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  • mhoyemhoye@cosocial.ca
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:20 PM

    I think the biggest blind spot in FOSS is that for most people most of the time, computers aren't liberating or empowering at all, they're just in the way. They're an unwanted layer of complexity that's been forced into the gap between them and whatever they're trying to get done.

    We've had a chance to microdose on that experience with the proliferation of silly IoT widgets - wtf is this, why is there a computer here I'm trying to make toast - but IMO haven't really absorbed the core lesson.

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Replies

  • Lincoln Russelllinc@phpc.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:24 PM

    @mhoye I had a college roommate who simply put his computer in a box every summer and unboxed it again in the fall. He couldn't fathom why he'd use it when he didn't need it for school work, and this was just before smart phones.

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  • mhoyemhoye@cosocial.ca
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:30 PM

    @linc I'm going to guess that the difference between you and him was a community, right? You had a community on the far side of the computer and he didn't. For you it was a social conduit; for him, it was just a tool.

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  • richhrichh@cupoftea.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 10:37 PM

    @mhoye @linc Not OP, could have been. But people tinkered and built stuff with computers before they were networked or online communities existed.

    For some people, a computer is/was a jumped up word processor with email. If you aren’t writing papers or managing correspondence, you go off and hang out with friends or practice your hobby(ies) - sport, model UN, woodworking, model railroads, music. Whatevs. If you’re spending an evening building packages, that’s an evening not doing the thing you’re trying to achieve. The computer is obstructing you rather than enabling.

    There was a time when computers involved IRL clubs and gatherings. Still can with Maker Spaces, but computer clubs and user groups don’t really exist as such any more - certainly not the way they did in the 1970s or 80s.

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  • Michael BaconMichaelTBacon@social.coop
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:34 PM

    @mhoye

    +1 to this. I think the lesson from Apple and Android that FOSS keeps resolutely not learning is that when most people sit down at or pull out a computer, they're not thinking, "I want to do computer!" They're wanting to do something the computer is the means to.

    I think one of the core problems that underlies all of the tech enterprise is that computers can do lots and lots of things but making them do that well and consistently is very labor intensive. Figuring out some way to extract enough value (or fund with other efforts) to make those expenditures worthwhile is like 80% of the problem in trying to make a tech business work. The tech part is almost secondary once you figure that out.

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  • Walter van Holstwhvholst@eupolicy.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:36 PM

    @mhoye FOSS is by, and to a large extent also meant for, those who enjoy unraveling that complexity and bending it to their will.

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  • @dnlbrnds™dnlbrnds@social.coop
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:37 PM

    @mhoye This very demographic should grasp how technology's propagation occurred to capitalism's demand for a transparent, quantifiable playing field. "Stallman was right", meanwhile still the left wing of the military-industrial complex. @tante

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  • Deborah Preuss, pccdeborahh@cosocial.ca
    Jul 3, 2026, 1:47 PM

    @mhoye they're more than "in the way" now. They're a threat.

    I'm afraid to download some interesting #linux add-on to solve a problem … because I don't know if the app's been vetted by anyone I'd trust, whether it includes AIslop or malicious back-doors, whether it's funneling my usage stats - or, worse, my personal info - to some bad actor …

    I'm among those fearful of updates now.
    Quite a change: I enjoyed tech before, wrote & ran my websites. Now I'm just a retiree who wants safe computing.

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  • Owenowen@mastodon.transneptune.net
    Jul 3, 2026, 2:56 PM

    @mhoye This is a critique specific to, I think, one or two generations at most, but: most people did not first experience computers as a liberatory technology for self-exploration and improvement.

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  • mhoyemhoye@cosocial.ca
    Jul 3, 2026, 3:05 PM

    @owen That I think is what I want to resurrect somehow. Free/OSI approaches feel like a rear guard proxy metric, not the goal.

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  • Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.social
    Jul 3, 2026, 3:03 PM

    @mhoye I am an open source software developer and my major experience with computers is also the unwanted layer of friction! There was this concept of empowerment, but I guess we didn't stop anywhere along the way to evaluate who we were empowering.

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  • DavidM_yegDavidM_yeg@beige.party
    Jul 3, 2026, 4:03 PM

    @mhoye

    *Every * time* I get into my car, I curse the computer that has been forced into the gap between me and driving.

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  • Johanna, CanCon varietyjohannab@cosocial.ca
    Jul 3, 2026, 5:08 PM

    @mhoye That's exactly it.

    After ~ 35 years of tech support, which means, being the person who makes computer go for the user despite a frequent complete lack of design thought when it comes to HCI, I'm half-deaf from banging that drum.

    And in the Year of our FSM 2026, we have responded to that problem by downsizing tech support, not because we've solved all the UI/UX issues but because some billionaire is claiming we no longer need either because their "AI" will do it all in a friendly voice.

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  • koitakoita@rubber.social
    Jul 4, 2026, 7:49 PM

    @mhoye yeah, i use computers for things that need computers

    i shouldn't need a computer to make sausages to eat, or refrigerate my food

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