I think this has less to do with Microsoft and more to do with the average human has no interest in learning something that only passively helps them.

I only know a handful of things about working on an automobile, while my father could practically take one apart and put it back together wholesale.

I can take apart a computer and put it back together wholesale, but I’m lost on an internal combustion engine.

I pay someone with expertise to handle the engine, because I’ve spent my time learning other things.

Look, unless the people you’re talking about are doing tech jobs, there isn’t a reason for them to learn the depths of it, just like there isn’t a reason for them to learn the depths of how their car works. Both a car and a computer are tools, and those tools are made to be used by people who may not know the depths of the internal workings of either.

This post feels like elitism and gatekeeping to me, as someone who thinks Windows sucks and prefers Linux. The idea that it’s the OS that is “holding people back” and not that those people might have more important things to do with their time than dedicate half their life to an operating system is absurd. If someone spends 20 years becoming a doctor, I’m not going to act like they’re a dumbass because they don’t know everything about fucking computers.

People don’t want to learn more because for most people not knowing more doesn’t impact their fucking life. Just like me not knowing more about my car doesn’t generally impact my fucking life. Because I’ve never had trouble finding someone to pay to fix it for me.

Surprise, we’re the people who are paid to fix computers for the people who are just using them as simple tools. Maybe we shouldn’t be so upset about that.

Also, last but not least, Android is a strain of Linux and it suffers from all the same issues listed above as Windows. Acting like you couldn’t pull the same bullshit in Linux if you wanted to is kind of a joke, because it’s already been done with Android.

All the ad infested bullshit we all hate about Windows 10 and 11? Blame Linux-based Android.

EDIT: Also, personal opinion, if we’re talking about which CLI is easier to learn and use. Microsoft has made great strides with Powershell being easy and accessible to people who haven’t faced a command line environment before. The things that make its command line better than Linux’s are two things, and only two things. (I hate that it’s object oriented instead of text oriented, Powershell has a lot of bad things, too)

First, human-readable commands whose names describe what the command does in a verb-noun format. This means instead of Linux with some very, very obscurely named commands that are not descriptive and you just have to sort of memorize, you can just sort of remember because the name is human readable.

Secondly, the get-command command is huge because it allows me to search these verb-noun names for the command I’m looking for. On Linux, if I don’t know the specific command, I have to search the internet, because there isn’t a built-in tool that will give me an idea of what each command does and allows me to search for them through a filter. Once you find a command you think might work, it has the get-help command which produces something similar to a Man page.

Linux has Man pages, but because there is no rhyme or reason to how any commands are named, it’s not very easy to find the command you’re looking for if you don’t already know the command. On Windows, if I know what the command does I may already have enough information to find the command using get-command instead of having to turn to Google and be like “what command do I use if I am trying to do X?”

So if we’re talking about the superiorly designed command line that’s easier for first time users. Powershell is where it’s at. Because Linux is a confusing fucking mess of 30 years of random decisions by lone programmers. Literally the only reason I know commands in Linux CLI is because I had to memorize them. I don’t do so much memorizing Powershell commands. If Linux was being built from scratch today, I’d practically demand a similar naming convention system to make it easier to understand what the fuck commands do.

More reasons to prioritize public transit over individual car ownership.

Funny, on release day, I got downvoted for pointing out they pulled a Blizzard/Overwatch 2.

Half-baked release with missing content and no new content? Check.

Release removes previous release, a game that was at one time a paid game? Check.

I feel like Valve gets way too much of a pass here on this for just being Valve.

Sort of, I’d say I’m way more of a socialist than communist, but I also think that both capitalism and communism suffer from being very old ideas that actually don’t address issues of the modern world as much as they could. I think about the LGBT community, and remember that communism didn’t just forget they existed, they ran on the same macho bullshit that vilified them for existing as capitalism. Castro admitting he made a mistake in regards to LGBT people near his death bed is far too little, far too late for the lives they destroyed.

There are valid critiques of both communism and capitalism, but we’ve basically got worldwide capitalism, so the critiques of capitalism simply matter more since it represents the status quo. I’ll worry about critiquing more of socialism/communism when communists actually have real power worldwide beyond China, which is having it’s own struggles right now as well. (Also, most of the critiques of China I have seen fall under propaganda messages from the US/Europe, and fewer of them have real meat of critiquing the actual functions of Chinese politics and how they work.)

Also, when it comes to theory, I fell in line a little more with people who weren’t strictly communist, like the Situationists. Guy Debord is my pfp for a reason, and that’s because he was fucking brilliant, in my opinion. I have a dog-eared copy of Society of the Spectacle that has more notes in it than any other book I’ve ever read.

