Dae

I swapped away from Windows about a year and a half ago. The last straw was them sticking ads in the OS. And from everything I've heard, they continue to boil the frog; they continue to add more and more telemetry and unasked for "features" and bloat the system more and more and more with every update. Even my own parents are growing tired of Windows; it's a clunky, poorly optimized operating system that's positively frustrating to use.

I will concede that not everything that runs on Windows will run on Linux. It's true. But I severely disagree that Windows is "easier to use." Of course, when you grow up on Windows, Linux has a learning curve. It's different OS. But once I got past that? Nah, Linux is far easier and more intuitive in most cases.

Installing programs? Open your software manager and click a button.

Playing video games? Open Steam or Lutris and click a button. Occasionally you might need to tweak things, but you have to do the same on Windows sometimes, especially for older games!

I could go on but those are the biggest two examples that come to mind immediately.

As to another point you made, I personally gave up almost nothing. Destiny 2 and League of Legends don't work, but I quit league before fgsh added Vanguard and neither of these games want me. That isn't my fault, and it isn't a short coming in Linux's fault, it's the devs being assholes.

In spite of this, I do acknowledge some people would have to give up more than me, and for some people that's too much, and that's valid! I hope one day they truly get a choice.

To be fair, they're nothing if not consistent in this view, because they think straight relationships are just about sex as well:

Why do you think they always seperate boys and girls? They think they're gonna fuck if they're left alone unsupervised.

What is the purpose of marriage to them? To have children. Which is just a really elaborate breeding kink. It's about sex.

Why do you think the concept of a man and a woman just being friends is so damn alien to them? Because it's all. About. Sex. They can't fathome the notion that two people of the opposite sex won't tear off their clothes and fuck like animals the moment they're alone in a room together.

Bigots are the most sex-obsessed people on this planet! And it shows in their actions and their rhetoric.

I think a good amount of it is also "the straw that broke the camel's back." Twitter users have been taking abuse after abuse. Like many others have stated, they use Twitter to follow specific people. If those people aren't on other platforms, then they're going to stay. But after a certain point, the cost becomes too high. Now the platform is rebranded and now it looks as alien as it's begun to feel. I think that's why so many are once again leaving. Before they could just ignore everything else going on and try to move on with their day. Not there's a big, fat X reminding them of how much they're starting to/already hate the platform now.

The answer is: no. It doesn't "trigger" me. You're not important enough to me to "trigger" me. I just think you're a piece of shit.

I really think it's just a toxic culture thing. I've seen similar instances in people coming from places like League of Legends of World of Warcraft to other games or communities.

When you hang around in a toxic environment and the powers that be do nothing to curb that behavior, you begin to feel like you have to also be toxic in self-defense. It becomes your only recourse.

Then you go somewhere that's not toxic and it's like a culture shock: people actually get banned for bad behavior, other people aren't nasty to you all the time, and you suddenly realize that you don't have to be defensive.

I have a lot of hope for Lemmy. I hope it keeps growing and I hope people don't just join the platform, but join the culture and contribute in positive ways. Reddit is dying and people need to let it and make something better.

Terraria. Hands down. No other game I've ever played has had the same sheer amount of value for $10 fucking dollars.

A honorable mention would be Stellaris and good ol' Skyrim. But their larger price tag definitely means that Terraria is greater value.

I understand your frustration entirely. And for the most part, I agree with it. But for music producers, especially if they're indie, they have no choice. Content creators trying to make a living off of their art rely on putting themselves out there on the biggest platforms to maximize the amount of exposure they're going to get. The importance of social media with millions upon millions of users for an indie artist cannot be understated. It is the difference between them paying rent, and getting evicted.

As for the average user, as others have stated, they have friends, family, and content creators that they like to follow. Digital privacy comes at a cost. We cannot afford to create the misconception that acts protecting our digital privacy are free actions. And the level of cost and willingness to pay it varies from person to person. I don't need Facebook to keep up with my parents. But many people do. For their parents and the rest of their family and loved ones. I was willing to make the switch to Linux, but it cost me some simplicity in my gaming; some titles aren't just plug n play. Even ones that were on Windows. Switching to Lemmy was nothing for me, but for some people, they're giving up subreddits they loved, or they have to keep using Reddit to access them. And there are some valuable resources there.

Privacy isn't free. It's invaluable and sometimes the price tag reflects that.

Ever heard of "New Grounds?" They're basically about to recreate that place. Now all they need is a forum and it'll be complete!

I think there's many contributing factors. I actually was thinking about the same thing before I found your post, and the answer that came to mind outside of some of the ones people posted here was:

It feels like a breath of fresh air because we're outside the Walled Garden. We're not trapped on a platform who's soul has been crushed and wrung for every penny's worth like Reddit or Twitter. And we can see that there is a world on the Internet besides the Walled Garden and that fact is very liberating. It makes you feel like you don't have to go back.

So, if I understand correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the simplified version of this is: data collection allows massive cooperations to target Communities of Interest (CoI) and manipulate them by collectively altering their digital perception via a barrage of targeted advertisements, promoted articles and suggested social media posts?

And all of this leads to an eventual shift in the opinions and desires of said CoIs, leading to what the company would deem desirable behavior, be it growing apathetic to digital privacy, buying their product or growing more engaged with their platform?

It makes me very glad to hear that Lemmy has this effect on people! It gives me a lot of hope for the platform. I also came from Reddit. I joined yesterday, actually. Immediately, I didn't miss it. I still don't. I miss the resources I had there, but I'm not gonna wait around while they slowly bleed out.

But I did notice what you said here. The disliking something just because people didn't like it. Reddit is infected by pervasive, toxic elitism and sophistry. I hope Lemmy does better in those regards, and your post here reassures me it will. Or that at least Beehaw will.

That honestly makes me very happy to hear! I really hope that catches on in more games. A kind and helpful community is important for the survival of the gaming community as a whole, but doubly so for individual games.

I've been getting back into Guild Wars 2 lately! Nobara Linux has made the game run the smoothest it's even been, and ReShade has it looking even better.

Indeed. New Grounds was before my time, but I've been there. The point was more to illustrate that there is definitely potential in this thing.