Similar vibe, but I think 'marxism' is not the only conclusion from realising how much megacorps control our world. I'm more of a left-anarchist myself :U
But can someone explain to me why these free computer programs are the best built, most functional, money saving, quality of life improving programs I’ve ever used? Leaving dark patterns behind has my quality of life so much better.
Turns out pure profit incentive only goes so far in incentivising "quality products and services", and after a while it becomes literally mandatory to be an asshole in order to continue following the profit.
Even paid Libre projects (of which there are a couple) tend to be less dickish than their blackbox cousins, after all, if they were chasing maximum profit and infinite growth, they wouldn't be a libre project now would they?
Corporations have the need to continuously add features in order to keep selling their product. So the outcome is more often than not, buggy and resource hungry software. In contrast FOSS doesn't have the need to add features for the sake of it, so only the genuinely useful features are implemented, usually.
i think it's because they are made by someone that actually uses them in contrast to som of the software from large companies that need to make money and don't give two hoots about usability
Most of these are created and maintained by people who are just like you and me and care about freedom and privacy. I think open source projects really reflects the "humanity" aspect of human civilization, it sounds a bit odd, but when you think about it, there is very less incentive for normal people to contribute to the open source. It is the frustration from dark patterns that give people some motivation to support and contribute to open source. This is atleast how I see it and why I so strongly support the FOSS cause, other people may view it differently but to me it reflects on humanity.
Mine was Inkscape, back in the early days of the MLP fandom, when I learned I could make show-accurate art using this entirely free computer program. Which lead to using it to make like, memes and shitposts and stuff for fandom shit.
Like I'd used free software before -- But seeing Inkscape in action and then, a year later, getting into college for design-related stuff and learning that people used Adobe Illustrator (which costs a fortune) for the same things was my 'oh cool, my free thing can do most if not all the stuff this expensive tool can'
'Twas GIMP for me. I use it all the time for work (not graphical design, just basic business engineering stuff like annotating photos for figures in documents and such). The companies are too stingy for Photoshop for a person in my position and I refuse to turn in janky MS Paint markups.
One company IT tech that I requested an install for GIMP on the computer said that I was the only one using it in the entire company (5000 people). I was like, what, how do you all annotate figures and whatnot. Just a shrug in response, leading me to think it's MS Paint.
mine started with valve. just hearing about them making contributions to stuff like wine or proton for free at first, then getting my hands on a steam deck and being introduced to Linux for the first time, and it was all downhill from there
Redirector did it for me. The I found out about libredirect and started using alternative front ends for everything. from there I switched over to Linux and that's all she wrote
I was lucky because my dad has always been a linux user so I've been using open source software since my first computer. I'm now in college for computer science and I don't think I would be if I hadn't been exposed to so much good open source software
Mine was taking up software development as a kid. "I made a cool program that solves a particular problem I'm having. I wonder if others might also want it." Not much later I discovered the concept of FOSS.
For me it was because I had a super old computer, and Windows refused to run smoothly on it. So I installed Xubuntu, and it ran better than most computers ran on Windows.
VLC almost did it for me until I found XBMC (now named Kodi). Which wasn't as stable as VLC but had better features and was multiplatform too so from there I decided to give Linux a try after windows borked my pc since i only wanted xbmc hooked up to a tv.
It’s crazy to me that at this point. I feel like purchasing an app for $79.00 for a lifetime license feels emotionally like a FOSS. It’s “free after a one time fee” - that marketing could practically work on me at this point. But since lifetime licenses are disappearing left and right, FOSS is the only future for continued development
I was happy to buy (the very proprietary, very commercial) Magix Vegas. Why?
Because gasp. It had an option where I paid them money and I just. Had the application. No yearly subscription, no log in every time I turn on the programme.
Just. A one-time activation. Holy shit. I use it for my work and woooooowww.