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Your assertion would be worth considering if any alternative had been given even 1/1000th the effort the prevailing corporate-run paradigm has been given. Confi

Your assertion would be worth considering if any alternative had been given even 1/1000th the effort the prevailing corporate-run paradigm has been given. Confident assertions we are where we are because this is what people want, when no alternative has been presented or tried, is ridiculous. Then you go on to assert that authoritarian control is the only viable option. Here we have counter examples! Systems like Pop!_OS are parallel efforts to desktop systems like mac or windows, not designed for masterful smart supernerds but just to ne viable desktops for all, without fiddling, with safe-enough defaults. It didnt take suborning users under corporate whip to get here. Windows & Mac also show general purpose computing is in the broad possible- would that phones have at least this much freedom. But they dont.

ryukafalz 4y ago
Right - you can't make conclusions that people's choices are the result of some revealed preference when there aren't viable alternatives readily available. I'm reminded also of our car-dominated cities in the US. In our current built environment, cycling isn't considered as an option by most because it doesn't feel safe. But cities around the world have shown that if you change the infrastructure such that it does, people will start cycling. The high car usage isn't a revealed preference, it's the result of a lack of other options. So too with tech. The only options typically available for smartphones are Android with Play Services and iOS, and while it's possible to have Android without Play Services, you won't find phones sold that way unless you're technical enough to know what to look for, in which case you can probably install it yourself. (And things break in weird and wonderful ways without Play Services, because much of what we now consider core functionality for a phone has been moved into it.) Effectively, for the typical user, it's not an option. Likewise with Linux desktops; they're more available than the phones mentioned above, but they're still not likely to be found where people typically buy laptops and desktops. You have to specifically go seeking them out, meaning the typical shopper doesn't even see them as an option.
themacguffinman 4y ago
Oh please, general purpose computing used to be all that was available, it used to be the mainstream. Mac, Windows, Linux, all of them are losing marketshare (or didn't have marketshare to begin with) and are locking down to match the UX of the newly favored mobile platforms. Even on mobile, you have locked down iOS vs open Android and what do consumers choose? Android used to be incredibly open and was badly losing to iOS (outside consumers who just couldn't afford it) as it was open to viruses and fragmentation. Google has since learned from that mistake. But there's always some other excuse. It's like communism, it's just never been tried, all those tries don't count because some aspect of reality got in the way. So what will it be this time? You don't like Google? Linux too hard to maintain? Say all the reasons that you consider way more important than general purpose computing and you'll have proved their point: users just don't want to. You know why companies put so much effort into locked down platforms? Because users pay them for it. Anyone, including you, is free to dump their effort into making general purpose computing great again, so why don't you do it? Say why you're not doing it back to yourself, it's the reason why no one else is.

ryukafalz 4y ago

Right - you can't make conclusions that people's choices are the result of some revealed preference when there aren't viable alternatives readily available. I'm reminded also of our car-dominated cities in the US. In our current built environment, cycling isn't considered as an option by most because it doesn't feel safe. But cities around the world have shown that if you change the infrastructure such that it does, people will start cycling. The high car usage isn't a revealed preference, it's the result of a lack of other options. So too with tech. The only options typically available for smartphones are Android with Play Services and iOS, and while it's possible to have Android without Play Services, you won't find phones sold that way unless you're technical enough to know what to look for, in which case you can probably install it yourself. (And things break in weird and wonderful ways without Play Services, because much of what we now consider core functionality for a phone has been moved into it.) Effectively, for the typical user, it's not an option. Likewise with Linux desktops; they're more available than the phones mentioned above, but they're still not likely to be found where people typically buy laptops and desktops. You have to specifically go seeking them out, meaning the typical shopper doesn't even see them as an option.

themacguffinman 4y ago

Oh please, general purpose computing used to be all that was available, it used to be the mainstream. Mac, Windows, Linux, all of them are losing marketshare (or didn't have marketshare to begin with) and are locking down to match the UX of the newly favored mobile platforms. Even on mobile, you have locked down iOS vs open Android and what do consumers choose? Android used to be incredibly open and was badly losing to iOS (outside consumers who just couldn't afford it) as it was open to viruses and fragmentation. Google has since learned from that mistake. But there's always some other excuse. It's like communism, it's just never been tried, all those tries don't count because some aspect of reality got in the way. So what will it be this time? You don't like Google? Linux too hard to maintain? Say all the reasons that you consider way more important than general purpose computing and you'll have proved their point: users just don't want to. You know why companies put so much effort into locked down platforms? Because users pay them for it. Anyone, including you, is free to dump their effort into making general purpose computing great again, so why don't you do it? Say why you're not doing it back to yourself, it's the reason why no one else is.