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foss nerds stop being condescending to those who don't know the same things you do challenge (impossible)
(files.catbox.moe)
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An edit of xkcd 2501, "Average Familiarity":
[Ponytail and Cueball are talking. Ponytail has her hand raised, palm up, towards Cueball.]
Ponytail: Open-source alternatives are second nature to us foss nerds, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows Linux and one or two degoogled Android ROMs.
Cueball: And Firefox, of course.
Ponytail: Of course.
[Caption below the panel]
Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.
partly inspired by the replies to this post but i see this kind of thing all the time (shoutout to the person who once genuinely asked "who still uses google these days?")
made with this neat tool
Oh man... I mean, I thought everyone knew about Linux at least. Firefox, I mean, maybe yeah I've definitely met people that don't know about Firefox, but I think a lot of people have at least heard of Linux. No? Damn...
I don't think so lol. I'm not a super techy person and the only reason I know Linux is because of my high school boyfriend lol, 20 years ago, who used it. I think he set it up on one of my computers at one point too. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else (offline) talk about Linux π definitely not a common knowledge thing.
It's actually been pretty interesting watching some of the stuff he used back 20 years ago that has started being spoken about more commonly that were just "nerd shit" back then lol. Vpns are common knowledge now, they were definitely "nerd shit" back in the day. Plex is widely used. I'm also glad I still have access to the private tracker he got me onto because that's grown big too, easy as.
But Linux? Nope. I don't think that's entered the common knowledge base. People know windows, android and maybe iOS. I don't even think a lot of people would know what "open source" means.
There's the people who know what source code is, then the subset of those who have heard of open source, then the subset of those who actually know what it means as opposed to like source available
I've tried explaining what Linux is to people, and when I mention it's an operating system, its not uncommon to hear the response, "What's an operating system?" π
It's funny how that question can become serious again when you do actually know what you're talking about
I remember this video addressing it at the end and basically giving up because it's so meaningless lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmPIxfCggFw
You overestimate the amount of people who actually use a computer.
I remember my uncle using Firefox, so I thought people heard about Firefox if they at least send emails. As for Linux. I thought like 40% of people at least heard of it without knowing what it is.
That's feels absurdly high. I was feeling over confident thinking maybe 10%...