I watch the forum every week, but I hardly ever see any good news.
Merely an expression of regret, not a condemnation of anything.
It really feels like the government has a gun pointed our heads.
the situation is not very good really
Yes. We know.
Spreading awareness of the bad things is whatâs most likely to drive change in behavior in people which should also ideally lead to demanding everyoneâs representatives in the government to do better and make the right decisions.
Both government and big techâ Iâd say. Governments only seem to strengthen the duopoly and even when they do chastise them itâs only for the kind of money they can write off as an âoperating costâ. Meanwhile they are forcing alternative OS providers into a corner that they may well never be able to get out of.
For me linux has to be the long term answer purely because big tech is so dependent upon it in a similar way that we are on Android, making them just as vulnerable as we are using AOSP. Linux powers almost every aspect of our lives both in the real world and the cloud world. Itâs unstoppable! What was once described as an IT âcancerâ by the then time MS CEO is now being adopted by his successor for integration into their own products.
When you think about it the only thing that is holding it back in the mobile market is the lack of application software but theoretically thereâs nothing that can be done on a phone that cannot be done, or at least emulated, on a PC.
Itâs just a matter of time and resources.
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Absolutely.
Governments themselves canât break the rules of their constitution or the countryâs founding charter or the equivalent rule book. So they use private companies as a proxy to bypass those restrictions to then restrict their populous. The hypocrisy is wild.
Extremism in political and economic ideologies to further a particular agenda is the root cause. The exploitation, disregard, apathy, and recklessness with which both governments and corporations they enable act is whatâs killing civil liberties and personal freedoms.
Revolutions in the past when modern warfare tech was not a thing were different and more possible and likely to succeed. But today, such things may as well be science fiction in the Western world.
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So true! The trivial penalties they occasionally impose on big tech are just a means to hoodwink the public into believing that they are fighting to maintain their freedoms.
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Itâs sad that the vast majority are simply busy working all day everyday to make ends meet to learn about these issues and the big picture problems in the short, medium, or the long term it will cause and only affect those who are the vast majority because they simply do not have the time (or the means) to do learn and do anything about these issues. The catch-22 is also wild here.
I mean, rationally speaking, Iâd say the middle eastern countries have a better âsystemâ. They outright âbanâ or âoutlawâ privacy tech but individuals can atleast bypass stuff themselves to get on the open web. The idiocy of the West with age verification and chat control is next level stupidity. At this point, Iâd rather have such things banned (and have the underground market grow) and people bypass stuff themselves than have to be forced to go through the technical, social, and economic disaster and damage these things are likely going to cause soon enough. And then thereâs no coming back or reversing anything.
Itâs a wild world. I can hardly believe what I read everyday.
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There is some good news that has relevance to this problem in that after seeing the sanctions placed on Russia whereby all of the big three (MS, G, and Apple) have been forced to suspend support for their products and services along with the targeting of RF troops using appleâs location data. Many foreign governments are questioning their reliance on US techâ. In the EU too where Trumpâs recent changes of policy along with tariffs imposed has scared governments into adopting a domestically supported open source policy toward their internal IT requirements. Germany has already started by replacing MS with Linux and are also looking for domestic software providers for their own communications requirements.
There is an awful lack of international trust in the geopolitical world at the moment that can only benefit Linux and therefore Linux users.
The thin silver line, if you really want to see it- yes (after all that damage and corruption (for personal monetary gain)).
True but I feel itâs more likely to result in everyone finding reliable alternatives instead of relying upon big techâs now fully enshittified tools and services.
Changing nation state software infrastructure and itâs relevant dependencies is no joke. It takes a long time up-to a decade (depending on the country if done right and fast enough (to fully ween themselves off of big tech).
Itâs like this - I donât want Linux to necessarily win, I just want big tech to lose hard. Of course, Linux âlosingâ here will still grow enough for the entire tech community to consider it a âwinâ if alternatives are adopted. So I guess you can still consider Linux winning. Depends on how you see it.
Linux has already won and both ios and gandroid are proof of that, but assuming we are both referring to âLinuxâ in itâs native state whereby it is free to be developed by those who use it, then itâs always going to take a much longer period of time to come to fruition without the resources and the billions of R&D $$$$ the big three have to throw at it.
