> ...While things aren't always great, it's still surprising to me how viable this alternative path is nowadays, especially when it feels like control over the

> ...While things aren't always great, it's still surprising to me how viable this alternative path is nowadays, especially when it feels like control over the software we use is getting taken away from us (for a variety of reasons)... You said it best right there! I've also been using open source alternatives for many, many years...and have plenty of scars to prove it...but nowadays the options are so great. I also admit, there's still room for improvement. Funny enough, i think Google Docs opened the opportunity for products like LibreOffice, etc. to make some headways...because people who have simpler use-cases see that the previously more limited features of an online tool like google docs served the user good enough (not great, just good enough)...that office productivity tools became less a strategically essential tool, with obvious exceptions for niche cases, or cases where someone is using an excel file as a full database when they should not. So, i think this gave products like Libreoffice a chance to catch up, and users with non-niche use cases felt that this offereing is good enough, though of course nowadays its so much better! As you rightly stated: "it's also great that we even have those options and alternatives"!!