Twitter has only lost ~10% of it's userbase after repeatedly abusing its own users. Reddit probably less. After everything we've learned about Meta, tens of millions of people signed up on day 1 to join their new service, Threads. Google Chrome still has like 80% market share.
Changing is honestly a trivial ask, but we won't, because no one cares.
It's not that no one cares, per se. We just live in a society where the majority of working adults are fucking exhausted. They have bills to pay, uncertain job security, seemingly constant climate crises/natural disasters in many geolocations (e.g. Canada and US West Coast wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.), hyper polarized partisanship in many countries (yeah, it isn't unique to the US), and on and on. That Google, Microsoft, or Amazon own the internet is such a low priority to the much more immediate, life threatening/living security concerns of the majority of people.
I care, but I also understand why many people do not.
Man, I would love to run a Linux box and still be able to run the like 4 programs I use my computer for, but I don't have any interest in running an OS I have to build and make work. I got Redhat working once (feels like a million years ago) and I am just not that interested in my PC anymore. It's a tool. I want it to work without any fiddling on my part. It has exactly 5 programs it ever has to run. I touch it on the weekends. Windows it is.
Linux today is plug and play in almost all areas. Off the top of my head the ones that have problems are creativity (no Adobe and also wacky color management, though it's getting a complete rework with Wayland setting it on par with macOS) and engineering (next to no support from big CADs).
In fact just yesterday I installed EAC so that I could play New World, and all I did was to install it straight from Steam before also installing the game from Steam.
LOL that makes zero sense. It takes 5 minutes to switch to a different browser or service. If they were tired or didn't have time, they wouldn't be spending it on Twitter and Reddit.
It's not really the time. It's more about the mental effort it takes to find out what to switch to.
Sure, it's easy to install Firefox or sign up for Lemmy once you know that it's there, but most people just have a sense that things suck with no idea of what they can do to fix it.
Finding out what to do to have a better experience takes a non-trivial amount of mental energy that scrolling reddit and instagram do not require.
The constant hustle, multiple jobs, or jobs with a high mental load, rising prices and stagnant wages all work together to create a lot of decision fatigue and stress. It often takes something major to get people out of that and get them active at changing things.
This just sounds like a bunch of non-sense, making up excuses for people making poor decisions. Like you can't blame every bad decision on "wahhhh life is hard!"
No, it's not excuses, it's just reality. It's hard. Does that mean people shouldn't try to do better and make things better? Of course not. Being better and doing better is hard, and we should do it anyway. That kind of personal growth is central to the human experience, or it ought to be.
The thing is, just because people aren't doing better in the area that you understand and care about doesn't mean that they aren't in other areas that you may not know about.
For example, someone who is stressed out and overburdened with work may be using all of their available energy to be a better parent and make sure that their child is raised in a healthy and emotionally stable home. If that doesn't leave room for people to support FOSS and privacy friendly browsers that's ok.
Just be the best human you can be every day and don't beat yourself (or others) up for not being perfect.
It takes 0 minutes of my limited spare time to use what already works. How someone chooses to use their corporate allotted time off is none of your fucking business anyway. Your username checks out for real.
It takes 0 minutes of my limited spare time to use what already works.
Uhhhh nope, it takes way less time than it does to simply continue using it. All the time you're using could be spent finding and switching to something else. It literally only takes a few minutes. Way more than people are actually spending on these other platforms. And if they're spending time on these platforms, they can't possibly avoid learning about competing platforms.
How someone chooses to use their corporate allotted time off is none of your fucking business anyway.
How an individual chooses to use their time is none of my concern. How millions of people choose to use their time directly impacts everyone else, myself included, so yes it abso-fucking-lutely is my business.
You realize all of that old shit is still possible today right? Static plain html still works. It loads quicker than ever. The only thing preventing it is the creators of the content. The masses on social media were never going to create that so having Twitter around doesn't change the possibilities. Get cracking.
I interpreted "we" as the general public. And yes, that was kind of my point. ActivityPub exists. NOSTR exists. Probably a dozen other decentralized social media protocols and services. And yet no one leaves the garbage-ass, bot-riddled, insanely-popular social platforms.
Sure we can but will we? No.
Twitter has only lost ~10% of it's userbase after repeatedly abusing its own users. Reddit probably less. After everything we've learned about Meta, tens of millions of people signed up on day 1 to join their new service, Threads. Google Chrome still has like 80% market share.
Changing is honestly a trivial ask, but we won't, because no one cares.
