this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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Open source is the way. It always amuses me when people move from one proprietary system to a different one, since the new one always ends up having the same issues.
That's why I think we should start teaching FOSS Linux as the first operating systems Kids are exposed to. It's neutral ground in the sense that no one company owns and controls it, and the things they learn will help them understand why things are the way they are, not just what the latest marketing-hype "feature" is.
Someone I know went to a university that ran off Linux and I'm jealous of the comprehensive Linux 101 they got. It took me years to learn some of that stuff.
That's because privatized companies spend money to promote their products while open source largely grows through word of mouth. The average person doesn't know about the issues of proprietary software nor the existence of an open source alternative, they just use whatever everyone else uses and everyone else ends up using whatever gets successfully marketed.
The new one usually won't have the same issues at first, but they'll have the same opportunities and motivations that lead to the issues. People will see a different provider and say they're not doing the bad things, and they'll be correct for a few years maybe, but then it becomes a struggle to get them to switch to the next thing. This whole problem would mostly be solved with open-source alternatives instead.
The thing with age verification is that it's a legal requirement, so they're all going to have to do it.
Running an online service with a lot of users is very expensive, too. All these proprietary services eventually realise that they need revenue in order to continue operating. That's one of the reasons why decentralized, federated services are the way to go - everyone runs their own small community, so there's no one company or person that has to cover an enormous bill.