3 ms·

>This is pretty much a self-perpetuating cycle and what happens when you have something close to a monopoly. That's simply not true. While having high market s

>This is pretty much a self-perpetuating cycle and what happens when you have something close to a monopoly. That's simply not true. While having high market share does give you a short-term advantage, if a better alternative exists you'll bleed market share over time. Look at what happened to Netscape, then Internet Explorer, then Firefox. It'll happen to Chromium eventually too. Open-source alternatives to popular desktop software packages have existed for decades, and the reason they haven't snatched market share away from the main packages is because they don't work well.

KronisLV 4y ago
> That's simply not true. While having high market share does give you a short-term advantage, if a better alternative exists you'll bleed market share over time. Look at what happened to Netscape, then Internet Explorer, then Firefox. It'll happen to Chromium eventually too. The time frames at play shouldn't be forgotten about here, nor should the magnitude of the effect. Most developers universally hated IE from IE 6 (2001) to IE 11, which might still be supported until 2030: > Microsoft is committed to support Internet Explorer that way to 2030 at least, with one year's notice before it is discontinued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_11 And yet, it still had to be supported and for some systems still needs to be. For whatever stupid reason, many were locked into using it and had little choice. Sure, eventually it could be tossed aside by most sane enterprises, but if developers had been given proper reign over what to choose to use, then it would have been ditched a few years after the release of IE 6 (Firefox came out around 2002). The average Joe/Jane doesn't really care about the browsers, though. They might not even recognize what a browser really is, merely know that they can use that one icon to access the Internet. Thus, the choice is made for them. Similarly, most laptops and desktop computers come with Windows preinstalled due to manufacturer deals, much like how most Android variations come with adware and other garbage. Nobody wants it, but nobody (at a certain price point), has any alternatives. If you don't know that there's a choice to make, someone else will make it for you. And i'd posit that there isn't as much of a difference between being technologically illiterate in Windows and being technologically illiterate in *nix. > Open-source alternatives to popular desktop software packages have existed for decades, and the reason they haven't snatched market share away from the main packages is because they don't work well. This is fair, though, especially because most FOSS software is basically developed below the poverty line: https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html Nobody's going to have good UX or fancy onboarding if they can barely find enough resources to keep the project going and fix all of the bugs, as well as handle the technological churn of keeping dependencies up to date etc. Outside of the ravings of FOSS enthusiasts and niche circumstances (e.g. servers), open source software will generally find it hard to compete with commercial offerings, most of the time, especially when it comes to software for the common folk.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >Similarly, most laptops and desktop computers come with Windows preinstalled due to manufacturer deals, much like how most Android variations come with adware and other garbage. Nobody wants it, but nobody (at a certain price point), has any alternatives. I hear this a lot, but I don't think it's the primary reason why Desktop Linux has negligible market share (neither does Linus, FWIW). Plenty of people build their own PCs, or have a custom PC built for them by a friend/independent shop, and even amongst these enthusiasts Linux use is rare. The main problem, at least in my experience as a user, is the fact that Desktop Linux is janky to use. Unless you have the time and patience to learn about all the subsystems and fix the issues that keep cropping up, you're going to want to just spend the money on an OS that "just works". OSX is obviously the best in this regard, but modern Windows with automatic driver installs comes pretty damn close. (As a developer, the fact that there's no universally agreed-upon standards make it a pain in the arse to support too.) >Nobody's going to have good UX or fancy onboarding if they can barely find enough resources to keep the project going and fix all of the bugs, as well as handle the technological churn of keeping dependencies up to date etc. IMO, the main issue with open-source isn't actually finding developers (people love working on OSS) but doing the kind of boring, rigorous QA that you'll see in a commercial firm. Nobody's going to volunteer to reproduce specific edge cases in a printer driver, so it sits broken for decades.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    >The main problem, at least in my experience as a user, is the fact that Desktop Linux is janky to use. Unless you have the time and patience to learn about all the subsystems and fix the issues that keep cropping up, you're going to want to just spend the money on an OS that "just works". OSX is obviously the best in this regard, but modern Windows with automatic driver installs comes pretty damn close. When was the last time you used Linux, 2003? The only problem with Linux is manufacturers that don't advertise support of their devices and that there are way too many distros so you can't have one ecosystem like you have a windows or macos ecosystem with certified devices. But if you stick with Lenovo thinkpads, brother printers and bog standard everything running a Fedora linux is like running a macos with well supported devices. We'd nerd having all kind of hardware sold whose compatibility is well tested and sold under the <insert your favorite distro> brands.
Spivak 4y ago
Which is what Sketch and Figma did with Adobe XD and what Procreate did with Photoshop digital painting features.
goosedragons 4y ago
I don't think this is entirely true for programs that rely on significant network effects. Photoshop and MS Office are entrenched because they are so widely used and anything other than absolutely perfect file compatibility with their formats is deemed trash. MS knows this and that's why the Office file format is such a complicated bloated mess of a "standard". Since nobody else can do it "right" everybody keeps picking MS office...
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  I wouldn't consider MS Office "entrenched" any more, at least for the under-30s crowd. Word has been largely replaced by Google Docs, and Excel is slowly being phased out in favour of far more powerful programming languages like Python and R (but is still definitely dominant; I bought an office key mainly for that one app). Outlook has been replaced by web-based services like Gmail. I remember being surprised when a couple of older people I was building computers for asked me to put Office on them. There was only one guy I knew from my generation who still used it.

