Ask HN: Why are *most* people not interested in FOSS/OSS and can we change that
by Imustaskforhelp | 2025-10-12 14:22:54+00:00
I had discussed this on here for like 7-8 days ago but I can't get to know the reason why. I have thought about it for hours, thinking I have finally understood the reason why, but it seems that the only thing I know is that I know nothing.

My question is simple. Why are people uneducated about foss and how to really change that.

I have thought about what might be the best way to spread the word about foss and it seems that the best way is via advocating things like f-droid and linux mate/flatpak/ making things so simple that there is no reason why not.

Yet then I think that the reason why people are still not interested is that it becomes too boring.

Am I really in control if all my moves are being tracked. I am not sure. Do people not know this?

I want to raise awareness about oss since its something I am passionate about. Yet I can't seem to know how. I feel heard talking about these issues, its so easy convincing people sometimes to use signal yet they still don't have it. Its mixed bag.

I feel like my generation has left me a lot more too, we have stopped even questioning it and we are all so polarized by algorithms tracking us all.

I feel like in a world of such polarization, using open source can help to slowly raise awareness about it so that we can then move away from extreme privacy invasise ragebaits inducing algorithms to something better, so that then we can lessen our senses and stop with oh its the end of all and nothing matters nihilism or yeah who cares kind of idea.

Sometimes I feel like my ideas don't matter, maybe you could say things like youtube are a mic for people like my ideas but its not. I don't want to create any lore about me, I just want to tell people about stupid simple foss things like f-droid and leave in my opinion so that I could then work on/help other pressing issues in open source.

People also feel entitled to good quality open source software, like if that's what you expect, either be so kind to thank the developer and kindly ask them an solution or join their community and kindly ask there or maybe donate to them/contribute to it yourselves. I see people who are entitled and its :/

I thank every open source developer, its like something so elegant to me, we can have forks and so many other things and we all learn from each other and its sometimes refreshing. Yet it saddens me that it doesn't receive donations, that people don't use it, that people feel entitled sometimes asking for a feature.

This rabbit hole is so deep but if we want to share it with the masses, then we need to discuss the priorities of what to share and what not to for begineers. We need a genuine wiki to get started into the open source lifestyle. I don't know how I started, maybe by just using linux and then searching for any software and writing alternativeto X open source something and so many other things...

Awesome-privacy helped me out a ton in the beginning as well. I actually read it whole and privacyguides.net and so many others, there are so many good guides yet they still don't get attention.

So should people create another guide to split the attention even more or should they actually redirect attention to lists which we might discuss is good enough for everyone. I have so many questions.

We can have better things and that gives me hope. But the problem is that, it doesn't require myself to change but the world in the process a little as well and that confuses me.

Do I have the power to change the world in this direction or not? Do any one of us have it? I feel small in this system yet I know giving hope would be mixed too. I don't want to be sad for something out of my control, but that is the question, is this thing out of our control or not? I feel like I don't know its answer. I just don't know which is why I am asking here. But I still want to be hopeful y'know.

Have a nice day and looking forward to each and every one of your comments!