I think my philosophy when making software is that it should work for people with zero money or no bank account / credit card.
I know it's not a popular mindset to be in since money and profit is everything in the tech world.
I think it comes from growing up as a kid with no disposable income or access to anything but my shitty computer.
I'd rather support people with almost nothing than people with latest and greatest tech gizmos and spare cash for subscription services. 😅
@mauve This is why I'm so interested in this stuff too.
Plus it allows our networks to be flexible in ways that don't require large scale infrastructure.
Like how many people I follow on SSB don't even have internet connections and are usually sailing on the ocean.
@mauve
Strong agree. That's exactly why I asked what I did just yesterday: https://mastodon.joelving.dk/@joelving/110611333090970083
How can we bring those capabilities to more classic web applications?
Peer-to-peer has this natively or of necessity, but can we bridge the classics somehow?
@mauve Honestly I have the exact same mindset as you, which is also what made me interested in movements like https://trade-free.org, I'd like to live in a world where people have equal access to these things regardless of their income, at least for their basic needs. My friend @tio has made this documentary called TROM II and this is one of the core themes explored in the film. He has uploaded it to Peertube for everyone to watch for free, I think you might like it 🙂 - https://www.tromsite.com/documentaries/trom2/
@mauve I'm slowly trying to make a search engine service where you can set up your own search engines. The idea is to make it an offline-first service with no cost. And because of p2p the server costs of hosting will be minimal, so the service could have a really low price. It's basically a freemium business model, but where the free tire users doesn't cost money, and the paying customers also has a very low cost.
@mauve Being a broke kid is what got me into FOSS to begin with! I was blown away that once you installed Ubuntu, a whole bunch of other free and decent software was right at your finger tips (e.g. LibreOffice, Gimp, etc).
@mauve
for fuckin real. directs everything I do too.
@mauve This is one of the reasons I'm a big proponent of the slow internet movement, as well.
Lighter tools run on more things, even the potato of a phone that was free with a $25 prepaid SIM, for example.
@mauve I believe if a program needs a payment to function it is wasted magmetic storage, wasted bandwidth, wasted time
I understand developers need to eat, but I will rot in hell before accepting paywalls as the only remedy
@mauve
supporting that 100%
either we get rid of money, or we make everyone more or less the same rich 😁
it's hard though, but technically it is in the best interest of the majority of people, so hopefully there is a way to get there
Well, that's all the reason I need to follow you.
It's been quite a while since I wrote any publishable--or even useful for others--code, but that's the way I roll too.
@mauve When I was a kid I could only play the Lite version of Minecraft PE due to not being able to afford the full version and for such a long time all I wanted were all the features of the full version.
I’ve been considering that I may make all my apps and games free, there wouldn’t be any in app purchases because those suck, I just like to make things for enjoyment and hope others can find enjoyment from them, and one way to maximize enjoyment is by making things free!
@mauve you're not wrong. but the folks making software deserve to be paid too. they dont take karma or upvotes at the grocery store, gas station, hospital billing dept etc
@mauve The objectively correct stance.
Assuming minimal privilege from the users is the only way to have widely applicable program #design (https://mastodon.top/@lispi314/111253066257920146).
@mauve damn right. we were that kid, we're where we are in life precisely because the free software people were out there making sure we got to participate.
@ireneista @mauve I'm echoing exactly what you said but this is super legit. I don't like the idea of charging for anything because I remember being a kid who only had access to free stuff. Linux, GNU compilers, apache, php, rails, even rpg maker (ok that wasn't technically free but there was a very popular pirated English translation) gave me a much better education than taking college classes in high school ever did.
@starlight @mauve for sure <3
@mauve omg, thankyouthankyouthankyou!!1
I'm AuDHD, and constantly moving countries - I'm a thrice immigrant, and I lose access to local documents, phone numbers, physical phones, SIMs, bank accounts, etc. all the time. It's almost impossible to move to a new country and not lose access to a big part of my life
Recently I tried to move my number to a new provider, and they gave me a temporary short number that isn't accepted as valid by some services
@mauve Ukraine denied men abroad consular services recently - and I couldn't renew my passport, and now I'm afraid I'll lose access to every bank account and binance, and whatnot - won't be able to either get my salary or pay rent
@mauve and yes, I spend a lot of my time unemployed. At the end of the last dry spell for a year, I started to look differently at the homeless in my city - not because I didn't see them as people before, but because I started imagining myself approaching them and asking - how do they survive? Cuz I might need their coaching any day
@mauve@mastodon.mauve.moe also because late stage / end game capitalism sucks
@mauve love, love, love!
That's actually how I came to IT in general and Infosec in particular: no money, no toys, but an old Intel 486.
@mauve That's why I don't get hyped for games that need raytracing or compute shaders
Honestly the only reason I care about #p2p and #localfirst #web stuff is because it gives us practical tools to have nothing but what we have in our pocket and still be able to work with information technology and collaborate with others.
Everything else is just fun extras. :P
It pains me that communities need to either pay a corpo to own all of their shit or deal with complex nerd shit like the cloud to host their own (which is still paying some corpo eventually)