Enshittification is a function of capitalism, not popularity. Unless every Linux distro gets paywalled, there is no profit incentive that would drive Linux to enshittification. The kinds of people who currently work on it for no pay will continue to work on it.
This only applies when you are talking about comparable things (E.g. two pieces of for-profit software that do the same thing). If they don’t seem to be the same thing, then you actually have to explain how would it happen if you want to be taken seriously.
Specially when we have examples of companies trying to tighten control over GPL software immediately getting forked and having to backtrack
Classic enshittification of the kernel is kinda impossible while the Benevolent Dictator is around. And as for userland, we’ve already gone through many different enshittification attempts… Red Hat/CentOS, Poetterware, Snaps, etc… and we still survive.
Other than burnout and such, it’s very hard to kill free software that’s actively used by a lot of different enthusiasts.
As linux gets more popular, more laypeople are gonna be involved in its use. more laypeople means more issues solved and found, more support needed, more time and attention required, and thanks to everyone using discord any kind of easy to find alternative support is non-existent to any and all search engines, so all that supports gonna fall back on the distro creators and individual devs… and you will see consolidation of teams and packs just to handle the enormous and ever growing load, until you eventually end up with…maybe, generously, 1-3 packs that basically become a cartel.
and, with those 1-3 packs holding the bulk of users, they’ll eventually start dictating what others can and can not do, to stay in step with them and their services. Which will see more packs falling in line with dictates or just evaporating for refusing to play the game, and thus enshitification.
and pretending it cant happen will just blindly accelerate it happening.
its one of the few things that has consistently gotten better so far
You forget that enshittification follows popularity and market share.
Which means that as linux gets more used, and more popular, the chance for its enshitification will increase exponentially.
I’m pretty sure that’s just capitalism.
Enshittification is a function of capitalism, not popularity. Unless every Linux distro gets paywalled, there is no profit incentive that would drive Linux to enshittification. The kinds of people who currently work on it for no pay will continue to work on it.
“It can never happen here” - People who it inevitably happens to.
This only applies when you are talking about comparable things (E.g. two pieces of for-profit software that do the same thing). If they don’t seem to be the same thing, then you actually have to explain how would it happen if you want to be taken seriously.
Specially when we have examples of companies trying to tighten control over GPL software immediately getting forked and having to backtrack
Classic enshittification of the kernel is kinda impossible while the Benevolent Dictator is around. And as for userland, we’ve already gone through many different enshittification attempts… Red Hat/CentOS, Poetterware, Snaps, etc… and we still survive.
Other than burnout and such, it’s very hard to kill free software that’s actively used by a lot of different enthusiasts.
I think this is where Linux shines.
You already CAN find enshittification versions of Linux.
And you can find lightweight ones, security ones, ones for servers, one that’s very user friendly, etc.
I wager that’ll end up dying off too.
As linux gets more popular, more laypeople are gonna be involved in its use. more laypeople means more issues solved and found, more support needed, more time and attention required, and thanks to everyone using discord any kind of easy to find alternative support is non-existent to any and all search engines, so all that supports gonna fall back on the distro creators and individual devs… and you will see consolidation of teams and packs just to handle the enormous and ever growing load, until you eventually end up with…maybe, generously, 1-3 packs that basically become a cartel.
and, with those 1-3 packs holding the bulk of users, they’ll eventually start dictating what others can and can not do, to stay in step with them and their services. Which will see more packs falling in line with dictates or just evaporating for refusing to play the game, and thus enshitification.
and pretending it cant happen will just blindly accelerate it happening.
because this is how things always go.