Ask HN: Why are *most* people not interested in FOSS/OSS and can we change that
I had discussed this on here for like 7-8 days ago but I can't get to know the reason why. I have thought about it for hours, thinking I have finally understood the reason why, but it seems that the only thing I know is that I know nothing.
My question is simple. Why are people uneducated about foss and how to really change that.
I have thought about what might be the best way to spread the word about foss and it seems that the best way is via advocating things like f-droid and linux mate/flatpak/ making things so simple that there is no reason why not.
Yet then I think that the reason why people are still not interested is that it becomes too boring.
Am I really in control if all my moves are being tracked. I am not sure. Do people not know this?
I want to raise awareness about oss since its something I am passionate about. Yet I can't seem to know how. I feel heard talking about these issues, its so easy convincing people sometimes to use signal yet they still don't have it. Its mixed bag.
I feel like my generation has left me a lot more too, we have stopped even questioning it and we are all so polarized by algorithms tracking us all.
I feel like in a world of such polarization, using open source can help to slowly raise awareness about it so that we can then move away from extreme privacy invasise ragebaits inducing algorithms to something better, so that then we can lessen our senses and stop with oh its the end of all and nothing matters nihilism or yeah who cares kind of idea.
Sometimes I feel like my ideas don't matter, maybe you could say things like youtube are a mic for people like my ideas but its not. I don't want to create any lore about me, I just want to tell people about stupid simple foss things like f-droid and leave in my opinion so that I could then work on/help other pressing issues in open source.
People also feel entitled to good quality open source software, like if that's what you expect, either be so kind to thank the developer and kindly ask them an solution or join their community and kindly ask there or maybe donate to them/contribute to it yourselves. I see people who are entitled and its :/
I thank every open source developer, its like something so elegant to me, we can have forks and so many other things and we all learn from each other and its sometimes refreshing. Yet it saddens me that it doesn't receive donations, that people don't use it, that people feel entitled sometimes asking for a feature.
This rabbit hole is so deep but if we want to share it with the masses, then we need to discuss the priorities of what to share and what not to for begineers. We need a genuine wiki to get started into the open source lifestyle. I don't know how I started, maybe by just using linux and then searching for any software and writing alternativeto X open source something and so many other things...
Awesome-privacy helped me out a ton in the beginning as well. I actually read it whole and privacyguides.net and so many others, there are so many good guides yet they still don't get attention.
So should people create another guide to split the attention even more or should they actually redirect attention to lists which we might discuss is good enough for everyone. I have so many questions.
We can have better things and that gives me hope. But the problem is that, it doesn't require myself to change but the world in the process a little as well and that confuses me.
Do I have the power to change the world in this direction or not? Do any one of us have it? I feel small in this system yet I know giving hope would be mixed too. I don't want to be sad for something out of my control, but that is the question, is this thing out of our control or not? I feel like I don't know its answer. I just don't know which is why I am asking here. But I still want to be hopeful y'know.
Have a nice day and looking forward to each and every one of your comments!
People care about what they already care about / already want.
Most people don't care about open source for its own sake.
Find the things they already care about where open source gives them more of what they already want, with less effort.
Don't try and convince them to care about it, just find things they already care about where the open source version is genuinely better (from their perspective, not yours). Promote it on the merits they already care about (speed, cost, UX), not on the fact that it's open source (only people who already care about open source care about that).
Why should I as an end user care about open source software? I wake up in the morning, get on my iPhone that synced all of its data to iCloud so if it falls in the river tomorrow, I pick up another one and keep moving.
I talk to my wife about our budget while we are making changes on our individual phones that are synced in real time on Google Sheets.
I walk over to my home office and open my MacBook Pro with 16 hours battery life that runs silent. I put on my AirPods Pro that magically pair to all six of my devices and switch between them.
I log onto Slack to check the various groups and then use Zoom and Gong that transcribes and summarizes the call using an LLM. I then might use Google’s NotebookLM to consolidate all of the transcripts and documentation to summarize and to ask questions.
True I use VSCode that might be open source and has some propriety bits. I then launch Docker Desktop and start doing some coding depending on the day of the week along with some type of AI coding assistant.
Of course there are all of the SaaS apps that I use during the day - Salesforce, Notion, GSuite, Rippling (a YC company), etc.
Tell me how is open source going to make my life better where I am not using it?
Of course I know Node, Python, the underpinnings of MacOS etc are open source.
I am “educated on open source”. Why would I want to make my life harder or why would a company want to make their life harder by caring about a philosophy? My goal and the company I work for want to make their life as easy as possible.
