillance.
or they can just talk to their network IRL :)
If everyone is locked up in the same prison, then the network of people they care about is on the platform.
... but you're not wrong, I'm afraid.