On 05/05/2016 01:42 PM, Pen-Yuan Hsing wrote:
On 05/05/16 18:10, Aaron Wolf wrote:
If you are ever talking to people about the importance not just of
software freedom abstractly but of the *principle* of user control over
software and technology, here's powerful resource to describe the abuses
of proprietary software companies:
https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/
In short:
* sign up for Apple's streaming music service (even just for a free
trial)
* now, 100% of your music files on your computer have been completely
deleted forever
This is not a glitch, the software was designed to do this.
Wow. Thank you, Aaron, for this. Very well written and powerful story.
I especially appreciate the implication that the likes of Apple are
rewriting history. This really embodies the idea that instead of
"knowledge is power", today it is more like: "power is knowledge". And
the fundamental way to change that is for the power (i.e. freedom) to
be in the users' hands.
Two thoughts:
1. Are there more stories like this? I think it'd be nice to build a
list of these stories, since they can serve as a starting point to get
people interested in digital freedom. One challenge of the Free
Software movement is that many self-professed "ordinary" users don't
care about software freedom because they think the freedoms are too
abstract and don't affect them (a common saying is "I am not a
programmer and have no desire to change this program"). But stories
like the Apple Music debacle gives tangible pain to losing those
freedoms. I think once you get people's attention with these stories,
it becomes easier to go into the importance of software freedom and
its broader implications. What do you think?
2. I have been tremendously frustrated when I talk to people about my
desire to not be locked into proprietary services like Apple Music,
Facebook, or Google services. The discussion usually starts with the
other person(s) saying (1) "I don't care/You're too paranoid/I have
nothing to hide or need to control/I just like that service" to (2)
"Well if you really don't like it just don't use it/quit it". After I
really quit the service or refuse to use it, the same people would
then chastise me by saying (3) "Why are you so annoying and
anti-social!?!?" Has anyone else had to deal with this??? What are
your strategies?
Aaron, thank you for sharing this.
I will be sure to mention it as a concrete example whenever I talk to
anyone about why wearing handcuffs[1] is a bad thing.
On a side note:
I hope this pisses off enough people that they start to consider freedom
higher on their values. Not that I want them to *incur* harm, per se,
but I do want them to see how lack of freedom is harmful. (That much
can be done just by reading the blog post or talking to someone who had
this happen.) Right now I feel the general public values convenience
over freedom =\, and I hope this story will help them change.
Pen-Yuan Hsing, I agree.
I would love to build a collection of stories w.r.t. your #1. Perhaps
we can build it on the LibrePlanet wiki? Thoughts on a page title? (I
can't figure a good one. Thoughts of using "stories", "case studies",
"freedom", etc. in the name but nothing came to me...)
W.r.t your #2: I have encountered this a lot. It is pretty much due to
the network effect [2] - I feel at a certain point, society simply
*expects* you to use something that "everyone" uses, and then they try
to get you to hop on the bandwagon ... and either don't care or don't
understand why you might dissent from it.
Unfortunately, I don't have any good strategies for dealing with it.
Too often it comes unsolicited, and I can't figure a good way to combat
that proactively, only reactively.
For instance, having met someone - they might send an invite to
LinkedIn, through LinkedIn. The act of them doing that tells LinkedIn
that your email exists and that you likely have some relation to the
person who invited you via email. (I encountered this just this week.)
dmr
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/practical
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect