I'm hoping what's next is:

"With mobile and social media platforms having finished their market expansion, and their product categories having settled, privacy-respecting open source alternatives catch up in functionality and usability. Anti-trust and regulation to enforce privacy and interoperability ensure these new entrants get a chance in the market, and consumers have a real chance to escape the clutches of the behemoths"

Tall order? Sure - but all progress starts with a dream.

I'm not sure social media platforms will ever settle. I have already seen one round of proprietary IM networks being toppled and replaced with Jabber. Only for some evil bastard to apply a EEE strategy to Jabber and actually succeed, so we end up in the current situation of yet another round of proprietary IM networks.

It is also not a matter of "catching up in functionality and usability". It will never catch up. Proprietary networks can build on top of free ones, but not viceversa. Also, every pseudo-feature introduced by a proprietary network soon becomes mission-critical (e.g. people will say free network X is not "up to the task" because one cannot easily send animated cat pictures with it, in the same way IRC suddenly became "not up to the task").

In summary, it is absurd to wait until free networks "catch up". They will never "catch up", for some users definition of "functionality and usability", and network effects will take care of the rest of users. The only way this works is if users are willing to actually prioritize free-ness and to actually trade off some features to gain it. Boycott closed networks, even.

But that will never happen.

My mom was never going to use IRC. But she DOES use iMessages.

> apply a EEE strategy to Jabber and actually succeed

You talking about Google killing its Jabber compliance?

There's more than one. Google, Whatsapp, Apple for starters. All of these 3 started from an XMPP server and then fenced it.

The problem is they have enormous budgets for promotion and marketing, and they already own multiple direct channels. And the inertia effect is enormous - people simply don't like to change their habits without a very good reason. So the decisive factor is for people to understand they already have a good reason. I don't think this understanding is something mainstream yet though.

understanding isn't mainstream

so, yeah, inertia is certainly a factor, but the staggering level of tech incompetence among the masses is also a likely factor.

Will happen the year linux starts dominating desktop.

I've been promised that for 20 years, and waiting for 27. I'm willing to see whether or not Linux ever really "desktops".

It's starting to dominate mobile already!

Android != linux anymore than iOS == BSD. Both have open source kernels but all the stuff that matters on both OS's is closed source. As long as there is money to be made on selling computing devices open source will ALWAYS be at a big enough disadvantage that it can't catch up. Simply because Apple, Google, Microsoft etc.... can take the ideas from open source and build it into it's OS's but Linux can't. I'd personally love if Open Source ruled the consumer market but that's not going to happen.

I am not speaking about Android. I also did not say "started" but "starting". Here are the GNU/Linux phones with constantly increasing number of sales (but still tiny of course):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone

I love Open Source but I can't ever see them competing with Apple or Google. Literally billions of devices out in the world tied to services that are critical to everyday live. I think this war is already lost.

Please stop spreading learned helplessness. I see a lot of people don't like both Apple and Google, so GNU/Linux phones will definitely spread significantly.

I'm not spreading anything, if you think a lot of people don't like Apple and Google enough to consider linux phones that are objectively less useful then you live in a tech bubble. The VAST majority of people just want their phone to text, show google maps, browse Facebook, and shop Amazon on the apps they know and are used to. It's unlikely in the Extreme that we will see mass migration to Linux. That's not helplessness, I can and have run linux as my main desktop at various times for the last 20 years. It's simply not as good as the commercial alternatives. It's just reality.

> if you think a lot of people don't like Apple and Google enough to consider linux phones that are objectively less useful

I think that Linux phones are going to be very useful very quickly given huge interest of the community and openness of the platform.

Isn't it insignificant in mobile?

Linux dominating mobile should not be about Android using the Linux kernel underneath the scenes...

I'm just going to issue a prediction that as long as "recompiling components of the OS" remains a satisfactory answer to a technical problem on linux subreddits, this will never, ever happen.

This is an absurd remark, yet often made.

Whenever a solution to a technical problem is "recompile components of the OS", this means the answer to the same problem in a "non-linux"/non-free system would be "piss and moan and bend over and take it up the tail pipe". aka: no solution whatsoever. The developer's way or the highway.

The point is: once your problem is complicated enough that your only resort is to edit the software, free software _at least_ gives you the chance to do that. It's no wonder people actually suggest doing it. Proprietary software does not. It's no wonder people _don't_ suggest doing it.

If it was supposed to be a complain, better rephrase it.

> Whenever a solution to a technical problem is "recompile components of the OS", this means the answer to the same problem in a "non-linux"/non-free system

The kicker being that such problems are so rare as to be functionally nonexistent, and even in such cases, usually contacting the vendor can at least give you some options. A few anecdotes from my own experiences:

1) Windows\MacOS have never simply refused to use a network card, for no apparent reason.

2) MacOS has never destroyed it's own bootloader because it was Tuesday and it was bored: Windows did it once, but it was repaired automatically by the recovery partition.

3) Windows\MacOS have never refused to play audio after resuming from standby until rebooted.

> The point is: once your problem is complicated enough that your only resort is to edit the software, free software _at least_ gives you the chance to do that

But conversely, I don't have to edit software I paid for that's built on a reliable, if imperfect, OS. A reboot fixes almost anything wrong with Windows, and sure, I'd appreciate it if it could be like linux and stretch it's uptime into years, but also, a reboot takes less time than a run for coffee.

