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I brought this up all the time I argued with co-workers I advocated for Open Source because I knew where this was headed and every time it played out the exact

I brought this up all the time I argued with co-workers I advocated for Open Source because I knew where this was headed and every time it played out the exact way this comic did. Now I just post a link to this comic in discussion about these kind of things. https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/

cwillu 21d ago
I hate that 2010 is 16 years ago
applfanboysbgon 21d ago
Open source caused this, as much as anything else did. When you demand that software is free, you kill the market for paid software, leaving only enshittified software to fill the void. This has the dual effect of being worse for both developers and consumers: significantly fewer developers can make a living outside of working for $EvilEnterprise, which have an easier time centralizing and monopolizing the market, and consumers are paying the developers working at $EvilEnterprise with their data and lack of ownership. This is the business model of free software. There was never going to be a world where all software developers worked for free as a hobby, never received compensation, and all software was truly free.
- smrq 21d ago
  I don't know how you can simultaneously believe that open source is prevalent enough to kill paid software but also non-existent enough that it doesn't itself fill the void it supposedly created.
  - applfanboysbgon 21d ago
    Because that void is filled by open-source software that, even if it is not itself enshittified, is controlled and funded by big tech. Take languages and compilers, for instance. It is almost[1] impossible to make a living developing languages and compiler software independently or as a small business. So how do compiler developers get paid? By receiving funding from Microsoft, Google, et al. C, C++, Rust, Go, JS, TS, C#, Java, Python are all owned by big tech, who fund them with their revenues from doing exactly the evil big tech things being decried here. Linux funding is the same story. Browser funding is the same story. So too for most open source 'success stories'. There are exceptions, like SQLite, but they are rare. To the extent exceptions exist, it's mostly due to B2B consulting and enterprise contracts, which is not a business model that works for consumer-facing software of any kind. [1] Zig is, I think, the only living counterexample.
- gustavus 21d ago
  Open Source never meant having to give your software away for free, it was always free as in speech. In that you could see the crap you got and change it if you wanted to. But you're right I'm sure that if there hadn't been the GCC there wouldn've been a ton of competing compilers. I'm sure that it was the existence of Apache that ruined computing and brought about the enshittification of the web not MS trying to force everyone to cater to IE and then Google doing the same with Chrome, it's all just because of that evil Open Source.
  - applfanboysbgon 21d ago
    > Open Source never meant having to give your software away for free, it was always free as in speech. Sure, sure. And how exactly is software not also free-as-in-beer when any consumer can just download it themselves? > if there hadn't been the GCC there wouldn've been a ton of competing compilers. As I already noted in reply to your sibling comment, which you conveniently chose to ignore, every single one of those competing compilers bar one is funded by big tech. You can count the number of compiler developers who make a living without being funded by big tech, in the entire world, on your hands. GCC development is itself supported by big tech. > Google doing the same with Chrome, it's all just because of that evil Open Source. Do you need to be reminded that Chromium is open-source software? There is no market for competition to Chrome because no browser developer could compete with "free". Firefox is open-source and also propped up by billions in Google funding. There are zero consumer-viable browsers that are not just a Chromium or Firefox reskin. You even brought up IE, which is an example of the exact principle I'm talking about. It wasn't open-source, but, same as open-source software, it was free, and this big tech-funded free software killed its paid competitor (Netscape). This was a huge deal at the time, enough for the US government to get involved in antitrust. Then MS got let off with a gentle warning, everybody shrugged their shoulders, developed amnesia, and decided actually it's great if we let 5 or so tech monopolies undercut all of their competitors with 'free' software and solidify complete control of the market.
    - Suzuran 19d ago
      Netscape died because we all hated it. Back when Apache didn't exist yet, we were forced to run Netscape's server. (Even if Apache did exist, we didn't have the $20K per-seat license fee for DEC's C compiler so we wouldn't have been able to compile it anyway). Netscape's license terms were such that we had to open our books to them. They would read through all of our transactions and decide how much we would have to pay them that term. If they saw transactions to a party they didn't like, they would charge us more. They had no competition in our space, so they could name their terms. There was no competition and they liked it that way. When Apache became available we switched to it out of spite.
- rcxdude 21d ago
  Eh, areas where there was and is still plenty of scope to just charge for a product have also been heavily enshittified, so I don't think you can lay much blame at open source for this.