If desktop Linux can fix the majority of its fragmentation issue with software and have it work like a FOSS project but be run with a lot more full time folks as a sane tech company - the issue even at large can be fixed with personal computing.
Thereâs so much to say here but the solutions I feel already exist. We just lack the money (at first) to make it right and have it continue before we can also start breaking even in the desktop Linux space if the issues are fixed.
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I agree. For it to become a reality it would require a âglobalâ linux strategy in terms of adopting the one path that we all could get behind. I donât have a problem paying the developers either so long as the end product remains open source and not in the hands of a fourth big tech outfit. The fragmentation and dilution of limited resources amongst the AOSP OS providers has already proved that choice, although nice for users, isnât always the best way forward.
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I agree. But the constant and continuous need to perpetually grow inevitably always enshittifies products. Software or otherwise.
Like I implied earlier, the extremism of any one ideology is always going to be the issue. Extremism in general is inherently incompatible with a consistent quality of life and improvements. The need and want to chase every single dollar and cent even after being worth trillions is what I cannot fathom. You are not creating things people like using, youâre just being a slave to an ideology.
I donât want to be seen or heard as an anti-capitalist. I am not. All I mean is that there should be a limit and balance that should be followed to keep letting the golden goose lay the egg. Right now, itâs being poked and prodded injected with steroids to keep forcing it to lay and lay bigger golden eggs. This wonât lead to anything good. I guarantee it. And I say this pragmatically speaking independent of even wanting to be tied to any ideology myself.
This is leading to a more different discussion if we keep thinking and trying to figure out the root causes of whatâs happening and why and what it would take to do the right things if we want to keep having the good things in life (and software).
We are going seriously off topic so I will leave my contribution at this. Thereâs nothing wrong with growth per se, in fact many within our community would say we are desperate for more of it. The difference is that so long as the end product remains truly open source there will always be users both willing and able to deshittify to the benefit of the whole community. Think Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium. It doesnât get more âdeshittifiedâ than that.
(I didnât want to edit my comment).
To add to what I said, I guess in other words, I am more for slower and consistent growth thatâs sustainable than the every increasing move fast and break things mindset SV has yet to let go.
Deliberate, intentional, rational, pragmatic, and well thought out decision making by companies is what we need. And to the extent of business only. The companies should not venture into places where they do not know much about trying to influence something in which they are not experts that inevitably leads to a force in the change of narratives in said places.
The absolute and disgusting recklessness by tech companies with disregard for how it affects many other areas of society is whatâs terrible.
I agree with you but I am also trying to point out that for what youâre saying to happen, the business model needs to change and for that to change, the economic priorities with which a company runs and functions also need to change to reflect their operations accordingly. And for that to happen, it would require atleast a tangential deviation but a deviation nonetheless of the economic ideology with which at-least the US is propped up currently.
And thatâs why I said all that I said even if it meant going off topic in this off topic thread. I was more speaking from a big picture POV.
Google are primarily what is referred to as a âgovernment actorâ in the geopolitical world. How else do you think they can get away with the monopolistic trading for all these years and despite the recent judicial enquiry, hasnât been forced to sell off any of itâs subsidiaries.
I mean.. that was how the judge saw it. We clearly disagree but the government could only do what it can, a lot late though. The judge and the government should not be conflated as being one here (at-least until it can be proven that the judge was compromised.. which you know, who knows ever with anything or any case).
But yeah, categorization of the big tech as proxy government actors is fair and has been for a long time now.
Wouldnât consider the first post any bad news
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There are quite a few wins here. Just from the top of my mind:
- Chat Control has been defeated (again) in the EU. Just because it will be proposed here does not mean you should stop thinking about itâŚbut a win is a win
- Firefox, despite its weird shift to implement AI, will be requiring data collection disclosures for extensions
- The iPhone 17 finally has MTE, and Android phones with the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 are projected to support it as well. When combined with the fact phone OEMs are generally supporting their devices longer, the average person should be more protected against targeted spyware in the next few years.
- Speaking of Android, Graphene OS is set to support another device next year. It may be possible to fully degoogle yourself once that happens
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