Using a product gives its creator legitimacy.
If that creator is a shithead, you’ve (in part) chosen to give that shithead a pedestal to speak from and have their words heard.
Mozilla get to speak with authority partially because they’ve been in the browser game since nearly its inception and partially because they’ve have a user base. If either of these things were not so, who would care?
If you don’t like what any of the major players are doing, you can grab an open source alternative, switch to a different browser engine and upset the metrics.
You decry people being arbitrary for drawing a line, but yourself are doing so from the other direction. Your refusal to take a position leaves you in an arbitrary place.
Life is too complex and nuanced to search for a hard line in everything. And things are always shifting.
You can have morals the compel you, and so long as you make a good-faith effort and are willing to listen when people you disagree with also make good-faith arguments, then you’re doing alright.
I reject that completely, at least as far as their views on unrelated things might be concerned.
It’s like saying you should stop using Linux because doing so lends legitimacy to Linus’ abusive behaviour (or that it did so, I believe he’s more chill these days).
It is not pointless.
Using a product gives its creator legitimacy. If that creator is a shithead, you’ve (in part) chosen to give that shithead a pedestal to speak from and have their words heard.
Mozilla get to speak with authority partially because they’ve been in the browser game since nearly its inception and partially because they’ve have a user base. If either of these things were not so, who would care?
If you don’t like what any of the major players are doing, you can grab an open source alternative, switch to a different browser engine and upset the metrics.
You decry people being arbitrary for drawing a line, but yourself are doing so from the other direction. Your refusal to take a position leaves you in an arbitrary place.
Life is too complex and nuanced to search for a hard line in everything. And things are always shifting. You can have morals the compel you, and so long as you make a good-faith effort and are willing to listen when people you disagree with also make good-faith arguments, then you’re doing alright.
I reject that completely, at least as far as their views on unrelated things might be concerned.
It’s like saying you should stop using Linux because doing so lends legitimacy to Linus’ abusive behaviour (or that it did so, I believe he’s more chill these days).
Sure, fine. We can go with that, if you like.
Then my core point still stands; using a service gives the creator/owner of that service a platform to speak from.
Do note that the line between related and unrelated can be quite faint and blurry. How do you decide where it is?