this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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Lemmy users typically vastly overestimate the amount of hassle people are willing to put up with to deal with technology.
It's why we have so many Linux evangelicals.
Granted I agree with the overall spirit of your reply, I don't agree with it in terms of hitting the pause button on a remote. She's had VCRs before. And DVD players. She knows how this works. Hitting the pause button and hitting the play button has to be THE easiest form of technology I can think of.
But for Linux? Yeah. The platform has been around something like 30 years, and STILL only has 4% of the overall userbase, despite the fact that only the rich can afford a Mac, and Windows is so trouble ridden these days, that it's actively like living in the book 1984. Yet, nobody is switching to Linux, because it's Linux.
But if you try to point out the problems that average people have with Linux, you get told "Then YOU create your own fork. It's open source!"
Like, c'mon. I don't even know how to USE Linux. You think I know how to program???
Because overall, I think Linux COULD BE superior to windows.....if it were easy to figure out what the hell I'm doing. I tried to unmute my speakers. On windows, down in the task bar is a speaker icon. Right click it and get some options, or double click it and get a slider bar.
Took me 3 days to figure out how to get audio. I should not need to go into terminal and mess around with 30 paragraphs of copy/paste/troubleshoot to figure out why my speakers aren't getting audio. This is just one example, but I'm sure SOMEONE is going to chime in, and tell me that I'm wrong, and that Linux is the best, and I'm an idiot.
Ok, I'm an idiot. Sure. Guess what. So are 80% of the userbase. Linux has 4% of the userbase. The reason it's so small is because Linux doesn't cater to the idiot. You got people a month ago before Biden dropped out of the race who were undecided voters. Its not like either of the choices are some unknown. I would venture to guess that 1 month ago trump and Biden were two of the most well known people on earth. Their policies and what they stand for are and were well documented. There were still undecided voters.
Those are the people Linux needs to cater to. The people who forget how to tie their shoes. The people who don't have a thought running through their heads, and then get distracted by a butterfly.
I've used an Android phone for 10+ years at this point. Android is written in Linux. Android doesn't have this problem. Any idiot can use Android. I would venture to say that 100% of Android users have no idea what Terminal is. If you asked them to use terminal, they'd say "Terminal? Are you dying?"
So, I see Linux as this potentially great thing.....that's utterly useless because it's developed by elitists who hold the mentality that if they had to suffer, so should all of you. Problem is, instead of advancing Linux, they're just holding it back from what should be a much bigger userbase. Just so they can say "Ha ha, I know how to use it. It's easy for me! Now YOU learn."
Not taking into account that people like me will still keep using a Windows 7 PC that's not been updated in about a decade. And I genuinely don't know if the firewall is even on. Or even how I'd access that.