I hear this negativity so much. And I am so sympathetic to the users. What is the current opportunity for them? Nearly nothing. They might learn one system or

I hear this negativity so much. And I am so sympathetic to the users. What is the current opportunity for them? Nearly nothing. They might learn one system or another that can empower them. But the rest of computing is still like Philip K Dick's semi-proverbial Black Iron Prison. Maybe they can get off the wall in Plato's Cave for an hour & see a nice little tour around, but they'll spend the rest of their adult lives immiserated & chained back on the wall regardless. I think people are very hungry for a better outlook with computing & e-social (which are so intertwined). Subconsciously they know the effort isn't worth the squeeze. Rejecting the premise of empowerment is actually just a value judgement, and a somewhat shrewd one. The technics have to change first. The hobbyists, governments, research institutes need to drive forward some new malleable systems that actually get some inertia & growth & promise behind them. We need some users who spend the majority of their time not-chained up, who happily do most of their computing in the free. Computing needs a solid place to go, a worthwhile form of existence, before we can ask to attract people. I stand with the banner mission of Malleable Systems Collective, a quote by J. C. R. Licklider, from Some Reflections on Early History (1986): > The user wants open software, software that can be modified, and that can participate in a progressive improvement process. https://malleable.systems/ https://malleable.systems/ But right now users have no where to turn to. This experience is unattainable, except on very small scales, and only after immense & painful toil. It's too early to tell what users want, because right now, there's hardly any choice. What choice there is comes with extreme sacrifice, is either disconnected & isolated alternative apps that offer little relative advantage & no interconnectivity, or difficult to host online services requiring dedication & committed-resources to try (YunoHost being perhaps the shiningest meta-attempt we could suggest https://yunohost.org/ https://yunohost.org/).