Comment by fsflover
4 months ago
People have too many other problems in their life to spend efforts on every (important!) world problem. This is essentially a Maslow's pyramid. Unless it's also your hobby, you simply have no energy to spend on things which aren't immediately beneficial to you. This is not equivalent to not caring.
You seem to, as I do, care about open platforms and open software.
I think to difference here is, you need to believe people care. Meanwhile I know most don't.
The best I've ever gotten from people is economic self interest. "Free" without care for the ecosystem.
Beyond that? It's all posturing and signaling. I've had hundreds of clients, been involved at the community and government levels, worked to make OSS better for all.
And after 30 years it gets worse not better.
Even now, the biggest push is self interest, because "oh software not controlled by US corps?", from clients and government entities I work with.
Understand, I say this with immense sadness. And we must still strive. But for most of the world, simple is all they understand.
And OSS is a nuanced argument.
> The best I've ever gotten from people is economic self interest.
In the end, it all comes down to money, which is the measure of people's prosperity. It's sufficient to only care about it. I guess democracy itself also improves the prosperity of people in general.
Just heard "No taxation without representation" in my head, which is the US's big thing, especially during the revolution from the British Empire.
Can I seriously talk with you. I am in high school and I was so passionate about open source (I still am)
I wanted to make it better. I wanted to do my part. I thought about it for months, nobody else is there with whom I talk about it, and the people I do think I am a nerd or can't really go into the in-details of it.
I found HN to be the best way for discussing it, the problem is that I genuinely see this doomerism in open source that's eating me more and more.
I created an Ask HN to give a platform to all what I was thinking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45558430
I thought I would get some more discussions regarding the how we can change the fact that foss isn't used by most people part but it seems that they expect claps to made by one hand and expect everything to be done by developers for gratis once again and they expect to give nothing back... I didn't see many discussions about donating to foss software or smth in there.
My biggest question to you right now is: how are you so hopeful right now as well?
> Understand, I say this with immense sadness. And we must still strive. But for most of the world, simple is all they understand.
I tried to be hopeful and I feel strayed away from my purpose, disillusioned,helpless,feeling doomer/ that nothing can truly fix open source... I have tried to change myself for the better yet I still feel like I will deeply involve myself in foss atleast or atleast share it still as well.
I genuinely want to ask you what brings you hope in there. Idk my hope for the longest time was the history of how things changed for the better but I still don't feel better. I have to trust people for real change and my idea of population at a large scale is a little pessimistic nowadays.
I genuinely want to talk to you if that's alright with ya. I don't know what I am feeling about open source but its so mixed. Feeling like I can't really give it what it really needs (donations/support from general public), the best I can try is advocate in my friend circles I suppose but that's about it. I don't know but I just feel like there is so little that I can do & I wanted to try/ I tried but the whole world is giving me signals to shut up about it, even here.
somebody said to me to don't talk but show and I appreciate it but all I want to is talk to somebody about how I am feeling about open source, all these loads of thoughts I am caring and sharing in different comments. I just want to talk about open source and find hope about it otherwise I am seeing to lose hope in humanity itself. Hope is tiring. I tried. Which is why I am asking why you still have hope. Have you not been tired stranger? Have you not doubted yourself thinking if open source isn't a fight worth fighting for when you realize that substancial change mightn't be done by yourself & you feel sad about it though, it hurts me actively knowing that there is sometimes nothing can be done, how do you still have hope sir, i don't get it. I also want hope but I am not finding any, I am drowned in a pool of sadness/this inner feeling that this shit might not change and we are stuck here and things might only get worse but nobody's fighting hard for it to get better. How do you still have hope sir. I want to know. please either write a comment and contact me on my mail or signal (anything) or maybe both.
Thank you and have a nice day.
> I didn't see many discussions about donating to foss software or smth in there.
There are many ways to help FLOSS with donation. Apart from directly donating to projects you're passionate about (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24527846)
fsflover and I have somewhat agreed, self interest is definitely a way.
And to be truthful, why would you use a specific ... anything? A pen to a car, you're going to use, or buy, what's best for you.
Where fsflover and I disagree, is whether the average person cares about OSS. Or business. Or if they can even be made to care. As per above, we both agree that they can be made to care because of cost. And for a business, being able to fix OSS if needed, hack it, is also about cost in another way.
But caring about cost, isn't the same as caring about the ecosystem. Caring about cost is a "right now", immediate concern. Caring about the future of an ecosystem? That's "the future", and unimportant to many.
Let's look at it another way...
Can you make the average person care deeply about privacy? If they really cared, wouldn't they be screaming about tracking in their car? Well I guarantee you they could not. I tried, because every car I buy? I disable the antenna and ground it via a resistor, so it cannot phone home. I also ensure I can still use the rest of the system (such as bluetooth to my phone) before I buy.
And that means research. And over the last 20 years, that research on multiple car forums and reddit went like this:
* 20 years ago -> "Haha you're paranoid, what a moron"
* 10 years ago -> "What does it matter, and you have a phone, who cares! Idiot!"
* 5 years ago -> (Announcements that car manufacturers were selling speed/accel data to insurance companies, and people's insurance were being affected)
Instant "OMG" from everyone, and anger suddenly.
It's not like any of this was a surprise to privacy advocates. We've known about being tracked, and it affecting what you pay for things. We know about how tracking is used to bubble-you in the real world, in terms of news and information. We know of negatives like the above.
But unless it slaps someone in the face with money, or personal danger, they don't care.
The people and the car incident? The ones that 20 years ago, 10, 5 mocked and thought it silly? Hands down, they still don't care about privacy. Instead, they just want to make it illegal for car manufacturers to sell that data to insurance companies.
They care about that one case.
But they do care. Short-term.
Yet one thing I bet that fsflover and I agree upon, is that we have a hope with some developers. And the more developers that care, the more robust the ecosystem, and therefore, the more new devs entering this world for the first time?
May see what you've seen.
So I'd say, while it's great to talk about this to friends and family? Or to advocate in other ways? Getting DEVs on board, especially young ones, is probably the most powerful lever.
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