They have to because the capitalist imperative of infinite, progressive growth forces them to constantly seek out additional speculative avenues for profit. The potential for a valuable product (stock) is more valuable than a good product and is cheaper to produce than a good product.

It is important to note that you are also a product in a surveillance capitalist state thaf commodifies every second of your day. The speculative value on more profitable avenues to source and sell your data has more speculative value than anything your patronage would generate.

Wow, they really are just gonna make you kill them eh, for like, no good reason.

That was a major motivator behind my switch. If I had to fiddle anyway, might as well use something where the fiddling has more payoff. Also don’t want to whack-a-mole AI surveillance from a company close with the fascist regime.

I’m honestly more concerned with them misrepresenting its ease of use than anything else. I ran into a lot of guides and videos that wanted to make it seem more aporoachable so as to not discourage potential users that significantly downplayed the amount of extra work it would take to use Linux. Bash is typically sidelined if they’re promoting Mint or Zorin for example. I study humanities, but I have a good amount of experience with terminals and so learning a new CLI wasn’t s big deal, but I know that’d be a deal breaker for a lot of new users who would likely feel bamboozled by the insistance that it’s “just like Windows.”

Yes, I know there are queer people and women on Linux, it wouldn’t exist otherwise. Their use of it doesn’t explain why it’s so prominent on Lemmy though. Most evangelists are STEM men and I used the word “libertarian” very intentionally as most also would not consider the surveillance bad because of its danger to vulnerable groups but rather because of a discomfort with any challenge to private ownership. I do agree with them that the user experience is significantly better on Linux and that alone is a good reason to switch.

I agree, the ability to better control my visibility to an increasingly fascist state is a major benefit of Linux. With that in mind, I think it is very important for antifascists to practice internet sovereignty and build infrastructure that exists independently from the interests of capital.

I reckon a result of its reputation as an alternative to “mainstream” sites like Reddit, which is also a STEM-oriented gamer-nerd site disproportionately represented by men. So, tons of dudes on here use Linux professionally and are also of a libertarian mindset that is conducive to Linux evangelism on the basis of an ever-encroaching capitalist authoritarianism. edit: Also adding that I’m sure age is a factor in both the decision to leave other social media sites and a particular intolerance for the surveillant, bloated state of consumer PC’s at this point.

They’re not wrong, Linux is honestly the best route to a decent desktop experience now that Windows is caught in an AI deathloop and the Linux community is expansive enough to support casual users (I don’t care about Apple stuff, but the cost would detract from the experience certainly). I made the switch when it got to the point that Windows literally took more work to use on a daily basis because of how hostile it has become to the user.

Another good thing to point out. If you have the time to interact with those communities, it’s demonstrably populated primarily by bot-like content. Even more, moderation tends to be more opaque and aggressive against leftist comments or posts.

You sound so desperate for me to not block you dude.

Very important to point out with this that Reddit has gotten markedly more fascist in these past three years – which is saying something – even while there is inexplicably a large number of people who call it “left-leaning” on the platform itself. It is safe to say that a high amount of “user”-content is bots of some kind, and that platforms that have high numbers of bots tend to become more conservative and fascist.

“… I don’t feel superior to anyone… . … evoked some feeling of shame from you isn’t my problem.” You can’t even pretend to be an honest person without trying to suggest other people are less morally pure than you. This is not a simple life, it is a dishonest one. I will not be responding again, obviously. There’s no conversing with people who lie to themselves.

It’s difficult to read this and not feel less empathetic toward you. Such desperation to feel superior without any clear indication that you are invested in actually embodying a set of morals yourself.

If you care, you should take the time to explore inconvenient explanations for why this happens and refuse satisfaction with actionless answers.

This is a good question to ask. This person is not very critical of what they’ve said and is clearly satisfied with liberal (as in liberalism) explanations for people’s behaviour.

Their point is that people are just fundamentally bad and that is why these companies make profit despite an apparently universal condemnation of their actions. It’s shallow, inaccurate, and is only useful to feel morally superior to some imagined decadent group that they believe is the source of this problem.

I think it’s a bit self-indulgent to consider that this is big-brained or world-shattering to people. You’re just repeating the dominant explanation for why these companies can make profit despite their immorality, it isn’t challenging or new.

It’s important to make a distinction between liberals who strive for moral purity through performativity, and people who value human life by recognizing the inequalities in labour and material security under capitalism. Narratives that reproduce the idea that people are just fundamentally impure and can’t stick to their values only strengthens liberalism’s claim to morality.

“Secret cabal” as in capitalism and its imperatives sure, pretty out in the open though.

Yeah, turns out people don’t like surveillance against their will…

Almost like capitalism seeks to dominate every element of material life and the internet is dependent on its material infrastructure to function.