A lot of people have negative sentiment toward “lawyers” as a group, but getting a big lawyer job is still considered prestigious for the individual.
Also, the average person actually really likes Google search, their Microsoft Xbox, their Instagram friends, and so on. If the average person actually disliked these products, they wouldn’t be the biggest brands in the world.
I don't "like" Windows but I'm using it right now to type this comment because my option is the other FAANG, Apple. Or specifically going out of my way to use Linux. (This extends also to cell phones with the effective Google/Apple duopoly)
I don't "like" Facebook but it's the only way I can keep in contact with my family across the planet, because they're technologically illiterate and only understand Facebook Messenger
I don't "like" Amazon but they've sucked most of the oxygen out of online retail
- Computers - you admitted that you could use Linux. But Apple and Microsoft provide a better experience for you
- phones - you could use a PinePhone. But you choose to use an Android or iPhone because it is a better experience
- your family chose to use Facebook products even though there are plenty of other messaging apps and methods to share pictures. Facebook gave them a better experience.
- I can’t think of a single product that you can get from Amazon that you couldn’t get from somewhere else. You choose to use Amazon for the convenience
There are plenty of people who use Linux as a daily driver, don’t use Facebook Messenger, and order from other places besides Amazon
Amazon sells an item I'm after
A physical store in a remote town in the African desert also sells it. But not online
Obviously it is my fault for not exercising my still existant, but "inconvenient" choice to not purchase the item from Amazon. Or simply book a flight across the atlantic, various other methods of transit to make the trip to the village and then return home the same way
I didn't authorize facebook to create an account for me, but they made one for me in secret anyway and they buy data from data brokers to fill my dossier with details of my life. Facebook isn't giving me a better experience when they track my internet browsing and app usage.
I don't "choose by my own free will" to make government websites send my data to Google by including trackers in their pages, but I still have to use those sites to get the data they provide and the services they offer.
Lots of people could use a Pine phone, but cannot afford one and the last time I checked into pine phones the "better experience" in that case would have meant "Can actually be used to place a phone call". What kind of alternative is a phone that couldn't place calls? They've likely fixed that issue by now, but let's not pretend that all choices are remotely equivalent or accessible.
If there's no comparable alternative to something it's extremely disingenuous to suggest that people must love it, or that they are making a deliberate choice to use it. Often there is no choice that doesn't involve upending your entire life or cutting yourself off from society.
For example, I could quit my job, leave my entire career behind, and endanger the health and safety of my family to try to find some entry level job in another industry that wouldn't make me use a Microsoft product, but if I'm not willing to do that does that mean I choose to use Windows of my own free will?
At what point does "give up everything and endanger the people you love or else keep using Windows" start feeling less like a choice freely made and a lot more like someone putting a gun to your head? Sometimes a "choice" isn't much of a choice at all, and in the case of using Google or Facebook you have no choice since they are impossible to avoid in today's society.
> For example, I could quit my job, leave my entire career behind, and endanger the health and safety of my family to try to find some entry level job in another industry that wouldn't make me use a Microsoft product, but if I'm not willing to do that does that mean I choose to use Windows of my own free will?
There are millions of other people who chose a different career path. There are also developers who never have to use an MS product. I’m sorry you were forced to choose a career where you get to sit in front of a computer everyday probably making a lot more than people in a factory.
You can't block googleapis or reCAPTCHA and still have the site function properly.
> Facebook didn’t force your family to use it
But I still don't get to opt out of having an facebook account, or opt out facebook collecting my personal data, or opt out of them using it for whatever they want.
> I’m sorry you were forced to choose a career where you get to sit in front of a computer everyday probably making a lot more than people in a factory.
I'm not saying it's all bad, or that it couldn't be worse, I'm just saying you don't always get a choice in things and often the "choices" you have are false choices or forced choices.
You don't need to go out of your way to use Linux. It is really not that bad. Ubuntu Mate is a usable desktop and there are others, too, like Linux Mint, etc.
It doesn't artificially deprecate your hardware like new Windows releases do. And everything that you install through the package manager is kept up-to-date by it for security fixes, including your browser, mail client, word processor, text editors, Python packages, and so on, without you having to seek out updates manually.
After Apple abandoned my old Core Duo 2.66Mhz Mac Mini that was introduced in 2006, I put Windows 7 on it. Windows 7 got its last security update in January 2020 [2]. Yes my old 14 year old Mac Mini is still running. My mom just stopped using it right before Covid as a secondary computer for kids she was tutoring to use Chrome.
[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Latitude-E6500-Not...
My mom kept it because it was useful. But you can buy a $200 Dell (https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspiron-15-300...) that would serve the same purpose - a computer to run Chrome - that would run rings around a 16 year old computer. At some point it just becomes nerd pride to keep using. She does have other computers that she uses that are newer. But once it was EOL, she never used it.
Personally, I wouldn’t even think about getting any x86 laptop in 2022. Using an Intel laptop with its horrible battery life, heat and fan noise compared to an ARM Mac is like using a flip phone after the iPhone came out
But feeding the market power of a big company so that it can become a duopolist or a monopolist is not a good idea. Such market power is always used to perpetuate that power and to extract value from you. Hopefully with efforts like Asahi Linux,[2] Linux can soon be a daily driver on the M1, too.
you don't use Facebook but that doesn't mean you don't have an account there and that they aren't using it to track every mention of you by anyone you know who also has an account. They're also buying data about you from data brokers and using that to fill your dossier and tracking your browsing/app usage history through facebook buttons and "sign in with facebook" features.
That's the problem with inescapable companies like facebook, Microsoft, and Google. You don't have to like them, you don't even have use them, but they'll still be collecting your data and making money at your expense. You aren't allowed to opt out.
I wasn't speaking specifically to ads/tracking. Out in the "real world" there are plenty of people who decry "big tech censorship" and have strong views about said tech firms that are tied to their political views.
Depends on where you live and who you're frequently around; my experience seems to be quite a bit different from yours. I also don't expect that people care about what I care about, appletrotter.
[1]https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22702798/verge-tech-surve...
Your claim about the "real world" sort of boils down to "people are less likely to dislike Facebook and Google if they do not understand what they are doing", which isn't really a great thing to be able to claim.
They usually just shrug and the conversation continues. Most people outside of the tech bubble just think a job is a job, many don’t even know the compensation of the large tech companies.
[1] The title isn’t strictly correct. But close enough. It beats droning on with the longer explanation
A lot of tech people. Believe it or not, Google still scores near the very top of "most trusted brands" when 3rd party analysts do studies. The tech community is highly negative of Google as a brand, but "average people" don't actually have a negative view.
I don't know about Facebook - haven't seen any recent data.