None of what you said is a convincing argument.
> Why should I as an end user care about open source software?
Every Stallman's essay explains practical reasons for that. For example, with FLOSS tools, you are protected from enshittification (see numerous topics here about the software quality crisis of Apple and Microsoft).
Stallman doesn’t exactly make reasonable arguments that appeal to most people and his lifestyle based on his belief system is laughable.
And when most consumers look at open source alternatives to commercial software and hardware they are already “shitty”.
Are you really going to say that you would hand an open source product to most users and hand them a product by Apple or Microsoft and they would say the open source alternative is “better” for them?
Your empty accusations of Stallman aren't helpful to the discussion. What exactly do you find unclear or laughable? Perhaps you didn't understand that. I did.
> Are you really going to say that you would hand an open source product to most users and hand them a product by Apple or Microsoft and they would say the open source alternative is “better” for them?
This is exactly what happened when I replaced Windows with Debian for my non-technical relatives.
He uses software and hardware that doesn’t have the qualities that most people want.
Now give your relatives FDroid over their iPhones and Android devices and see which one they would prefer. Give them an M series MacBook Air that runs quiet and cool with a battery life of 15+ hours.
Wait until they want to run Photoshop, Office or any of the other popular commercial software and you show them Gimp or LibreOffice. Or their children want to play the latest PC game with their friends.
> He uses software and hardware that doesn’t have the qualities that most people want.
This is true, and by design: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45025116
> Now give your relatives FDroid over their iPhones and Android devices and see which one they would prefer. Give them an M series MacBook Air that runs quiet and cool with a battery life of 15+ hours.
Supporting freedom requires some compromises. Any improvement in quality of life for the people can only come with huge efforts. Some people aren't able to spend these efforts due to the personal problems. It doesn't mean they don't care.
And you still haven’t said how it would improve their lives?
In the same way any kind of freedom improves people's lives: Indirectly, in subtle ways yet dramatically. Examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45569667 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45557185
Yes so we should optimize for the insignificant number of people who want to use FDroid outside of your bubble?
What do you mean by "optimize"? It's already optimized just fine.
This is a great question but let’s reverse it: why should they care?
I don’t mean they shouldn’t, but you have to start there.
Consider the things people care about: friends, family, finances, their career, health, hobbies, their local amenities, the avoidance of hassle and, for some, living according to a set of ideals.
Why should they care? What does open source give you?
Hey, appreciate your response! Now, my hn post was actually longer than 4000 and that's why I had to trim otherwise I would've had maybe explained the question but I will try to write a short answer in here.
> Why should they care? What does open source give you?
Open source gives people complete freedom, the freedom that a software can run for posterity, can be modified towards your liking, and the most important thing which I failed to mention: peace of mind
Most open source software can be run with peace of mind. No subscriptions. No update that enshittens it. If it works and you like it, its yours. No spying on you. No showing you ads which will try to radicalize you or sell you some scammy course as an example. Its just there... saying hi to you, saying how's your day, oh you want to use me, fine, how can I help you today.
And it expects nothing back in return. Its just there waiting to be used.
People should care because of this, for peace of mind. its almost always worth it in my opinion. I genuinely think that although I didn't mention but even small steps like using f-droid and then transitioning to linux to then transition to mastodon/bluesky as an example can definitely help reducing the reliance on algorithms as well, it can stop spying on us via using things like signal.
I'd recommend you to check out the clippy movement by louis rousman. I sort of resonate with the same statement and I agree with the right to repair as well, sure I am not much of a hardware tinkering person but the fact that I can go to a mechanic who can repair easily or have an ability to learn it myself via repair friendly systems is always nice to have and I agree with that thing too. I hope that the clippy movement can sort of bring both the things together which I think it already does.
Clippy movement is great actually & explains the reason why people should care, but I have also tried to give some of my own rationale behind it as well.
Personally, the reason I got into open source was because of privacy. I started learning more and more about privacy and uh, the final straw on the camel's back for me was when I learnt valorant was installed kernel level and there's no way you can 100% guarantee its removed without deleting the whole system.
