I hate big tech controlling social media. I desperately want social media to be federated.
I really love community-driven social media like Reddit. Lemmy feels… too small. I really loved that Reddit let me jump into any niche hobby, and instantly I had a community. Lemmy, you’ll be lucky if that community even exists, and if it does, chances are nobody has posted in ages.
On the other hand, Lemmy is full of political content lately. I’ve basically been doom scrolling everything US election-related, and it’s really starting to take a toll on my mental health.
I know I can filter content. I know I can post and be the change I seek. Yet, it feels like an uphill battle.
Not sure what the point of this is, or if it’s even the right community to vent about this. I just really want to replace Reddit, but I find myself going back more and more (e.g. r/homekit is very active compared to Lemmy version).
Lol, I agree that Windows is the only true villain, lol. I’m actually a macOS user. I have recently come around to Vim (technically Neovim), and I’m trying to get better at basic terminal utilities like grep. These mostly work the same on macOS, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out at all by not using Linux. I tried daily driving Linux, but Mac really satisfies all my needs. But I am very grateful for Linux and all its open-source contributions.
Mac is awesome!:-) Sorta. Apple has become “The Man” that it used to despise but… the product, I mean the desktop product, is still good. For now.
The GNU utilities are some of the most highly optimized on planet Earth. Actually they probably are the most highly optimized!:-D
Also, Mac OSX is POSIX compliant, making it more fully “Unix” than even Linux itself is - or at least, some flavors of Linux are allowed to not be POSIX compliant. templeOS is not POSIX compliant, and some parts of Arch (e.g. fish shell) are not either, reportedly.
Whenever I say that I enjoy using Mac OSX, the only pushback I tend to receive is that it typically runs on expensive hardware. However, it is unix with a pretty candy shell - e.g. that Preview program if f-ing amazing! and the Anti-aliasing everywhere, and the Spotlight search, and… it has much wow factor overall!:-P - and I think a good fraction of people who like Linux would enjoy using it, if it were free (which technically it is, the OS I mean, and that doesn’t even get into Darwin…). The major caveat being Arch users, who want to customize every tiny thing to their heart’s content. Which is fine - we don’t all have to enjoy the same things:-).
I really like your take! I agree Apple has amazing products, but I do fear that will degrade as they become more of a monopoly. I never thought of it as pretty Unix, but that makes a lot of sense. Admittedly, I don’t know the history that well, but I’m assuming Steve Wozniak was a big Unix guy, and Steve Jobs is responsible for it being pretty. So it makes sense.
I spend most of my time in Vim and the browser, and those are both extremely customizable. So Mac has never felt too limiting for me.
Though Apple is expensive, I bet you could pick up even an old M1 Mac and still have fantastic performance. I know people argue Apple sabotages their old phones, but I think their hardware actually holds up really well, except for a few exceptions over the years.
I use Vim everywhere I go - Linux, Mac, even Windows:-). It’s just beautiful. And also a command-line window, and like you said, a browser.
Also MS Office bc unlike their OS, that one is fairly solid, and works well especially when collaborating with others, unlike open source offerings for so many years (I dunno the history either but apparently it’s sordid, with “drama” and various forks being developed and abandoned, so sad).
PCs get expensive as well - especially if you use them for gaming. I don’t, but if you do, then a $1-2k (USD) Mac is nothing in comparison to a $3-5k gaming machine, and the former offers a fantastic experience in return for that value, whereas before Linux improved (and probably more relevantly Steam did - again I am not fully aware of the history but I think that’s what I’ve heard), a Windows machine was something that you mostly had to spend hours and hours trying to disable as much of the built-in OS as you could manage. No wonder people prefer Linux these days - if you are going to have to delve into such details regardless! But with Macs, all of that is entirely optional bc it’s a great experience right out of the box.
I’ve given up on their phones though, bc iOS is really difficult. Then again these days so too are Android phones, and I don’t know what to do about it all. An iPhone on a network with something like a Pie hole (I’ve never set one up before) could be a nice experience, maybe? But I just enjoy the experience of Android too much - except I won’t pay the price for an expensive Pixel (I barely even use my camera!). I was thinking for my next phone to just buy any cheapie, or perhaps a Fairphone. I’m done chasing “good” phones though.