Comment by bikelang

I think people wildly underestimate how expensive skilled software development, leadership and especially design is (considering even Apple can't apparently find good designers).

The price of renting a billboard isn't going to cover more than a week's worth of those people's fees. Billboard-induced shame has actually much more chance of succeeding.

There's no relief in open source. I've watched Ubuntu and Gnome copy some of Apple and Microsoft's worst ideas over the last 20 years and somehow put an even worse spin on them. I fully expect to see "Gnome 52 - Liquid Sugar" or something in a couple of years.

I guess you're not thinking like a marketer/product person (and I don't claim to be one either, at least not anywhere skilled), but your proposed ad shows exactly what's wrong with the Linux mentality and why it didn't go anywhere with consumers and won't go anywhere until this changes.

The ad should show something people want, not vague promises of being their customer or personal computing (a term essentially unknown by the new generations). Show something the new machine can do that the competition can't - built-in adblocker, cross-compatibility with Mac and Windows apps via VMs/rented servers, etc.

It's hard to realize things when you're in an echo chamber.

It's also hard to measure the quantity and genuineness of bitching online because people complain about everything and there's an inherent incentive online to complain to bring in ad revenue regardless of how genuine it is.

But it's a direct and unmistakeable sign (to you and your peers and colleagues) when someone paid actual money to rent a billboard just to remind you how much you fucked up.