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by flatline3 5009 days ago
What it sums up is some Linux nerds' complete disconnection from reality.

1) Donations aren't a sustainable revenue model, and won't prevent Ubuntu from taking equally user-hostile actions in the future. What they need is a sustainable revenue model where users are the customer.

2) How is this different than the crapware that comes installed with some OEM Windows PCs? How is that a model to be emulated? What happens when a feature like this can't just be installed with apt-get?

3) Water would almost certainly be healthier.

Apple used to be the reliable alternative to the Microsoft hegemony. They're squandering that position, and we desperately need something like Ubuntu -- consumer focused, polished, and as easy to use as Mac OS X (or at least, Ubuntu is a lot closer to that ideal than Linux has previously been).

For Ubuntu to maintain a consumer focus, they need the consumers to be their customers, not their product. Let me buy Ubuntu, or buy Ubuntu hardware.

1 comments

Honestly, what I get from your comment is that you don't like ads. If you don't like them, don't click them: problem solved. I have to grant you that Ubuntu hardware would be awesome but I'm afraid that it might create an incentive to drop support for non-Ubuntu hardware.
"If you don't like them, don't click them" is a terrible solution, because I don't even want to see them.

Is it so wrong that I don't want "free" things if that means I'm the product and not the customer? Is that really such a hard market opportunity to exploit?

I'd rather pay money to not see them. Problem solved.

There's nothing wrong with that but I do think it would be a much harder market opportunity to exploit. You are definitely in a minority. Also, just a nitpick but if you don't click ads you are not a product since Amazon doesn't buy products who merely view its ads.
And yet, look at Apple's profits.
Apple's profits have very little to do with sales of its operating system. As I said, it would be nice to see "Ubuntu machines" but unlike Apple, Canonical would never enjoy a monopoly over Ubuntu hardware due to Ubuntu's open source nature.