Downloaded linux and kind of never moved back and got into a rabbit hole. (The only time I used windows was in a vm/winboat app to run a tool which could root my phone but that company's otp server didn't work or anything and so my phone can't be rooted but yeah:<)
I like linux but I think that there are so many low hanging fruits like f-droid and signal that people don't even use them man. I would talk about linux/cli tools then when people show the initiative of having f-droid/signal. I think that we need to first educate people about these tools because they are genuinely better than their alternatives and just so good that its almost always worth it to have them on your phone/systems
> Open source gives people complete freedom, the freedom that a software can run for posterity, can be modified towards your liking, and the most important thing which I failed to mention: peace of mind
And why should users care about their “software running in prosperity”? How many are modifying open source software? “Peace of mind” comes from knowing that if something goes wrong they have company to call on. They aren’t going to be modifying the Linux kernel to debug an issue.
To a first approximation, no one would choose the relatively crappy experience of fdroid over standard Android or iOS.
> How many are modifying open source software?
This is irrelevant. Few people repair their cars themselves, but its possibility alone creates a free, competitive market, where consumer can choose a reasonable service. With proprietary software, you have an artificial monopoly: Only the original vendor can fix things, and they choose any price they wish. Or they choose to abandon the software complrtely, then you're out of luck.
So because of open source code there isn’t a duopoly when it comes to phones that anyone cares about, operating systems, etc?
Neither Microsoft or Apple are staying up late at night concerning themselves with Linux or is Apple and Google staying up late worried about Fdroid.
In fact, there are more Linux VMs running on Azure than Windows VMs. Every large tech company supports open source to a certain degree to “commoditize their complements” or to get a foot in where they aren’t competitive.
Is there a “reasonable service” that is open source for any of the major cloud providers? ChatGPT? The various AI assisted coding products? Hell even JetBrains products?
> So because of open source code there isn’t a duopoly
Neither iOS, nor Andoid are open-source. GNU/Linux phones provide the opportunity I'm talking about.
Most AI models aren't open-source but open-weight.
> Every large tech company supports open source to a certain degree to “commoditize their complements” or to get a foot in where they aren’t competitive.
And they keep as much closed as possible to achieve that. Imagine their software would be licensed as AGPL.
And no one to a first approximation cares as consumers and companies aren’t worried about strategies about how to compete with open source - they have all co opted them to increase their profits.
The whole argument is why should people care about open source and what can one do to make them want open source alternatives that are worse in every way that they care about? Make better products that have the features and ease of use that people come to expect in 2025.
No other profession expects people to desire to work for free and most open source software has most of its major contributors as corporate backed. The AGPL is the least “free” license compared to something like the BSD license they gives people the ability to do anything they want with the code.
I see people on HN constantly trying to excuse the shittiness of products like phones running FDroid and Framework laptops compared to the better alternatives
> Make better products that have the features and ease of use that people come to expect in 2025.
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-wiki/-/wikis/F...
> The AGPL is the least “free” license compared to something like the BSD license they gives people the ability to do anything they want with the code.
AGPL is the license forcing the code to be open forever. It's the most free license, unlike BSD, which allows closing it and turning into proprietary software.
Free as in “user freedom” to do whatever the user wants. What type of Orwellian doublespeak is calling the AGPL that forces an ideology on the user “freedom”?
BSD provides more freedom to developers. (A)GPL provides a guarantee to users that the code will stay free forever.
Users don’t care about the code - developers do. The original code is free for developers and users. Which AGPL code do 99% of users care about?
> Users don’t care about the code - developers do.
This is false, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45571842
> The original code is free for developers and users.
But the modified code may not be.
hmm… I don’t think you’re tying this closely enough to your average person on the street and their daily life. I mean I get your point but it’s very abstract. If you want to convince people, identify a problem they are having. “Peace of mind” only works if they don’t already have that.
This '1984' Apple ad shows how Freedom is Slavery to the average Joe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
The original reading is that the bad guys are IBM and people who make you type on the command line and learn assembly language and such but if you roll it up to 2025 maybe the bad guys are the drones who have the latest iPhone and iPad and iWatch and AirPods and iPad Pro and Macbook and Mac Studio and Vision Pro and the real liberators write AVR8 assembly for the Arduino.
And BigBro is Torvalds, Linux kernel devs belong to the Inner Party, Rust is Newspeak etc.. (reality >> fiction in some sense)
We've always been at war with Cupertino
Most developers like source code but most people have no use for it.
Most people expect something else from software --- like support and at least a reasonable prospect of continuity and stability in exchange for their investment.
And yes, most people look at software as an investment. Time must be invested even if money is not.
The most vocal part of the opensource community tries to sell opensource as an ideology and that that ideology is correct; the sales pitch is "your ideology is wrong." Most people are perfectly happy with their ideology and are not looking for a new one, certainly not looking to be told it is wrong and insulted.