KronisLV 4y ago

> That's simply not true. While having high market share does give you a short-term advantage, if a better alternative exists you'll bleed market share over time. Look at what happened to Netscape, then Internet Explorer, then Firefox. It'll happen to Chromium eventually too. The time frames at play shouldn't be forgotten about here, nor should the magnitude of the effect. Most developers universally hated IE from IE 6 (2001) to IE 11, which might still be supported until 2030: > Microsoft is committed to support Internet Explorer that way to 2030 at least, with one year's notice before it is discontinued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_11 And yet, it still had to be supported and for some systems still needs to be. For whatever stupid reason, many were locked into using it and had little choice. Sure, eventually it could be tossed aside by most sane enterprises, but if developers had been given proper reign over what to choose to use, then it would have been ditched a few years after the release of IE 6 (Firefox came out around 2002). The average Joe/Jane doesn't really care about the browsers, though. They might not even recognize what a browser really is, merely know that they can use that one icon to access the Internet. Thus, the choice is made for them. Similarly, most laptops and desktop computers come with Windows preinstalled due to manufacturer deals, much like how most Android variations come with adware and other garbage. Nobody wants it, but nobody (at a certain price point), has any alternatives. If you don't know that there's a choice to make, someone else will make it for you. And i'd posit that there isn't as much of a difference between being technologically illiterate in Windows and being technologically illiterate in *nix. > Open-source alternatives to popular desktop software packages have existed for decades, and the reason they haven't snatched market share away from the main packages is because they don't work well. This is fair, though, especially because most FOSS software is basically developed below the poverty line: https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html Nobody's going to have good UX or fancy onboarding if they can barely find enough resources to keep the project going and fix all of the bugs, as well as handle the technological churn of keeping dependencies up to date etc. Outside of the ravings of FOSS enthusiasts and niche circumstances (e.g. servers), open source software will generally find it hard to compete with commercial offerings, most of the time, especially when it comes to software for the common folk.

AussieWog93 4y ago
>Similarly, most laptops and desktop computers come with Windows preinstalled due to manufacturer deals, much like how most Android variations come with adware and other garbage. Nobody wants it, but nobody (at a certain price point), has any alternatives. I hear this a lot, but I don't think it's the primary reason why Desktop Linux has negligible market share (neither does Linus, FWIW). Plenty of people build their own PCs, or have a custom PC built for them by a friend/independent shop, and even amongst these enthusiasts Linux use is rare. The main problem, at least in my experience as a user, is the fact that Desktop Linux is janky to use. Unless you have the time and patience to learn about all the subsystems and fix the issues that keep cropping up, you're going to want to just spend the money on an OS that "just works". OSX is obviously the best in this regard, but modern Windows with automatic driver installs comes pretty damn close. (As a developer, the fact that there's no universally agreed-upon standards make it a pain in the arse to support too.) >Nobody's going to have good UX or fancy onboarding if they can barely find enough resources to keep the project going and fix all of the bugs, as well as handle the technological churn of keeping dependencies up to date etc. IMO, the main issue with open-source isn't actually finding developers (people love working on OSS) but doing the kind of boring, rigorous QA that you'll see in a commercial firm. Nobody's going to volunteer to reproduce specific edge cases in a printer driver, so it sits broken for decades.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  >The main problem, at least in my experience as a user, is the fact that Desktop Linux is janky to use. Unless you have the time and patience to learn about all the subsystems and fix the issues that keep cropping up, you're going to want to just spend the money on an OS that "just works". OSX is obviously the best in this regard, but modern Windows with automatic driver installs comes pretty damn close. When was the last time you used Linux, 2003? The only problem with Linux is manufacturers that don't advertise support of their devices and that there are way too many distros so you can't have one ecosystem like you have a windows or macos ecosystem with certified devices. But if you stick with Lenovo thinkpads, brother printers and bog standard everything running a Fedora linux is like running a macos with well supported devices. We'd nerd having all kind of hardware sold whose compatibility is well tested and sold under the <insert your favorite distro> brands.

Spivak 4y ago

Which is what Sketch and Figma did with Adobe XD and what Procreate did with Photoshop digital painting features.

goosedragons 4y ago

I don't think this is entirely true for programs that rely on significant network effects. Photoshop and MS Office are entrenched because they are so widely used and anything other than absolutely perfect file compatibility with their formats is deemed trash. MS knows this and that's why the Office file format is such a complicated bloated mess of a "standard". Since nobody else can do it "right" everybody keeps picking MS office...

AussieWog93 4y ago
I wouldn't consider MS Office "entrenched" any more, at least for the under-30s crowd. Word has been largely replaced by Google Docs, and Excel is slowly being phased out in favour of far more powerful programming languages like Python and R (but is still definitely dominant; I bought an office key mainly for that one app). Outlook has been replaced by web-based services like Gmail. I remember being surprised when a couple of older people I was building computers for asked me to put Office on them. There was only one guy I knew from my generation who still used it.