We pay to Steam, Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify. But not to Wikipedia, Archive.org, Librivox, Project Gutenberg, for our favourite Linux distro.
The huge asymmetry between corporate and community has not emerged naturally. It is a product of our choices of not supporting community oriented projects.
The short conveniences vs the long-term good. We always chose the former.
In face of surveillance capitalism, we must and must change.
Niklas
@aseem I never payed for Steam,never used Netflix,don't use anything from Amazon anymore but I just bought a PinePhone and donated 10 dollar to the PostmarketOS team by that 😃 I totally agree with your statement but I'm already trying to do it right.
@aseem I get your point and I support it, but saying that this is a product of our choices is not enough. It is a social fenomenon driven by the capitalist structure, in which is easy to reproduce the status quo and hard to break it.
@preto Yes. But the silent submission to it, has been our (community's) choice.
@aseem That is a potent comparison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
@flab
sounds like they do "need" it but really shouldn't. Oof, I just donated a couple weeks back.
Thanks for sharing that.
@aseem The vocal few here giving you flak do not represent the majority. Most people don't give a second thought to monetarily supporting the FOSS and free resources that they use. Many cannot give monetarily, and that's OK.
Thanks for the reminder.
NODQ
@aseem "We" ? I mean, talk for yourself, don't generalize this. I pay/donate to my Linux distro I often use, if they accept any donations tho. I pay for my open source Email service provider etc.
I donate to Mozilla, I donated to Wikipedia too (but will never support this site again in the future).
I don't pay anything to Spotify, the service is horrible. TIDAL is so much better.
Anyway, not sure what you mean with "we". Maybe you do not pay/donate, doesn't mean others don't do it.
Arguably we pay to those projects by spending time doing things like editing and writing Wikipedia, creating commons for Archive, replying to questions in #Debian or helping to find and fix bugs in apps etc.
Yes, they also need some money for server costs etc, please donate if you have the money, but it’s not as if those orgs are gonna put all of us volunteers (which could include you♥) on a payroll any day soon.
Let’s be careful so we don’t turn commons culture into a pyramid scheme where all the money goes to Linus and Jimmy while there are thousands of people that are collectively doing a lot of the labor and getting zilch.
well put
cash accounting is the hammer that makes all contributing look like a nail
I've seen attempts to account for the value in dollar terms for the work that's gone into other free culture projects, maybe the Linux kernel at one point?
I don't know if that's been tried for WMF projects to compare with this fundraising effort.but even getting an order-of-magnitude estimate might be useful for comparing to the level of donations and cash outlay
@aseem good reminder. I recently switched my monthly donation from the big public radio nearby to the smaller local stations that focus on community radio and jazz. There will always be more to do though so helpful to be reminded now and again
toda la verdad papa
@aseem I'm guilty too.I almost donated to Wikipedia during their last campaign, but didn't get around to it. (On the other hand, I've only recently started paying for online services; I don' thave that much income so I usually just used what came free).
Planning to actually go ahead and donate next time. One small step at a time, let's move forward! 👣
@aseem
On paye pour Steam, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify. Mais pas Wikipédia, Archive.org, Librivox, le projet Gutenberg ou pour notre distribution Linux préférée.
La très grosse asymétrie entre le corporatisme et les communautés n'ont pas émergé naturellement. C'est un produit de nos choix de ne pas aider les projets orientés en communautés.
Les intérêts à court terme versus le bien à long terme. On choisit toujours le premier.
En face du capitalisme de surveillance, nous devons changer.
@Sebbaz Merci pour le traduction!
@aseem Very well put.
@aseem if everyone who pays for Steam games paid as much to archive.org, would that be good? Does archive.org have a use for that much money?
@aseem A lot of public goods are largely funded through taxation (academia, scientific research, art, civil infrastructure, transportation) based on social utility rather than popularity/hype. And rather than donations. Sometimes for ethical reasons.
I've been for the last few years supporting wikipedia. I use it more than archive/librivox. Since I normally don't stick with a distro for very long it's hard to pick just one to support...Aall that to say I try and do my part but I could do more.
@aseem I should play games and watch movies on Wikipedia and archive.org?
@aseem That's why archive.org is a Brave shill and NFT maker now. I'm not joking.
They ditched preservation for the kaching.
Jason sucks.
@scifirenegade @aseem throughout this thread my brain kept wanting to misread "archive.org" as "archiveofourown.org" and at this point i say let's run with that, they deserve the money a lot more at this point
Yep. Feeling that surveillance capitalism.
It has taken multiple signatures from myself and my boss just to have my work computer not backdoored. They state that they are still going to have my IP address on their list.
The police state in the tech world has been really normalized in the US I guess.
@aseem I do the opposite, though.
@aseem You guys pay?
@Mek101
Yes, "We pay to XYZ" is dangerous language. Its a kin to "We gotta do something against this very supposed bad, crazy leader".
Words matter. Its why we couldn't boost this post and originally only liked it.
"Many pay to XYZ" would've been better, but we still don't like to #namedrop #dotCons in what we put out.
We prefer terms like #CAGEFAM. That is #GAFAM + CloudFlrae + that phony who cause a stir trying to buy #Turdsite recently.
@Mek101 @aseem
Oh and #Wikipedia are a #politicalWeapon tool, that attacks true #progressives.
DO NOT DONATE TO IT.
Alex Trebek: Steam, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Spotify.
Me: List of corporations that do not have my money.
PS: Thanks for mentioning archive.org... I know they can be controversial for some folks, but I think their hearts are in the right place.
@aseem
Is there an alternative to steam? An open source game store for open source games with payments?
I think the claim that we choose not to support community oriented projects is false; we're forced to pay for some, and not for others. We have a natural preference for not paying, so most people won't pay if they don't have to.
I do firmly agree with the claim that we must change that, though. Not sure how, but paying for free services should be normal. I have financially contributed to several community projects, and I assume lots of my Fediverse contacts have too, but that's not going to be enough.
@aseem yes, people should donate to free softwaee they use, in order for it to be better c: Why pay for software that doesnt respect u? Unfortunately people care about the short term as you said, its convience and their used to it.
@aseem Don't forget the direct support of small projects and developers.
I agree with your main point, though. We often do forget to support the things we use if we don't have it behind a pay wall.