The community (which is often part of the sales pitch) is a minefield to navigate, you have to put in the time to understand the ideology or face its wrath. The general drama of OSS. Most people have enough drama in their life and find ads and sitting on hold with tech support to be preferable.
OSS puts very little effort into trying to understand what most people want from their software and just keeps trying to offer free alternatives which are more about ideology instead of the software needs of most people.
The community just does not make a good impression on most people so they don't pursue it. With most people I have long since learned to be careful about how I talk about OSS because most people have someone in their life who has been trying to convert them for years and that is what OSS has become to them, that friend or coworker or family member they are very patient with. If you want to change people you have to be willing to be changed by them.
> Most people have enough drama in their life and find ads and sitting on hold with tech support to be preferable.
What if I told ya that facebook allegedly detected when teen girls deleted selfies so it could serve them beauty ads.
Did you know that? Do most population know how deeply privacy invasive ads are.
Yes, we might be vocal about it but that's because we care. We care enough for the world to not want it to be a privacy nightmare dystopia and we are advocating it in ways we can take action in. There are people on the political side of things too which are taking action on stronger regulation but I deeply think that politics is so bundled with corruption all across the world that instead of us relying on politics to fix these companies, we need to use open source/stop watching closed algorithmic things and use things like mastodon to slowly get more normal so that we can then discuss things and fix politics/politicians to remove corruption.
How can we do this if the world has created a divide between two parties all across the world and its only fueled by the proprietory algorithmic worlds? How can people care about it if they can't even care about open source in general. I think that if people care about open source/privacy it can be gateway to a better future for us all & this is why we share it.
> If you want to change people you have to be willing to be changed by them.
Like, okay but we change people through logic and reasoning and discussion. Everyone gets changed by a good discussion, you take in more perspectives, I took from this conversation that open source is a chicken and egg problem. People want good UI/UX and support but how many people donate to open source so that either it can get to that state or just have more people willing to open source instead of making yet another saas... not many
Now, that being said, we can reason about things, maybe I can convince you, maybe not.
I just believe this notion to be a little anti-scientific really in the sense, that the mere idea of me wanting to change them shouldn't make me change myself, but that I am always willing to be changed if they can provide reason but from a bird's eye view, I am pretty comfortable that my logic doesn't have much gaps, I have thought about it for atleast a month straight. But I am more than willing to correct myself but the way you word it makes me feel like you want me to change more than be willing to change yourself as well and you might feel the same for me but we are both so convinced by two different realities that we live in. But if you put that aside and genuinely just want a discussion, not wanting to change me or change you but this notion of should we even change people or how can we change people, I am more than willing to discuss. And also maybe change isn't that bad after all :)
> How can we do this if the world has created a divide between two parties all across the world and its only fueled by the proprietory algorithmic worlds
You really think the world wasn’t divided before the internet and Facebook? My still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow south where they were literally and legally separated because of the color of their skin. Society has always been tribal.
Open source software often isn’t preinstalled, may not work flawlessly with many hardware configurations, in general hard to install, often lacks a GUI, has poor UX and UI, and high cognitive load. Also no marketing. They will be interested when open source devs would prioritize these, but it won't happen
Okay. I agree.
Now I for one like that it doesn't have a gui. I can script with it/tinker it with more.
But lets for the sake of general population agree that yes, most people want a good gui.
So lets go to the operating system that general population has. Android.
Now they can install termux and then go be one of us but then again not gui/cognitive load.
So there is f-droid. Also, its not that hard finding some genuinely cool foss stuff
I wanted a pdf reader on android and I searched open source pdf editor and tried 2-3 and some had poor UX and UI but then I found MJPdf (as an example) https://github.com/mudlej/mj_pdf/ and I found it to be the most superior UI/UX I have seen for a pdf editor.
Same goes for my browser. Zen-browser has the best UI/UX for browser based system. Its just so cool. I love it with Ublock origin.
I can give you some software I can personally vouch for the good UI/UX and compile a list but would that really matter?
I just thought of this idea, also another idea for a good gui is that its kind of hard and requires a language like dart/kotlin which I am not familiar with/ don't actively like (I haven't tried them)
I want to make good android apps in golang but I know I sort of can't make it or its a bunch of hacks/(not worth it?) but there are apps which do that too.
Also I am not sure how you can have marketing for open source apps when the devs sometimes if the app is a service run them at a loss financially and invest their time into it. If we can't expect donations to be made to them, I don't think we can expect this as well, can we?
The incentives system for foss is broken imo but I am not sure how changing it can happen.
