I like how you’re completely ignoring the many issues that most non-tech savvy people run into. Incredible.

In what regard? Like why play devil’s advocate like this when there’s no insightful point to be made? This is just nonsensical contrarianism.

I have-- I found it to be a pain to setup and trying to get people to try it was ridiculously difficult. After I got it setup and sent the link to others to download, most people asked…

“What client do I download? Why are there so many?”

“Do I need to setup a server? What are all these options”

“Are [mutual friends] on here? No? Okay…”

“Does [popular community] have a server here? No? Okay…”

It’s what people actually want

I just can’t help but laugh at this statement. It’s not what most people want, and it’s a shame so many people refuse to try and understand why. I’m tired of hearing open-source advocates fawn over things like Linux or Matrix and act like the average user experience isn’t the biggest reason why a lot of open source software is so unpopular.

It reminds me of people who are bad at cooking because they don’t use enough salt, butter, sugar or spices, and they insist that one has to acquire a more refined palate to enjoy their bland food. It’s like vegans who actually know how to make good food (i.e. VLC, OBS, Libre Office) versus vegans who refuse to listen to feedback and keep serving up dishes that they think are amazing but most people think are mediocre.

That’s like saying Spotify is better than Photoshop.

Even poor working class people can easily figure out how to use it.

The problem isn’t whether poor, working class people can figure this stuff out. It’s whether they realistically will, and in the case of software like Matrix, particularly in its current state, it will not attract most working class people who introduced to it. Privileged people tend to have the time and resources to go through the inevitable troubleshooting that’s involved in switching primarily used software to something completely new, and far too often to these issues get downplayed (i.e. the “I installed Linux for my parents but they keep complaining” phase that many open-source enthusiasts go through)

The popular FOSS projects you mentioned as success cases were obscure and little known for many years before going mainstream. Ask yourself if you remember when Firefox was called Phoenix.

Firefox was called Phoenix for all of two years, and rapidly gained popularity after a great amount of time and effort was paid with respect to what users actually want and will use-- not what users can and should use, according to developers.

I think that the response in this discussions often boils down to “users CAN figure it out” demonstrates the exact problem I’m talking about, in that there’s a massive difference between when users can do, and what users will do. Fixating on the former and not the latter is a massive waste of time.

If he did, he’d probably have 1/10th as many people watching his videos. As a small content creator, sacrificing that much viewership doesn’t seem worth it.

The problem with this, particularly as leftists, is that we’re left to choose alternatives to these communications platforms that have next to no user base. It’s like consistently voting for a party that is great in theory, but completely misses the mark in terms of being able to attract a large number of people. Most working class people don’t have the time/money/energy to delve into open-source alternatives to major platforms and go through the painstaking process of navigating their way through new software, as well as trying to convince people to join. Opsec is important, but I can’t help but note that it’s something that often privileged leftists obsess over, completely missing why most of us don’t take such extreme measures all the time.

There’s open-source software that’s very popular because the developers take time to understand what users want, what users don’t want, and how users tend to work. Instead, developers take time to create open-source software that works the way they (the developers) want, and not so much the way users want the software to work. There’s a lot of "they’ll learn to like it" attitude with open-source alternatives and it’s a huge reason why they don’t succeed.

Want people to use open-source software? Look at VLC, Firefox, and LibreOffice, and honestly ask yourself what they’re doing right in terms of successfully attracting a very large number of users. Then look at open-source software that sounds great in theory but just can’t seem to attract many users, and honestly ask yourself what about that software users find difficult to grasp.

Far too many people in the open-source community care about what people should like and not what people actually like. If these devs want to attract more people, they need to listen to what most users actually want and create a competing product that people actually find attractive. This IMO is one of the most difficult to swallow pills that a lot of developers are far too prideful and arrogant to understand.

Personally, I find it very easy to use. I also can’t help but laugh at the creator of this video seemingly not realizing that by using YouTube/Google, he’s effectively doing what Stallman warns against regarding Discord.

Stallman’s reasons not to use Google.

This is what people like Stallman refuse to understand and it’s so frustrating trying to explain this to his fanatic supporters. Much of his die hard beliefs I think just reek of white male privilege and not caring enough to try and understand the lived experiences of other people and see why they sometimes rely on necessary evils.

The fact is, Discord is privacy nightmare but it’s resulted in the improved mental health of a lot of people by allowing them to communicate with each other in such a convenient way.

Stallman’s views honestly annoy me because he’s like a guy telling his friend to stop taking medicine because they have side effects, without realizing that the person’s mental health could plummet without their imperfect but effective drug.

edit: Downvotes but not a single person who can justify their disagreement with words. Imagine that.

You’re presumably a leftist and you don’t see how this is blaming victims?

Mango.

Source: Me, just had a fantastic mango and thought "if everyone tasted this mango, it would be their most loved fruit"

You’re missing my point. Most working class people don’t have the time/resources to look into all of these alternatives. This is like telling someone who shops at Wal-Mart that if they looked harder, they could find a more ethical place to shop without realizing that the reason why they shop at Wal-Mart is because they can barely afford the time or gas to get there and back.

I understand that reading these things, often full of judicial jargon, is something undesirable, but not doing so is the same as signing a loan in a bank, without reading the conditions, it can give many unpleasant surprises and consequences.

I agree. And similar to bank loans, TOS are often predatory and reliant on working class people not understanding what they’re getting into.

I think you’re blaming the victims of a very predatory practice. In fact, I’d venture to say that even you don’t 100% know what you’re getting into when you’ve read various TOSs. Given the fact that they’re often written by corporate lawyers with the intention of obscuring any nefarious intentions, I think you should try to understand the Sisyphean task you’re assigning working class people with very limited time and resources.

(I know the creator of this video, am sharing this because I really think this video series is important)

To quote Jerry Seinfeld…

“Have you read that thing? It’s like the Declaration of Independence.”"

Point is,

a) most people don’t have the time to read the TOS;

b) most people don’t understand half of what a TOS even talks about; and

c) people have fewer and fewer alternatives to these companies because this sort of thing is becoming so common.

I know, and my issue is that the author’s clickbaity title is just plain silly given the fact that he pretty much backpedals deep into the article. It’s just needlessly misleading.

The creator of this video is a friend of mine who has been on hiatus for a while due to having two major surgeries, but now she’s back!

"Hmm, I’d have to freeze it afterwards for this to work…"

I’m just replying so I can tell the FBI agent reading this to settle down

Depends on a lot of factors related to the environment, i.e. pollution types, viability of water treatment, food sources and what their growth is reliant on, equipment and what their maintenance is reliant on (i.e. parts/consumables ideally not reliant on regions in heavy conflict).

I’ve never been in a war zone but I have been in one of the country’s worst natural disasters (along with several smaller ones) and what I learned from those experiences is not to trust anyone who refuses to understand the importance of fluid decision-making in complex life or death scenarios, instead rigidly adhering to a fixed plan they had developed long before the emergency situation happened. It ends up slowing them down far more than anything and creates loads of avoidable problems in the name of consistency.

That’s not to say one shouldn’t have a plan but if it relies on taking route A to escape and route A is on fire, the people who blindly say "STICK TO THE PLAN" without recognizing that the plan requires adaptation, they’re not to be trusted because they possess a theoretical understanding of the situation, not a practical understanding.

Far too often people who confidently think their plan A will work, end up dying because they foolishly downplayed the need for adapting/abandoning their plan in the face of impending doom. Wildfires in particular have resulted in entire families burning to death-- wealthy families who were convinced their various expensive, extensive precautionary methods were foolproof but learned the hard way that mother nature can very quickly make a mockery of the measures humans take.