this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024
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Consider the following: No.
It's not our responsibility to make FOSS projects better, blaming consumers for wanting a feature prioritized is ridiculous and counter productive. Ease of use is something FOSS projects need to have to be viable to the general populace
You aren't a consumer with FOSS. You're part of a community. It's an entirely different paradigm.
If you don't like the service that you're getting for free, there are a couple of options. One that's already been suggested is to pitch in and help make it better yourself. Another is to start paying. Make donations. Offer to pay developers for the features that you want. Pool your money with other users who also want those features. Developer bounties are a thing.
My wife and daughter use LibreOffice, neither one feels they are part of a community because they’re using FOSS. That’s not how this works.
People use a tool or piece of software because it does what they need and generally stays out of their way. They’re not going to jump ship to be part of a community because. Sure there are people that enjoy working on it, and there’s people who will donate money to make the software better, but you’re not going to convince people to choose FOSS for “the community”. You’re going to convince them by offering a better tool, at a better price without negatively impacting their workflow. That extends to all FOSS just as it extends to normal software and services.
I'm not trying to convince people to use FOSS here. I'm explaining how users of FOSS aren't "consumers". It's understandable that you'd make demands for a service which you are paying for. In the case of FOSS, you're using a free service, so you can threaten to take your "business" elsewhere, but it makes no difference because you aren't contributing to the project in the first place.
Imagine if a user of Wikipedia started making demands about what features the site should have, how it should be run, etc. Somebody who had never donated or even edited an article. What do you think the reaction would be?
Or just use a better interface somewhere else 🤷 there is no reason to use a service, free or not, where ur expected to make it better yourself instead of just using a better service