Comment by Imustaskforhelp
15 hours ago
Mobile is the battleground but you are forgetting how damn easy it is on android (atleast right now before google's attestation) it is to install f-droid and then install open source.
People don't even do that. They don't even search for software on f-droid first and try the UI. Nope they go to play store and search software which is going to advocate for closed software because ads/review buying...
You really have to expect something from the general populus as well imo. Maybe they don't know about f-droid but people say to me its not about knowledge but rather caring, they don't care and I don't know wtf to say to that.
It's a very weird chicken and egg problem.
Within the mobile space there are other possible Schwerpunkte and appstoretech is the most obvious one to work on. It's also one where superior technology could win out over feelings--> why NLNet wants to fund:
https://nlnet.nl/mobifree/eligibility/
>‘decentralized app stores’, a technology that uses the F-Droid app store architecture, for organizations or other entities that wish to distribute their apps to a select user population (e.g. employees), plus an app distribution system that makes it simple and cost-effective for developers to distribute their applications to multiple app stores.
For mixed approaches, I like to think about why Google et al haven't beaten Apple at the appstore game (outside China)
You mention chicken and egg which suggests that there's a 2-sided-market type of problem to try to solve here even if one isn't well-versed in marketing
When I mean the chicken and egg problem I mean this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45565346
Basically that people expect a lot from open source yet they want it right now but nobody mentions anything about donating to them or they will donate to it once the software gets a lot of features but the software will only get it if you donate to them in the first place imo otherwise the whole situation would feel entitled.
There is no reason to expect good UI/UX from open source when at scale, the society doesn't fund open source with donations at all. They are severely underfunded but I don't know what people want from them. Nobody cares about it. Oof.
This is a chicken and egg problem that open source can get really good if people donate to the creators but they will only donate (I doubt that actually as well now) once it gets good but ... it will only get good once they donate.
Open source is stuck in this chicken and egg problem. I was thinking about how the creators of deltarune/ undertale if they were open source, I just checked and undertale has made 114 million $ in sales and its price is 10$ which might be worth it...
10$ isn't that bad and people still pirate it, I think this model can be decent for games which is why people don't open source games. Imagine the amount of money that could've lost if lets say undertale was open source. I am pretty damn sure that nobody would've donated 114 million $ to them if it was open source.
Just some thoughts. I have mixed opinion now. Its a chicken and egg problem and actively hurts the devs financially in the process as well and people don't want anything to do with open source aside from us people who already know about it. Like wtf. We are taking a cut for a ideology and uh I am just a bit speechless. Its messed up & my question is: can we change it? I genuinely didn't want to be pessimistic but I don't think that there is much of a way, is there? I want to find some hope to cling upon but I genuinely can't find any hope. Everyone I talk to is so down right pessimist or nihilist or doesn't care about open source for a fix that I feel like I am in the wrong for looking for ways to change and now I genuinely doubt if change is even possible.
NLNet (backed by EU) is a society that also funds opensource dev by donations
https://nlnet.nl/donating/
They should get more wellknown
Judging by the lack of upvotes and nondisclosure of how much they get, my guess is that 99% of people have for some reason conflicted feelings about funding opensource even from taxes
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