I've been thinking recently the free software movement will end badly. potential vulnerabilities can lead to widespread abandonment. of course proprietary software is much less susceptible to potential vulnerabilities because you can't scrutinize it... you don't get any warnings, your just hacked. but the way this stupid planet is going it's not unforseeable that after a few more scares microsoft rebrand their same old shitware 'trusted', the world laps it up, we all go back to using software that even sucked in the 80s and the post-war digital boom is officially over.
If you look to the history of our planet and to our thousands of years of history, we are just at the beginning of the digital world.
Digital computers exist for less then a hundred years, so there are people still alive that are born in an area without computers existing.
So I hardly think the digital boom is over, it's just maturing. People are learning how to take advantage (abuse the digital world) to gain wealth and power.
One of the weapons against a digital dictatorship is open-source software. The only problem with that is making money, as already noticed it's hard to get good people working on free and open software without them getting paid.
Commercial applications have the advantage of getting money for their work. The best mix is having a commercial entity produce open-source software.
Companies that label their product as 'safe' sooner or later have to face the fact it's not.
See Apple, they are one of the largest and wealthiest companies on the planet and can hire the most experiences developers, and their software is usually hacked within minutes.
Look at Log4j, it's a big problem, but a fix was created very quickly. You could perform a hotfix yourself if you wanted to, or even completely fix the issue if you have the manpower to put the effort in.
In my experience people eventually rather use something that they know that can be fixed then something they cannot. So it's either good customer service or you or someone close can fix it for you.
So an Apple product usually can be repaired via an Apple shop. A Pandora or Pyra can be mailed back to ED, or you do it yourself. Some products just become thrash, which is just a waste.
For every Steam-like store we also got a GOG, for every Apple we got an iFixit, for every seasonal handheld we have a Pyra.
It might never be mainstream to be open-source for consumer, just due cheap commercial products.
But I don't see it going away either, it's just people learning the same thing over again: cheaper throw away products aren't a good deal in the long run.
