I’m a FOSS (free and open source software) contributor and enthusiast. So I prefer to use such products (Lemmy instead of Reddit, Linux instead of Windows, Firefox instead of Chrome, Signal instead of WhatsApp, you get the idea). Was just thinking that if everyone moved to such solutions, the tech and ad industry would lose billions of dollars. That would translate to governments losing billions of dollars in tax revenue. Would such a move ever be encouraged then by the governments?
The cost is hardly in the software. It’s for the support and setup. Even if governments switch to Linux, they’d need some sort of support contract in place with a vendor.
Well, it won’t be supported by governments – the tax dollars they lose are nothing compared to the communication they no longer control.
That aside, most regular folks want something easy and established before they’ll use it. I think that’s the main issue to entry of FOSS stuff for people who aren’t otherwise engaged in the ecosystem. Lemmy got an unusual leg up from the implosion of reddit.
Great, so even on Lemmy ‘Shower Thoughts’ are just statements.
Just because software is Free as in libre doesn’t mean it’s free as in beer. Running those services costs huge amount of money. Running enough instances of lemmy to replace reddit would cost collectively much more than the one optimized centralized service. So I guess that would translate to governments making billions of dollars in tax revenue.
Lolol that’s absurdly optimistic and completely ignores commercial contributions. No licences hardly means less expensive.
Lolol that’s absurdly optimistic and completely ignores commercial contributions. No licences hardly means less expensive.
Lolol that’s absurdly optimistic and completely ignores commercial contributions. No licences hardly means less expensive.
Lolol that’s absurdly optimistic and completely ignores commercial contributions. No licences hardly means less expensive.