It's not that no one cares, per se. We just live in a society where the majority of working adults are fucking exhausted. They have bills to pay, uncertain job security, seemingly constant climate crises/natural disasters in many geolocations (e.g. Canada and US West Coast wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.), hyper polarized partisanship in many countries (yeah, it isn't unique to the US), and on and on. That Google, Microsoft, or Amazon own the internet is such a low priority to the much more immediate, life threatening/living security concerns of the majority of people.
I care, but I also understand why many people do not.
Man, I would love to run a Linux box and still be able to run the like 4 programs I use my computer for, but I don't have any interest in running an OS I have to build and make work. I got Redhat working once (feels like a million years ago) and I am just not that interested in my PC anymore. It's a tool. I want it to work without any fiddling on my part. It has exactly 5 programs it ever has to run. I touch it on the weekends. Windows it is.
This is me agreeing with you in every way.
Fwiw Linux is way easier today than it was a million years ago. Honestly I find it simpler to use than Windows.
It might be, but it still adds steps that I no longer have the patience for.
Linux today is plug and play in almost all areas. Off the top of my head the ones that have problems are creativity (no Adobe and also wacky color management, though it's getting a complete rework with Wayland setting it on par with macOS) and engineering (next to no support from big CADs).
VR and my guilty pleasure games that still use ridiculous anti-cheat are holding me back for now :(
Many/most anti cheats are on Linux now too.
In fact just yesterday I installed EAC so that I could play New World, and all I did was to install it straight from Steam before also installing the game from Steam.
LOL that makes zero sense. It takes 5 minutes to switch to a different browser or service. If they were tired or didn't have time, they wouldn't be spending it on Twitter and Reddit.
It's not really the time. It's more about the mental effort it takes to find out what to switch to.
Sure, it's easy to install Firefox or sign up for Lemmy once you know that it's there, but most people just have a sense that things suck with no idea of what they can do to fix it.
Finding out what to do to have a better experience takes a non-trivial amount of mental energy that scrolling reddit and instagram do not require.
The constant hustle, multiple jobs, or jobs with a high mental load, rising prices and stagnant wages all work together to create a lot of decision fatigue and stress. It often takes something major to get people out of that and get them active at changing things.
This just sounds like a bunch of non-sense, making up excuses for people making poor decisions. Like you can't blame every bad decision on "wahhhh life is hard!"
No, it's not excuses, it's just reality. It's hard. Does that mean people shouldn't try to do better and make things better? Of course not. Being better and doing better is hard, and we should do it anyway. That kind of personal growth is central to the human experience, or it ought to be.
The thing is, just because people aren't doing better in the area that you understand and care about doesn't mean that they aren't in other areas that you may not know about.
For example, someone who is stressed out and overburdened with work may be using all of their available energy to be a better parent and make sure that their child is raised in a healthy and emotionally stable home. If that doesn't leave room for people to support FOSS and privacy friendly browsers that's ok.
Just be the best human you can be every day and don't beat yourself (or others) up for not being perfect.
It's not hard. It isn't. Not even a little.
No one is talking about "supporting" FOSS. We're talking about using less exploitative software and services.
Spend 3 seconds Googling and install and use anything that's not Chrome. It's literally that simple. They just don't care.
It takes 0 minutes of my limited spare time to use what already works. How someone chooses to use their corporate allotted time off is none of your fucking business anyway. Your username checks out for real.
Uhhhh nope, it takes way less time than it does to simply continue using it. All the time you're using could be spent finding and switching to something else. It literally only takes a few minutes. Way more than people are actually spending on these other platforms. And if they're spending time on these platforms, they can't possibly avoid learning about competing platforms.
How an individual chooses to use their time is none of my concern. How millions of people choose to use their time directly impacts everyone else, myself included, so yes it abso-fucking-lutely is my business.
we can stop assuming people are dumb and accept that as you said people don't care nearly enough to stop using it
You realize all of that old shit is still possible today right? Static plain html still works. It loads quicker than ever. The only thing preventing it is the creators of the content. The masses on social media were never going to create that so having Twitter around doesn't change the possibilities. Get cracking.
The Fediverse is there, now.
I use Lemmy and Mastodon, on a daily basis.
I interpreted "we" as the general public. And yes, that was kind of my point. ActivityPub exists. NOSTR exists. Probably a dozen other decentralized social media protocols and services. And yet no one leaves the garbage-ass, bot-riddled, insanely-popular social platforms.
then why are you even here?
Sorry I don't understand the question?
why bother to respond to the comment if all you have to say is "all is lost"?
…why bother to respond to my comment? Why does anyone write comments? We're all here for discussion.
Nothing about what you wrote was a discussion, you stated for a fact that we would not do anything about it
That's incorrect