I’m not a sudo apt master. I don’t know shit about terminal or making Linux do stuff beyond wanting to point and click. Yes, it can run a sea worthy version of Photoshop.

Let me break it down. I use a program called Lutris, installed from the software manager. Its technically a game launcher to collect all your games in one convenient area, letting me launch steam, gog, etc from one library. I install plenty of windows programs and obscure ones if I need them for my research. MaxQDA, SPSS for instance.

There are few, if any, normal day-to-day use cases where Windows is better. Gaming, thanks to Proton, is not a problem. Drivers? Got those too. But what about x software? There’s a less bloated FOSS or low cost version out there.

Just go for it.

The issue I have with the responses are that forking or running lite browsers is not a solution but a work around. A work around that requires vigilance in the rapidly changing tech space. Most people can’t do that. It won’t result in systematic change that we need to stop enshitification. I’m not downplaying your work and a counter movement, far from it, but its simply not enough without more resources to stop the deluge of nonsense.

I dont have answers, and there are too many challenges to count to list here. From politics to how business schools teach. So we are stuck with a domineering overlord with both the resources to make it all look simple and fluid and to make the work of innovators increasingly difficult.

Yeah. I’d even say we went beyond late stage capitalism. We are now on the cusp of a feudalistic society more akin to the corporate dominance in Blade Runner or Eve Online, maybe The Expanse, then anything resembling capitalism. Corporations are more powerful than nation states, many people are indentured to their workplace via healthcare needs or non competes, etc. So there’s that. This is an entirely new thread though so I’ll stop it there. TL;DR - This shit sucks.

Kevin, if thats even a real person at this point in media, is just pushing stories and discourse aligned with corporate speak. Let’s consider it less stupid and more complicit, which I argue, is even worse.

I bought an older Samsung and only use it for doom scrolling, 2FA, and podcasts. Its fine stripped down to nothingness. My next purchase, once the cracks from me dropping it spread, will be an older Pixel so I can run GraphineOS. I’m hopeful that like my Linux experience, it’ll extend the devices life given my use case. Like buying old laptops and kicking windows to the curb in favor of Linux buys you tons of time and product life.

I am not an economist. I am not an expert on anything consumer. It is, however, plainly obvious that companies are trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point. They can’t make money anymore with pay to own and innovation like they used to for a variety of reasons. From greed to enshitification. If you look at it with a different view, everyone is poorer because they are greedy, they’ve ruined everyone’s lives but must make numbers go up. So they find new and terrifying ways of screwing you over for diminishing returns. Like this. Relying on turnover sales and nothing else.