[federona]

The only problem is that from a political perspective you have given away all of your power for convenience which is not a problem in say a country like the US until someone comes into power who does not like you or the people you associate with. So yes as long as things are going well security is better taken care of, etc. but when things are not going well for you then all your bases belong to them... like imagine China for instance. So if you had the foresight to build you own bases and your political system goes to shit, you still have the right to carry on with your life whereas in other cases you could be sent off to some place you rather not be sent off to and your life destroyed because the political system and/or company does not like you. And such change is swift, damaging, and isolating as the majority will usually fall in line or not have done anything enough to warrant any attention -- i.e. like as in your average Chinese citizen... but a minority will have and then will be persecuted and have their lives destroyed as a result. Say Hong Kong opposition.

[unix_fan]

I don’t see what a political perspective provides here. It’s not like you don’t have a choice in consumer tech, unless there are strong networking affects play.

[federona]

So far, but how far... you should ask yourself. Businesses make decision in light of the current reality. So far Microsoft has had to deal with devs using open source stack on Mac due to things like Homebrew, forcing them to incorporate a whole Linux distro into their OS to keep devs there. So as long as you can keep open source going, you can hold the gates. But question is how long... indefinitely? As the market grows there is room but when the market shrinks and has maturity how much room will be left. And general network effects of the cloud are already felt all over the place, like a document produced on a pc hardly ever stays on the PC it ends up on Google Mail, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, etc. There is no privacy and basically at this point is a joke.

[AnthonyMouse]

But there are strong network effects. The more people who use a platform, the more apps there are and vice versa.

Other people not caring about openness is like littering. Even if it helps you a little (you don't have to trade against any of the things Apple forces you to trade against), it's a huge problem when everybody does it.

[hyperdimension]

I'm sorry, but all your bases are belong to (us) them. You can't forget the ungrammatical `are'. ;)