There is one good example of a good FOSS project with reliable funding and a thriving community, which is blender.

You know why blender is a success unlike other projects . Because it a very complicated piece of software that most of the community can’t just fork or start another project. so for FOSS projects to thrive they need more convergence of developpers to the same project . rather than divergence of efforts into multiple of projects. I know that this is not how FOSS works. but the reality is that without an urge to devellop projects in rivalary with the commercial ones. the resulting quality will always be mediocre.

another problem is the lack of proper documentation, It it very hard and time consuming to get familiarised with complex project codes. many of them are lacking proper documentation to encouraged newer devs to join in. the reality is that this takes time away from coding into documentation, but its an important ressource to encourage growth and participtation.

It is overwhelming. Just take it slow. Dont ban yourself from non open source things. Maybe try adopting one open source thing at a time

Can’t we just find a new way of monetize stuff without ads?

Yes it’s called taxation and public funding.

Governments should prioritize floss projects when running their infrastructure and other projects. Our money is paying for these projects. We should have access to all the products of that labor.

Furthermore they should give out money for non-business cases like games and other stuff just like arts funding.

We have private corps stepping in to do this sort of thing with “google summer of code”. But it would be better through some nominally democratic structure.

In all cases governments and their agents should be good floss community members. “Free like puppies”

Buggy software, not so user friendly, things don’t work, new things to learn…

Sometimes you just wanna do a simple thing and you cannot do it and that really undermines your self esteem.

You try to find little working solutions when big techs with armies of engeneers and programmers are working against you.

Sometimes you find half of your software stops working and you need to go and understand why, fixing or checking for alternatives…

All of those issues are also present in proprietary software. Not sure why you think free and open source software is unique in that regard.

In my experience, FOSS generally works better than the proprietary alternative. It tends to have fewer features, but the features it does have are designed to be useful to the user rather than to collect more money from the user, and tend to be much more thoroughly debugged. My favorite example of this right now is Thunderbird versus Microsoft Outlook; the latter has plenty of bells and whistles, but trying to use it is an utterly infuriating experience.

Also, FOSS alternatives tend to be sparse in topics that most programmers don’t personally care about or don’t have access to. For example, there are a great many FOSS text editors, because every programmer needs one, whereas FOSS business accounting software is not so common, because most programmers don’t own businesses.

Aurora store stopping to work, apps getting blocked on lineage os or rooted phones, Reddit cleaning out all those amazing third party apps, Linux that wanna make you destroy your pc at times, Firefox remaining the only real alternative to chromium (only god knows for how long yet), google wanting to DRM everything, ig blocking my account because i was using barinsta (i cannot even delete it), Newpipe getting stuck after 1/4 of the video.

That’s a problem with proprietary software (i.e. proprietary apps and websites), not free and open source software (i.e. your browser, operating system, and Reddit client).

When a business refuses to do business with me because I use FOSS, I take that as an insult, and take my business elsewhere if I can. I suggest you do the same.

Can’t we just find a new way of monetize stuff without ads?

Not as long as we practice capitalism, no. As long as investors demand that businesses grow faster than inflation, those businesses will look for ways to take more and more of your money, forever, until they finally collapse, and then the cycle of enshittification starts anew. What you want is stability and equality, but stability and equality are anathema to someone who wants to be richer than everyone else.

It helps if you can treat it as a hobby. My partner’s hobby is music, which is a perfectly sensible thing to do in one’s spare time. I always feel a bit weird when people ask me what I do in my own spare time and my answer is basically fixing my shit, then pushing it just hard enough that it breaks again.

To your question, the unfortunate reality is that those of us who care about privacy and software freedom are a small minority. Why overhaul your business model to suit us when they can continue to milk every other consumer out there who frankly doesn’t give a shit?

Phones are, of course, the worst of all for this. People do great work developing FOSS solutions but it is an uphill struggle and I worry that the hill is getting steeper.

There is no ethical way to monetize software because the unethical thing is capitalism itself.

I have no problem monetizing with ads, I just have a problem with privacy invasive “targeted advertising” and the non consensual sale of personal data to 3rd parties and governments. I’ve yet to see a compelling argument why the ads I see need to be so specifically targeted as to warrant tracking my behavior on and between websites. As a consumer, there isn’t a distinguishable benefit to this arrangement and I don’t understand why my participation is expected.

On the other hand, fixing all those problems makes you a really effective problem solver. You learn which technologies are good and which are bad; you learn where to find reliable solutions to problems; and you begin to see where tutorial writers have a lack of knowledge (or were really lazy) and how to fix their problems. It forces you to create good habits and to follow best practices. And years down the line, you’ll have some great, stable software that is the envy of your techie friends.

Removed by mod

Another point of view is that OSS and Linux is absolutely amazing.

With a very limited set of exceptions, you can grab Ubuntu or Fedora or whatever, make a USB boot drive, and be in a GUI and shitposting on the internet in about 5 minutes.

Linux has grown tremendously from when I started using it, which was when you’d probably have to end up editing a config file for X11 to add the modeline so X knew the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor because there was no auto-configuration for anything more than like 640x480@60hz (and even that might not work).

And in just a few years we went from very very few games working with Wine, to damn near everything that doesn’t need ring0 rootkits working almost perfectly.

So yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s absolutely light years from where it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago and maybe focusing on how great it actually is vs bemoaning the things that still need work will help keep you motivated.

That said, at the end of the day software is just a hammer: you use it to build something. If Linux doesn’t work but MacOS does, or Windows, or whatever does then use what works. There’s no point in using something that doesn’t do what you want to the point that you’re angry/stressed/tired of dealing with it, because life is way too short to spend all your time fighting broken software when all you wanted to do was draw a picture or play a game or watch a movie or whatever.

I just use linux until fstab inevitably breaks again and my system won’t boot. And then I install Windows again until I am fed up with how bloated and slow it has become, and install linux again. And then the cycle continues.

Like another user said, take as much as you can comfortable handle at one time, as FOSS cold-turkey can be exhausting.

It’s a bit like trying to stop using Nestle or another multinational’s shit, once you realize how many brands and sub-brands are owned by the big bad, it can make one feel pointless doing it (like just switching from one to another big bad). Replace one thing at a time to make it easier on yourself.

Think of it this way. If FOSS is a rebel movement in the eyes of a world oligopolized by Big Tech, you can’t just expect to overturn the core in a day. You take it slow and let the open-source movement and your desire to try out promising FOSS software one at a time drive you to become a knowledgeable power user, rather than trying to force upon yourself a lifestyle you might not necessarily want at this moment.

Just fyi, I found that aurora store often works a lot better if you log in with a google account. I know its not the best option for privacy but I kind of rely on some play store apps working and being updated and I still had a google account either way.

Also, do you have microg installed? Most google play apps work without much hassle for me on lineageOS microg

Can’t we just find a new way of monetize stuff without ads?

Please let us know if you figure this out. There are at least a few talented, detail-oriented developers who dislike both ads corporate life.

Good thing I’m a libertarian and we hate roads!