How much are you willing to use a "worse" product to promote competition
It came up the other day in a discussion about ladybird where some people suggested that they would be willing to completely change their habits & simply not use some sites so that they could daily drive the browser. I’m curious how many people share a similar (perhaps less extreme) sentiment towards monopolies/competition.
Another example that gets brought up is Linux. It’s obviously superior to Windows/MacOS but there are still games that simply won’t run. Would you be willing to abandon these games completely to adopt Linux?
I do, with Linux, Firefox... since a year I stopped using even Android, and I run my own Yocto-spin on my Pinephones (with my own desktop environment and other self-written apps), with daily-driving Servo also (alongside Firefox). But for me it's not about promoting competition. It's about showing a middle finger to the crap that big-tech calls state-of-the-art.
Clayton Christensen said [1] that when a new product offers something you can't get elsewhere, consumers are willing to use it even though it might be worse in many respects than the competition. I.e. smartphones were underpowered computers, but because you could take them anywhere, many more people used them than desktop or laptop computers (maybe there's a better example, but you get the idea).
I think these ideas are best used to look at history. I don't think it's useful for a company or organization to aim to "disrupt" a market. Make a compelling product and the rest will follow.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation
I'm willing to use Qubes OS (security-oriented OS relying on virtualization, no games at all) and Librem 5 (GNU/Linux phone) as my daily drivers - this much.
Not having all the features, functions, and flashing lights of a competitor/similar product doesn't make something worse. As someone pointed out (can't find the darned link, sorry) an alternative doesn't need to match a competitor one-to-one re: features. It just needs to do what its audience needs it to do.
Yes, I have bought many RISC-V dev boards even though you get more bang for buck using ARM ones. Similarly for AMD GPUs.
I use some "underdog" products like Firefox, Android, and AMD CPU/GPU to do my part in keeping them alive.
I’m already doing it with Firefox.