cwillu 21d ago

I hate that 2010 is 16 years ago

applfanboysbgon 21d ago

Open source caused this, as much as anything else did. When you demand that software is free, you kill the market for paid software, leaving only enshittified software to fill the void. This has the dual effect of being worse for both developers and consumers: significantly fewer developers can make a living outside of working for $EvilEnterprise, which have an easier time centralizing and monopolizing the market, and consumers are paying the developers working at $EvilEnterprise with their data and lack of ownership. This is the business model of free software. There was never going to be a world where all software developers worked for free as a hobby, never received compensation, and all software was truly free.

smrq 21d ago
I don't know how you can simultaneously believe that open source is prevalent enough to kill paid software but also non-existent enough that it doesn't itself fill the void it supposedly created.
- applfanboysbgon 21d ago
  Because that void is filled by open-source software that, even if it is not itself enshittified, is controlled and funded by big tech. Take languages and compilers, for instance. It is almost[1] impossible to make a living developing languages and compiler software independently or as a small business. So how do compiler developers get paid? By receiving funding from Microsoft, Google, et al. C, C++, Rust, Go, JS, TS, C#, Java, Python are all owned by big tech, who fund them with their revenues from doing exactly the evil big tech things being decried here. Linux funding is the same story. Browser funding is the same story. So too for most open source 'success stories'. There are exceptions, like SQLite, but they are rare. To the extent exceptions exist, it's mostly due to B2B consulting and enterprise contracts, which is not a business model that works for consumer-facing software of any kind. [1] Zig is, I think, the only living counterexample.
gustavus 21d ago
Open Source never meant having to give your software away for free, it was always free as in speech. In that you could see the crap you got and change it if you wanted to. But you're right I'm sure that if there hadn't been the GCC there wouldn've been a ton of competing compilers. I'm sure that it was the existence of Apache that ruined computing and brought about the enshittification of the web not MS trying to force everyone to cater to IE and then Google doing the same with Chrome, it's all just because of that evil Open Source.
- applfanboysbgon 21d ago
  > Open Source never meant having to give your software away for free, it was always free as in speech. Sure, sure. And how exactly is software not also free-as-in-beer when any consumer can just download it themselves? > if there hadn't been the GCC there wouldn've been a ton of competing compilers. As I already noted in reply to your sibling comment, which you conveniently chose to ignore, every single one of those competing compilers bar one is funded by big tech. You can count the number of compiler developers who make a living without being funded by big tech, in the entire world, on your hands. GCC development is itself supported by big tech. > Google doing the same with Chrome, it's all just because of that evil Open Source. Do you need to be reminded that Chromium is open-source software? There is no market for competition to Chrome because no browser developer could compete with "free". Firefox is open-source and also propped up by billions in Google funding. There are zero consumer-viable browsers that are not just a Chromium or Firefox reskin. You even brought up IE, which is an example of the exact principle I'm talking about. It wasn't open-source, but, same as open-source software, it was free, and this big tech-funded free software killed its paid competitor (Netscape). This was a huge deal at the time, enough for the US government to get involved in antitrust. Then MS got let off with a gentle warning, everybody shrugged their shoulders, developed amnesia, and decided actually it's great if we let 5 or so tech monopolies undercut all of their competitors with 'free' software and solidify complete control of the market.
  - Suzuran 19d ago
    Netscape died because we all hated it. Back when Apache didn't exist yet, we were forced to run Netscape's server. (Even if Apache did exist, we didn't have the $20K per-seat license fee for DEC's C compiler so we wouldn't have been able to compile it anyway). Netscape's license terms were such that we had to open our books to them. They would read through all of our transactions and decide how much we would have to pay them that term. If they saw transactions to a party they didn't like, they would charge us more. They had no competition in our space, so they could name their terms. There was no competition and they liked it that way. When Apache became available we switched to it out of spite.
rcxdude 21d ago
Eh, areas where there was and is still plenty of scope to just charge for a product have also been heavily enshittified, so I don't think you can lay much blame at open source for this.