The moment you say Linux you immediately eliminate 97% of the population.
When you add f-droid (like that's a completely normal way of naming things) you pretty much ensure that 97% starts thinking about anything else.
I get it, you like OSS. I like it to. But for 97% of people its just completely irrelevant. None of your "advantages" matters to 97% of people.
Let's leave aside for the moment that pretty much all (with a few notable exceptions), OSS software compares terribly to commercial software. Lets ignore that Support for OSS software is pretty bad.
The biggest reason you can't convince anyone to use OSS is because you clearly believe OSS is good. When an objective person, 97% of whom have never seen a command line interface, or actually installed ANY OS ever take one look and see a big pile of pre-fan supplements.
I say this as someone who makes use of OSS software every day. There is outstanding OSS software available. I could list many great nuggets.
Categorizing software as good or bad based on the license is probably the least useful way to do it. All licenses, commercial or open, cover software that's mostly rubbish, with occasional good offerings. You may as well evangelize red cars as being better than blue cars.
So yeah, stop selling the "license". Nobody cares about the license. If you like Postgres then evangelize that. The license is completely irrelevant.
> So yeah, stop selling the "license". Nobody cares about the license. If you like Postgres then evangelize that. The license is completely irrelevant.
People care about the license because if the license is, let's say source available and a commercial license on the side, then the problem is that the software stops being permanent and relies on that company.
Why so? Because if the company let's say enshittens the project in one version, and the community starts using the last version that wasn't enshittened, they inevitably lose out on bug fixes / qol updates etc.
now you might say that people should fork it. But nobody really likes forking a repository with source available license either because of the license or because the company itself would benefit more from the code updates that they write and use it themselves or sell their version as well due to the commerical offerings or the dev's would simply be less willing to due to all of such things.
I am not a license purist. I like https://anticapitalist.software/ (Acap license) the most, its because I don't like some commercial usage which would've just taken my labour for it is and not donate to me if I write some software
In general, the ACSL is a good match for software that would have otherwise been permissively licensed under MIT, ISC, or BSD but with restrictions against corporate usage. Here is an excerpt from ACSL:
The ACSL is right for you if you want your code to empower students, artists, hobbyists, collectives, cooperatives and nonprofits to survive under capitalism while not contributing free labor to corporations.
The ACSL is right for you if you reject the status quo, believe better things are possible, and want to act on your beliefs.
The ACSL is right for you if you carry a new world in your heart, and in your code.
That being said, I don't mind licenses that much, source available can be fine too for a peace of mind at-least. If there is any source available license which requires a one time license or something,I think its okay. So I am not sure how somebody is selling the license. The license is a little important, but the battle is against proprietory vs source-code available. The battle is between complete black box vs something you can look inside and have peace of mind.
>> People care about the license
The % of people who could name a license (any license at all) is a rounding error from 0. Imagine just about anywhere outside SV, say Nashville, Tennessee. Imagine going into a supermarket there and asking 100 (or 1000) moms, workers, shoppers, kids to name a license. Imagine visiting every worker in every shop in the mall. How many do you think could even tell you what software they use?
So yeah. A rounding error of people care. And the programmers among them will wax lyrical on the 4 freedoms, and why source available is not as good as MIT which is not as good as GPL etc.
99.9% of people doing see "look inside" as worth anything. Unless you have a very special set of skills, it's a meaningless proposition.
I think trust has a lot to do with it. People might be annoyed about Microsoft pushing OneDrive, streaming service price hikes, or YouTube showing more ads, but they still largely trust Big Tech companies and brands enough to keep using them.
Or maybe they've tried software that was primarily marketed as open source, but because it didn't support some obscure thing, they believe that anything open source is useless.
Yes but something like signal or f-droid just works. I get it. Some open source might be inferior to others because of lack of donation etc. but that doesn't mean that we should basket all of open source because of it.
I think that we should expose more people to the idea of open source through something easier/practical like signal/f-droid/flatpak as I had mentioned in the comment.
Yes it was a little overwhelming in the start for me as well but its soo worth it imo. You feel comfortable with technology of sorts once you go all in, knowing you can always change things to your liking and you have the uttermost freedom, that is truly... liberating.
The true freedom in this day and age. I always appreciated the idea of freedom, the freedom of doing a job that you might like (financial freedom) etc..
I’m not interested in any software, open source or otherwise.
I have to use software to do the things I want to do. I pick an option that’s good enough, use it, and go about my day.
Fiddling with and thinking about software isn’t a hobby I want any part of.
