What's important is individual choice. You should keep systems that exhaust you at arms length, & integrate systems that benefit you into your life. Everyone should have options for structuring their life to suit their idiosyncratic needs.
Edit: Also, keep in mind that news orgs make money by showing you technological failures.
I appreciate that, but I find it a satisfying challenge for approximate algorithms.
You are right, it's easy to imagine the open source standard being a small financial threat. But a similar situation could potentially still happen, just without the malice the previous poster is imagining. Overall, large orgs make the biggest ripples in software development, so their choices of what to support affect what's most available to users.
Several people told me to skip Consider Phlebas & start with the next one, The Player of Games. I did that & found it perfectly accessible & enjoyable. Haven't read any others yet.
Player of Games features a civilization that is both congenial & incredibly high tech. There is a satisfying exploration of sci-fi board games, including a game with a ludicrously complex board that stretches over several tennis courts. I liked it.
Link didn't work for me. Try this one. https://lemmy.sdf.org/c/unix_surrealism