Even people with the most to lose continue to support and rely heavily on:

[rk@mastodon.well.com]

@dangoodin

It’s the whole “we all have to participate in society” thing. I need to communicate with my father’s caregivers and they have a phone app to check in at the facility. My kids use Google Classroom at their schools.

Do I wish it were otherwise? Sure. Am I going to make it difficult to care for my father or do my kids’ homework? Nope. Gotta pick my battles.

[iznogoud@mastodon.social]

@dangoodin adoption and reach are the hardest things to overcome for a product that requires critical mass.

And even if you do not, the truckloads of $$ that have gone into making google or whatever 1/visible and 2/easy to set up are a force on their own.

Call it VHS vs. betamax but without external forces or regulatory events, it is VERY hard to displace even shitty incumbents, just because they happen to be there already.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@rk

The privacy of sensitive union discussions is most def a battle worth picking.

[rk@mastodon.well.com]

@dangoodin

No argument there ✊

[iznogoud@mastodon.social]

@dangoodin @davew @markhurst even if usability is great, sometimes it is appropriate product documentation that is lacking e.g @delta

[epic_null@infosec.exchange]

@dangoodin Do you have a clear idea of what's missing from the current slack alternatives? Zoom is too big a beast for me to even consider at the moment.

[lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org]

@dangoodin Much the same when people say "Just tell 'em not to run Windows anymore!", etc.

[annehargreaves@ioc.exchange]

@airshipper @dangoodin Teams is a total pain.

[airshipper@cloudisland.nz]

@annehargreaves @dangoodin ugh, we are having to write a business case to justify not switching from slack, because teams chat costs way less. "there's a reason!" is not persuading the cfo

[thomasareed@infosec.exchange]

@dangoodin I love how Linux is always the solution. Folks have no clue how regular people operate. If I were to hand a Linux laptop to any of the smart but non-technical folks I know, they’d struggle hard. Expecting them to install Linux or install and manage a number of FOSS tools? That’s not happening.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@thomasareed

Right, and often, from there, many of these folks go on to blame the non-technical folks. That only compounds the problem.

[benjaoming@social.data.coop]

@dangoodin only in Denmark/Sweden - where my experience is that all unions have enough resources to write a plan and start executing it. Actually, many of the unions have A LOT of resources. But they're run like corporations that sell a product (memberships, legal protection, networking, post-education). That product is marketed (on social media), hence they all have social media strategies and dedicated employees.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@benjaoming

And these unions aren't using any of the platforms listed in my OP? Impressive if so.

[marvinfreeman@mastodon.online]

@thomasareed @dangoodin I've had pretty good success doing this. Mint feels very like windows to the people I've helped. And most people are uncomfortable with Word etc. anyway, so Libreoffice is not too tough.

The rub is with people who must use some MS-only program for work or school. Or to connect with work or school. That's a deal breaker.

[thomasareed@infosec.exchange]

@dangoodin Yeah. I mean, they’re not wrong… it’s hard to trust Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc these days. But there’s a good reason that it has never yet been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” I myself - a technical person - have irrevocably borked Linux installs to the point that the only option was to erase and start over, just by trying to install a piece of open source software on it.

[kye@tech.lgbt]

@dangoodin I think this very thing is a large part of the problem. The exact people who care enough to use these alternatives despite the friction don't care enough to understand why others don't. Badgering, belittling, demeaning, and otherwise disregarding different lived experiences is the preferred response.

It's the same mindset as the people they criticize moved up the stack from technology to interpersonal relations.

[varx@defcon.social]

@dangoodin I'm in the middle of setting up everything needed for immediate family to host what they need on either infra I control (or proton). Calendars, todo lists, docs, pictures, videos/media, LLMs etc.

It has been, and will continue to be, a royal PITA. But its all I can do to make the problem small enough to handle by myself. The good news is that this year my entire family suddenly has the intrinsic motivation to get off of these platforms. I just have to make it easy enough for them to be able to do it. And come up with ways to segment the few things that I can't control (work and school accounts like you mentioned)

Its difficult. Its slow. But since they are motivated I'm hopeful we can make it happen.

[dmitry@mastodon.circle.lt]

@thomasareed @dangoodin A Linux laptop with Linux and Firefox and OpenOffice (and Steam etc.) already installed isn't hard, my very non-technical family members have better time with it than with Windows. Though it's only marginally more secure, and even that in large part due to the platform's obscurity, only a little due to better product and design choices.

But setting it up or even just managing security updates for it? Managing passwords, passkeys, 2FA dongles? Big nope.

[dmitry@mastodon.circle.lt]

@thomasareed @dangoodin Replacing Google Docs is hard enough (no, neither LibreOffice nor CryptPad are good enough), leaving behind the people who refuse to leave YouTube and Meta's anti-social hellscape is just not an option when you depend on those people in any way. And don't even get me started on using GrapheneOS with F-Droid and no GApps, you'd be better off with a flip phone.

[brianvastag@mas.to]

@thomasareed @dangoodin just jumping in as someone who tested the Linux waters recently with a Raspberry Pi I wanted to use as a Plex server.

It took me 2 hours to figure out how to mount an external drive. Turns out because it had been used by Windows and I hadn't dismounted it in a certain way, it required some special handling. I persisted and got it working but the experience left me not wanting to ever try Linux again.