TC on open source evangelists

morrowind@lemmy.ml to Free and Open Source Software@beehaw.org – 270 points –

TechConnectify@mas.to - Oh my gosh I just figured it out.

Okay, all you open source evangelist people: your knee-jerk reaction to come at people who are talking about a problem with whatever commercial software they use and suggest Your Favorite Alternatives™ is exactly like saying "why don't you just buy a house?" to someone complaining about their landlord.

TechConnectify@mas.to - Actually, to borrow from @DoubleA, it's worse than that.

It's like talking to someone who is in a crappy apartment as though they have the agency and skills to stake out a plot of land and build their own home.

You have to be at peace with the fact that some people just want to exist and not worry about so many things. And they still have a right to complain about their situation.

Link to thread: https://mas.to/@TechConnectify/111539959265152243

215

You are viewing a single comment

I follow him on Mastodon, and I think many regular users misunderstand his specific problems. They're unique due to his huge number of followers, and I think that if we want Mastodon to grow, it wouldn't be a bad idea to include more tools for folks with large followings.

I think Mastodon conceptually doesn't care about big users. And they don't care about growing. Gargeon certainly has as many followers as anyone and certainly understands any associated problems.

That's fine, but we need to just admit that and stop trying to get the big users to stay by sheer force of will. Either give them the tools they need or accept that Mastodon isn't for them and that they'll go elsewhere. You can't have it both ways.

What I'm saying is no one cares if they stay or go.

Clearly they do care though. Look at all of the earnest replies to his posts! If folks didn't care, they would say as much.