@minoru @tejr @teek_eh@aus.social to serve people directly and fairly without exploiting them is the whole point, if you give up on that, might as well abandon it all. Next time you tell your friends to get something that runs free software, if not a smart tv get a mini pc and screw it to a monitor, then maybe quit your job to open a local business selling exactly that to people along with strong warranty and installation/tuning/maintenance service, then after giving it your best and going bankrupt you would maybe have the right to admit defeat. You wouldn't really do any of that of cource, you don't have the skills, you are trained by the monopolists to serve the monopolists who exploit people in markets they invented, you acquired all your experience and knowledge working in this industry with all of its pathologies. Even the isolated bubbles of FOSS are only beautiful in comparison to the monstrosity of the status quo, the barely existent quality standard of which they inevitably measure up to. What is left for you is to preach, so keep preaching until you come across the right ears, or until you are brave/desperate enough to make the leap from a respected expert in your field to a lowly merchant handicapped by conscience.
@tejr If anything that should encourage you, no? Sounds like a rather bright truth to me amid claims that FOSS has been tried and failed on all accounts, thus proven to have no viable business model. I don't see how you go from "nobody really tried it" to "it's impossible I give up".
@minoru @teek_eh@aus.social
@namark @minoru @teek_eh I think one of the darker truths of free software and perhaps politics in general is that organizing out of genuine personal commitment to a principled stance, especially something as abstract as software freedom, is far rarer than we want to admit to ourselves.