Anyway, yeah. I’d say socialism is as good of a “fit” for me as I can find in existing political ideologies, and even that is more a close fit than a perfect fit. I’m definitely a fan of Critical Theory and the idea that we should always critique the status quo, whatever the status quo may be, because there is no such thing as a perfect world, we can always pursue improvement. If we had worldwide communism, I’d promote critiquing that as well.

Truth. Lemmy by design resists the influence of capital by being federated.

I think you’re misreading me. Racism, sexism, and homophobia weren’t the “politics” I was referring to, because you’re right, those aren’t politics, those are people being trash. I mean the Lemmy developers being socialists/communists didn’t deter me from making an account here, because I’m not some capitalism worshipping pigboy. Their hard-left politics (the kind that led them to banning transphobic EMPRESS) are not scary to me, because I’m not a racist, sexist, homophobic douchebag.

As for Reddit and its decline. Reddit has been managed by State actors for a long time. At least since 2013ish.

Example:

https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/z6unyl/in_2013_reddit_admins_did_an_oopsywhoopsy_and/

https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5644

This is far from the only research paper around controlling discussions online produced by Eglin Air Force Base. They were the “most reddit addicted city” because they’re trying to massage the message into what they want it to be. They flood the site with persona management software and bots to influence the perception of what “people’s opinions are.”

If you’re in any way a leftist, this alone should have been enough reason to pack up and bail on it, because they are openly going out of their way to try minimize and hide voices like yours.

EDIT: Here’s another paper on the subject from EAFB, this is the one I 'member from long ago: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.5644.pdf

Pretty sure they’re still openly okay with them. Not the reason I was looking to leave, though. Unlike a lot of people, I wasn’t scared of the Lemmy developers politics.

Reddit has been in decline for over 10 years. It has been slowly getting worse and worse. I have been seeking a replacement for a long time.

About three and a half years ago I heard about Lemmy and made an account to check it out. Promptly forgot about it for a few years until reddit pissed me off again.

*Valve laughs in Gabe Newell, owner of Valve and former employee of Microsoft.

Motherfucker left Microsoft to focus on games. He spearheaded the move to Linux to protect their store from becoming blocked on Windows. He knows how Microsoft works, intimately.

I’d be really surprised if Valve got sold to Microsoft while Newell still lives.

Using imfglip and linking to it instead of hosting the image somewhere (Lemmy? Imgbb?) definitely makes you one of the baddies.

Also there’s several variations of this meme that you could have used that don’t use a violent abusers image. Like a similar one with Geordi LaForge from Star Trek.

I mean, this meme is accurate, because that’s about how expressive the faces are in Starfield…

No poop for you!

Man, what a poop nazi.

Vendor lock-in from a service provider is different from vendor lock-in from using proprietary software.

If you’re dumb enough to not host your shit locally and instead rely on Amazon, that’s literally your own shortsightedness that led to vendor lock in.

The first mistake anyone made was thinking putting their whole business on some other businesses private property was a good idea. Pro-tip: it’s not.

In other words, I already agree with you, but I think vendor lock-in for services is a vaslty different issue than vendor lock-in for proprietary software.

AWS and Azure are services

A lot of people seem really confused by this, based on the number of downvotes.

That’s not what I meant by “runs on Linux.” I mean the software that makes AWS servers function, behind the scenes, is Linux. You’re allowed to install whatever you want on a server if you rent a server from AWS, but the software that allows you to rent a server from them and lets you set up your own server is… Linux.

AWS servers run on an operating system that is a CentOS/RHEL flavor of Linux that has been heavily modified by Amazon for their use-case.

Except AWS runs on Linux…

Because the government classifies things when they’re simply embarrassing. It doesn’t need to rise to “national security threat” for the USA to feel the need to quash the ability of citizenry to talk about it. Even if it’s not all that bad and simply embarrassing. They are way too cavalier about using classification powers because they don’t want their dirty laundry aired.

What’s left to release is probably a lot less exciting than people think.

Lmao is that a Lemmy watermark? 💀

I’m basically in the position that I’m driving a car from 1999, and when it finally dies, I’ll either be resigned to riding the bus or finding another aged used car without all this absolute bullshit in it.

Maybe it really is time for the Free Open Source Vehicle.

Running With Scissors is a “legendary” developer?

Postal was a violent mess that didn’t age well.

Postal 2 was a buggy mess that also didn’t age well.

After that, it was just legitimately bad games on top of the humor not aging well. (They literally don’t even acknowledge Postal 3)

Seriously, who the fuck would label them legendary? They’ve been a broken mess for over a decade.