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It's still "free love". Open source can do so many things. Ad-supported sites are still ridiculously plentiful. Even audio and video is supported by ads. Th
by wccrawford 2y ago
It's still "free love". Open source can do so many things. Ad-supported sites are still ridiculously plentiful. Even audio and video is supported by ads. There are high-quality games with ridiculous amounts of content that are free.
Do people also charge money for things and make a living? Yup. That shouldn't be a surprise. And people shouldn't be painted as bad for wanting to make a living providing things that other people want.
- glimshe 2y agoNobody believes that a new AC unit or floor boards should be free. Yet some think that all software must be free, just because it's possible to losslessly copy software but not AC units or floor boards. A healthy society both needs a venue for people who want to provide things at no cost - the payment being the enjoyment of doing it when other sources of income exist - and for people to charge for the fruits of their labor.
- reaperman 2y agoIt’s not necessarily ideologically inconsistent if people believe they should primarily be paying for materials/consumables. I do think it makes sense that people should have to pay reasonable amounts for labor as well, but it’s unfortunate that there are very few options to both pay for something and have control over its source code and self-hosting and some of the trust in the long term that we have with free software.
- glimshe 2y agoThe main option right now for what you described is to contribute labor or money to open source projects, which many people do - but not nearly enough. The sad reality is that the vast majority of people, even well meaning ones, don't want to pay for things if they don't have to. And it is generally the case that if you are paying for something, you have a societally accepted moral standing to complain about it as a paying customer.