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

[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.

[mikecox@mastodon.iow.social]

@thomasareed @dangoodin I don't think most people could install Windoze either. It's just that it's forced upon everyone when they purchase a new machine and buy peer pressure.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@varx

You're doing the lord's work, Varx!

[praxeology@post.lurk.org]

@dangoodin I totally feel you. I have been a platform refusenik for many years and have found that people often take a depressingly compliant, conformist attitude towards all their technology decisions. They just do the most popular thing and feel that somebody else should be responsible for the consequences.

But strangely, after a few years of being the annoying guy at a party calling CEOs fascists (not a good tactic), followed by many years of being more "oh no sorry I'm not on FasciTalk. Here's my phone number/email." Things changed.

Now, sooo many people are starting to understand and take an interest in having more independent infrastructure. So I'm actually more optimistic than I've been since like 2007.

That said, I do find that you can't really convince anyone of anything. They have to come to their own conclusions on their own terms. But you can be supportive of people when they do, especially in helping them understand that FOSS solutions may be quite different from glossy corporate stuff and require community care and janitorial work.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@mikecox @thomasareed

Fair, but that doesn't change the fact that moving to decentralized platforms adds more friction than non-technologists can tolerate.

[jevans@climatejustice.social]

@dangoodin @rk I keep bubbling this conversation up in my union. There is just so much inertia!

[davew@mastodon.social]

@dangoodin @markhurst -- maybe users could systematically keep their eyes on software, and encourage independent devs trying to make great software for them. i've been working nonstop forever, and it's impossible to get people even take a look at new stuff.

[nimro@hachyderm.io]

@dangoodin I’ve heard good things about Zulip as a Slack alternative and the signup for their cloud offering is just as easy.

They’re in the US but not “big tech”, and it’s open-source with free self-hosting if you prefer that or want to switch to it down the road. The only charges for self-hosting are for mobile notifications (since that requires their servers) and support contracts.

[benjaoming@social.data.coop]

@dangoodin it's a misunderstanding: I was saying they have the capacity to write a plan and get off big tech.

not that they're actually doing it! 🙃

[shoq@mastodon.social]

Remember when the hype was that social media promised better awareness, connectivity, and propagation of ideas and innovation? It’s had the opposite effect. It’s now just like conservative media: the noise blots out almost all of the signal.

[mweiss@infosec.exchange]

@MarvinFreeman @thomasareed @dangoodin Linux is much much easier than it was just a few years ago. It's also still not good enough for the supermajority of users.

[nimro@hachyderm.io]

@dangoodin Google and Apple are going to be the toughest ones to wean off of, for all of us. As an individual the alternative phones are, well, pretty dire and the OSes are Android-based anyway. As an org it’s hard to escape the vacuum pull of their app stores - in part due to the anticompetitive antics they’ve been allowed to get away with for so long.

I’m right there with you on the lost and hopeless front.

[marvinfreeman@mastodon.online]

@mweiss @thomasareed @dangoodin Well, opinions and experience differ.

I've noticed the windows users frequently say things like "Why isn't it doing what I want?" They've grown accustomed to their computers baffling them.

My spouse, mother, and employees in my office found the transition to mint pretty easy. The standard gnome desktop would be tough though.

[bjn@mstdn.social]

@thomasareed @dangoodin I have a vague hope that Valve might popularise Linux with a subsection of gamers via all the work they are putting into the Steam Machine and their Linux based SteamOS. That may start some sort of snowball. Or possibly not.

[davemwilburn@infosec.exchange]

@dangoodin

There's a real challenge when most of your external emails are passing through Google or Microsoft anyway, and when your social circle just stares blankly when you suggest Signals over WhatsApp. Critical mass takes a lot of force to overcome all that inertia.

[dangoodin@infosec.exchange]

@bjn @thomasareed

🤞

[thomasareed@infosec.exchange]

@mikecox @dangoodin That’s probably true, but it’s also irrelevant. The vast majority of people will never have to learn how to install Windows, while all of them would have to either figure out how to install Linux or find someone to do it for them if they decided to try Linux.

However, all of them would need to figure out how to install other apps, connect hardware peripherals like mice, monitors, printers, microphones, speakers, etc, and that’s where the Linux + FOSS experiment would come to an end for most of them.