That a solution technically exists is less important than the accessibility of the solution.

> That a solution technically exists is less important than the accessibility of the solution.

No, it's not, and I really want to emphasize that. If the alternative is _no solution_ then the accessibility of the solution is a rather moot point. That is the point I was trying to make.

What you want to say is that it does not matter if free software makes it _possible_ to solve your problems, because (you claim) you don't have these problems with proprietary software, or (you claim) you have a simpler solution available for those that is only applicable to the proprietary software.

I am not going to enter that particular discussion. I just wanted to point out how it is absurd to simply claim that "as long as people keep recommending recompiling stuff open source won't work" when actually A) people recommend it _because you can actually do it_ , unlike alternatives B) being able to recompile stuff is actually a major if not the main strength of free software, so it is a strange argument to point it as a negative.

> I just wanted to point out how it is absurd to simply claim that "as long as people keep recommending recompiling stuff open source won't work" when actually A) people recommend it _because you can actually do it_ , unlike alternatives B) being able to recompile stuff is actually a major if not the main strength of free software, so it is a strange argument to point it as a negative.

And my reply to that is, in the context of mainstreaming Linux to the wider computer using audience, that's ridiculous. You might as well tell every person who owns a car to never pay for repairs again, because you can, via the proper hardware, reprogram the ECM. That "solution" applies only to an interested subculture of (awesome) people who hack shit.

To say to my aunt Doris that Ubuntu can be better for her to use than Windows and then require her to learn a fair bit of bash script and C# to complete that journey is ridiculous.

> You might as well tell every person who owns a car to never pay for repairs again, because you can, via the proper hardware, reprogram the ECM.

No one, absolutely no one is saying that (specially the part about "never pay for repairs again" -- another common nonsense).

What I am saying is that between a otherwise-identical non-reprogrammable ECM and a reprogrammable ECM, the objectively better choice is the reprogrammable ECM. Because even if you don't know how to do it, you at least have the choice to let someone else do it. It doesn't matter if you personally do or don't understand how to reprogram ECMs. The choice is still clear.

> my aunt Doris that Ubuntu can be better for her to use than Windows and then require her to learn a fair bit of bash script and C# to complete that journey is ridiculous.

Your aunt Doris doesn't have to learn C#. But she _has_ the option to, she has the option to follow the instructions from someone she apparently read on the Internet (what motivated this discussion, I thought), AND she has the option to convince/hire someone to do it for her. When your aunt Doris hits the same issue with Windows, .... she's stuck! Better luck with Apple!

I suggest that if you have any interest whatsoever in free software, spend some time to understand this aspect, because it can and does reframe the discussion. If you remove the free part from "free software", what remains is basically just software; the same as any other piece of software, a rotting bug-laden piece of shit. Why deny this feature?

>2) MacOS has never destroyed it's own bootloader because it was Tuesday and it was bored: Windows did it once, but it was repaired automatically by the recovery partition.

Must have been one hell of a hangover from that Mardi Gras ball.

Unfortunately, given today's new story[1], it doesn't look like at least one Open Source vendor is taking the "privacy-respecting" high road.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26114194

They already do that.

Google has been paying Apple $8-12 billion per year to be the default iOS search engine. In more realistic terms, it's payment for Apple not to create their own search engine.

Which part of the quote do you think applies here? Are they eating each other or colluding? It seems to me like they're collaborating to make users safe and private. I don't see how this positively or negatively affects either company (don't think Google cares about the IP address of users querying safe browsing).

Well they’ve already done that, so this isn’t next it’s the past, which will continue to repeat itself. Big Tech companies will probably start behaving more and more like oil companies.

Isn’t Apple selling the default search spot to Google already collusion to prevent entrance of new competitors?

Here's an implication of your collusion comment. If a default spot is sold to an organisation with highest market share, it is collusion. Can you imagine scenarios in which this implication wouldn't be true?

It's not just an organization with the highest market share. It's an organization that has the only competing web browser and mobile platform. Apple and Google collude because it gives them 100% control over mobile and the web.

Not in any possible interpretation of the situation...

For one, the user can change the default search spot.

Second, selling it doesn't have any difference that having it just be Google (without money changing hands)

Third, why did some upcoming challenger overbid Google for that spot and they were rejected?

Your first point was already clarly rebutted by the EU in the Internet Explorer case.

No it wasn't, that was Microsoft defaulting to it's own browser. Using it's market dominance to give another of it's products an unfair advantage. If Apple made a search engine and defaulted to that engine it would be the same. Exactly how Google does on Android. That should fall under the exact same area as IE did.

Yes, and they have a long history of colluding, including artificially suppressing engineering salaries.

https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsu...

Why would you collude when you have shared incentives? Capital is perfectly capable of shutting out smaller competitors without it, and in fact we've seen this for decades now.

Only explicit collusion would be new there. The big tech companies have been strangling any particularly strong looking startup in the cradle through acquisition for years now.

Explicit collusion wouldn't even be new. They've been doing it for a long time to keep salaries down:

https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsu...

What gives you the impression that Apple is trying to eat Google here? For all you know, it could've been a collaborative project between Apple and Google.