I also like the distinction of “tool” and “place”. It feels like a useful mental concept. I can see a relation to the economics of software development. Compan

I also like the distinction of “tool” and “place”. It feels like a useful mental concept. I can see a relation to the economics of software development. Companies want their products to be places, so they capture a slice of your attention and deepen awareness of their brand. Nvidia is an example: It is just a single part of the computer hardware, yet it comes with a GUI tool and often demands attention. Free software can afford to become a tool. Imagine if you boot a Linux desktop and various involved projects show you a series of splash screens first: This desktop experience brought to you by systemd, dbus, dnsmasq, CUPS, NetworkManager, PulseAudio, Gnome, Mozilla Firefox, Gnome Keyring Daemon, gvfsd, and bash.