[asyx]

I think a big problem is that the users have been trained to accept the status quo. I mean back in the Feature phone days we would share Java phone games at school via Bluetooth. I’d assume kids these days generally don’t anymore.

Also, due to the cost of physical media piracy was rampant even amongst boomers. People knew and had the option to buy a dvd player that could play video cd because that’s how movies were ripped.

Even during the early iPhones we were so stripped of even basic features that a jailbreak was 100% required if you wanted to even basic things like taking videos or changing the Home Screen background.

None of this is necessary anymore. The users gets the phone and it just works from their perspective at least.

So who is going to try to run a business off of nerds like us who want to have this sort of control over our devices (I’d call it freedom but the average user doesn’t feel unfree)?

[myaccountonhn]

This is an unfortunate side-effect of modern UX thinking: people don't need to learn anything and sure enough there is no tech-literacy now.

People barely know what a file-system is these days.

[lucb1e]

> we would share Java phone games at school via Bluetooth. I’d assume kids these days generally don’t anymore.

I am both happy (from a user-friendliness point of view) and sad (from a "works offline" perspective) that F-Droid's share button now shares a link that will show them info about the app with an option to install the software, instead of the share button directly giving you an APK file with no way to link someone to the 'store' page. I'd personally still know how to send people APKs via hotspot or bluetooth (such as for peer-to-peer voice/message apps) but a lot of people won't

This move from sending each other software to sending each other links to centralized platforms has been long ongoing. Most messaging systems don't allow you to send executable (.exe, .apk, .sh, etc.) files anymore. And I believe that virtually all of them individually do it for your own good, but the combined result is a societal shift

[0x000xca0xfe]

There has to be a threshold where enshittification has been pushed so far that nerd software becomes the thing cool kids boast about running.

Where a less restricted device can do cool things nobody else can do.