It feels like you’re asking why people don’t care about their forks and spoons. It’s the food they care about!
There is very little danger of your fork advertising you, or your spoon selling your data to the highest bidder. Using non-free software involves a ton of trust in the companies that produce them. Using free software without auditing it also involves trust, but less (because at least it's possible to audit!)
> Do I have the power to change the world in this direction or not?
No, but you can make a tiny change by helping just a couple people switch to FLOSS tools. The ocean consists of drops; the actual change happens after thousands of tiny changes like that. Keep up the great work.
Might sound elitist but the average person isn’t curious enough to figure this stuff out, and above all else they’re lazy. If it’s not a one click install and does something better than what they’re using, why would they switch?
The average person is fine giving up their data and time in exchange for entertainment and convenience. Free software is good but it comes at the cost of time, you have to learn and be at least semi-competent with a terminal and/or Linux to truly use most FOSS stuff and it’s just beyond the average person. They either don’t have the interest, or don’t have the capability to learn it and for all intents and purposes those are fundamentally equivalent.
Honestly, nothing “bad” has happened to most people as a result of data harvesting. The Equifax breach got a ton of people, including hardcore privacy nerds. There’s just some stuff you can’t turn off to participate in modern society.
There are millions of things in the world today that I’m not “curious” about. I’m sure a car mechanic could wonder why people aren’t interested in rebuilding a motor or a construction worker would wonder why people aren’t interested in doing their own major renovations - actually no they wouldn’t.
Only geeks seem to elevate a computer to some type of religious thing that should be more than just a tool. This is coming from someone who started coding in assembly in the 6th grade in 1986.
But in the year of our lord 2025 at 51, the computer and technology is just an enablement tool for me to accomplish something else or a means for me to trade my labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. I have a dozen things I would rather be doing after I get off of work than futz around with technology.
100% agree that most people aren't curious about it.
but still, that is why I mentioned some priorities in sharing open source. If I share some niche golang/rust tool, I am sure most people wouldn't care but if I share something like f-droid/signal. I feel like that can help out a lot of people instead.
The result of data harvesting is not a breach. but the whole system that it is right now, for all such data harvesting imo, the most common fraction seems to be hate which gets the most engagement which is why to me most social media feels hateful off the start and why its linked to some of the issues we have right now. Its definitely escalated.
There are some genuine problems in economies all around the world yet if those nations leaders try to scapegoat, trying to create a us vs them, its not a good fix and shit might break and we would all be too invested in watching yt shorts.
What I am advocating with foss is also federation/curated social media with no algorithms but that is the step two imo. The step one to mass adoption for such things might be to have people more familiar/comfortable with open source.
Overall, we need to fight on both fronts if we want change. Both algorithmic and open source apps based. Some open source apps are predatory, they will charge you recurring and hope you forget. Some cheap/quickly built games which can be open source for android for all purposes aren't open source right now and they exploit children's lack of financial knowledge in that sense(scams of sorts).
I think people will create 10$ subscriptions to a local text editor in this world. I just wish instead of people spending those 10$ there or somewhere else, why can't we donate to open source as a society so that the software can be more complete/helpful to even more people and so on and so on...
What are your thoughts?
A lot of of OSS is subpar or even terrible and end users have low tolerance for this kind of stuff.
GIMP is a great example. For decades anyone asking about "open-source Photoshop" would be redirected to GIMP even though GIMP is nowhere near as good as Photoshop. Years pass and some simple things that are a no-brainer in Photoshop are still a nightmare to do in GIMP. Text stroke is one of such examples, there's no easy way to do it with GIMP and the method you can see online looks bad and can't be easily changed afterwards. Why? Or something as simple as picking a size of a brush - why is selecting small sizes such a pain while selecting gigantic brushes that hardly anyone uses is not? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Desktop Linux is an another example. It's always presented as an alternative to Windows (or even better than Windows) and when someone tries it out and it doesn't work for them the end user gets blamed for using the wrong distribution, having wrong hardware, not being able to solve issues right away despite being a beginner or even hit with the legendary "works on my machine". It's always the user who is in the wrong and never the software.
All of this gives OSS a bad name. There are always a bunch of small, annoying problems that affects end users and which often go unfixed for years. Whenever one of these end users brings up these problems they either get told to use a bizarre workaround or get a snarky response about submitting a PR or something. This kind of contempt towards the end user seems to be surprisingly common in OSS circles.
I don't think this is fixable. It would require the OSS community as a whole to change and this will never happen.