- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- technology@lemmy.ml
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The point, in one sentence:
If you are the product, not the paying customer, then not only is there no incentive to cater to your needs, there exists incentive to make the product worse for you if it means the paying customer extracts more from you.
Users of freemium software are basically nothing more than willing cattle. Housed and fed for free only to be slaughtered.
Maybe people just can’t help themselves? I fear we can’t have a fair and free market if people are so easily manipulated.
This is also true for open source software though, a lot of open source devs are mini dictators ruling over their own fiefdoms with an iron fist and they don’t care what the users, many of which have no coding ability, need or want.
Even those that do have some coding ability will be ignored if they try to change things upstream that the main devs don’t agree with, even if most users would welcome such a change.
true for open source software though, a lot of open source devs are mini dictators
When I ran my open source project, I was discerning as to what code I’d accept from people.
Does that make me a little dictator if I don’t want to then maintain shit code from someone who doesn’t know what a comma splice is, like above?
Sorry if you do code better than you write.
No, that isn’t really what I’m talking about.
Sure, code quality matters.
I’m talking about things like mastodon trying to push a certain outlook upon its users just because the main dev thinks they should be using it a certain way, and hating how people actually use it.
It’s funny how you resort to personal insults to me even though I have not really to you. It’s true there are a lot of punctuation rules I do not understand. However, I would point out that this is not an english test, so it doesn’t matter.
Well written! I’ve had a similar experience with a habit tracking app. I’ve once stopped using it and after getting back to it after a year or so, it was so much worse with so many new pay walled limitations. An open source habit tracker on the other hand stayed the same for years and was even improved further. If you’re inrerested: Loop Habit Tracker https://f-droid.org/packages/org.isoron.uhabits/
Sure but the same could be said and often is said for open source projects.
Open source devs often have a particular goal or vision in mind and will ignore any attempts to give the users what they actually want, either through issues or pull requests.
We’ve seen it so many times in open source projects, they love having that power over others and become mini dictators.
That’s a really weird way of framing a hobbyist who isn’t being paid using their free time to code what they feel like coding. It seems to me that people who show up and make demands about what someone else does are literally attempting to dictate how that person spends their time. Someone coding what they want, rather than coding what other people want them to code, is just… independent? Autonomous? Do you really think that someone spending their free time how they want to constitutes being a ‘mini dictator’?
It sounds to me like some end users like to have power over others and feel entitled to dictate how those who make the things they use spend their time.
Personally, my suggestion to people with that attitude would be that they learn to make what they want themselves rather than demanding that others do it.
… Or pay them for it!
There’s a prolific open-source dev that makes many plugins and themes for a widely-used OSS platform. He’s quite open when asked for new features of it’s something he’s already planning on doing anyway (with no guarantee timeline) or if it’s not. But if it’s a reasonable ask, he’ll always mention that he can prioritise its development if they fund it. He even posts his current contractor rate; it’s quite transparent.
I think more OSS devs should be more open like that. “Yes, I can do that feature request. Sounds like about 2-3 hours work. My hourly is $120 for correct work. Email me here if you’re interested and I’ll send a contract.”
With open source, you can fork the project.
It should be okay for an open source maintainer to say “no”.
Yes-ish, but some open source devs take it way too far and act against the interests of their userbase because they want to force users into particular behaviours even if the users have been up until that point happy with the way things worked.
There needs to be a way of tlking about this shitty behaviour without being told “just fork it” or “devs can just say no”. They bring too much of the bad parts of society into their work and act shittily and we are supposed to just accept that? There should be a way for non coders to usurp devs who do shit like that.
Also, no, we can’t fork it. We have no coding skills, we have tried but it just doesn’t work for us. “Just fork it” isn’t a valid response to bringing up legit problems with developers ioo.
