We have to accept that those who need rigid, inflexible computing to protect them far outnumber us. People don’t care if they can rewrite Notepad or read its source code, they care that Facebook works and that they don’t get viruses or added to a botnet. The only way to develop a healthy advocacy here is to understand that the hacker ideals and customizability that we expect of a computing system really make us a vanishing minority and acknowledging that for the now-average user, those ideals make less and less sense as time goes on. We had our run, then everybody else found computers. Times change. It’s not bad.
Is there a way to create your computer? For us, probably. For them, I’m increasingly believing it isn’t. This isn’t a knock against anyone, just an acknowledgment that there are almost certainly two answers to this question and Free Software ideals and beliefs aren’t equipped to handle the much, much larger answer. Proprietary operating systems, walled gardens, Internet centralization, it plays toward all of the ideals Free Software has been holding dear for decades. We have to evolve our thinking, I’m afraid. The less we acknowledge that perhaps Free Software is wrong for the average user, the less we will have a voice at the table; eventually, nobody will listen at all.
Hell, many cars don’t even allow you to work on them any more. Look at Teslas, higher-end Audis, etc. I offered to change my neighbor’s oil in his Audi and he got scared about his warranty.
