The "free as in beer" software movement normalized the idea that locally run software should all be free, so the center of new software development moved to a c

The "free as in beer" software movement normalized the idea that locally run software should all be free, so the center of new software development moved to a cloud-first model. The cloud is the only DRM that works, so cloud software can never be pirated either. "We need to liberate ourselves from closed-source software!" Result: the software moves where it can't be liberated. It's not some big conspiracy. It's like how a plant grows toward the sun. It's that software is very labor intensive to produce and there must be an economic model. If there's no economic model in one place, it goes somewhere else where there is. If we want computing to be open, free, and user-centric (rather than user-exploiting), we have to restructure the industry so that that's where the money is.