People seem surprised that corporate #enshittification is setting in on the #Fediverse. Yet the signs have been on the wall for a long time. For “winning” protocols in terms of adoption, corporate takeover is a certainty.
Up to now the #Commons hasn’t found a way to avoid that. Our #FOSS is inherently unsustainable. It is able to innovate, and then subsequently hand over the fruits of that innovation to corporate harvesters. Working in public, under #HyperCapitalism and for hypercapitalism.
@[email protected] well, free software doesn’t necessarily prevent corporations to thrive.
It is also more of a public good, or charity, that enriches technological potential of society, and gives user freedoms.
People, for which free software cares about and tries to protect, just don’t care about it.
Consumers just want to the “cheapest” price for the “largest” value. And, Corporations can deliver this (thanks to profit oriented practices). Long term, not so good,… but, rarely someone cares.
I wouldn’t say long term is necessarily not good.
SMB is by far the most common form of business, usually run by one or two people, with staff ranging from 1 to a few hundred.
These places aren’t generally where you run into the corporate/publicly traded issues that attract sociopathic MBA types, because there’s little profit for them there, especially since most SMB is run by someone with enough ego to believe they can be successful - so it’s really hard to get them on board with the MBA bullshit.
I grew up in such a business, and it’s a challenge to keep one running. The large corporations are always trying to abuse regulations to take you over, and customers ignorantly think you’re trying to chest them.
To quote my parents, “I don’t have to screw anyone over to make a buck”.