Err “we” as inhabitants of the earth and users of the internet I guess. Even if you don’t personally use social media, you are aware that plenty of others do and it has had a very significant impact on many individuals and societies around the world right?

This seems like a sensible take on the subject.

Tbf I think I’d like it more if we had online shopping, cell phones, instant messaging etc but we didn’t have social media as we know it today. Like we stuck with phpbb, Usenet and IRC and didn’t move much more beyond that into Myspace and Facebook

I think they both have their place and which you use will depend on your personal philosophy and interest level.

I’m not an Apple user although I did used to have a MacBook Pro and an iPad about a decade ago. They were good products and a joy to use and I imagine their products are still like that.

I don’t know how much better they are than Samsung who have a similar eco-system now.

In theory you could set up all of those integrations and functionality yourself using free and open source software (FOSS) but I personally don’t have the time to learn how to do all of that so I’d go for a more off the shelf solution. I am a techie at heart so Android suits me, I can tinker as much or as little as I want but then I could always jailbreak an iPhone and achieve much the same in theory?

Not sure the FOSS argument applies to Apple and their hardware as much as it does to something like Reddit vs Lemmy. The equivalent might be Apples MacBooks vs the framework laptop but then that’s more about right to repair which is different again.

There are open source programs to replace Apple’s programs but you would likely be hard pressed to find a professional film editor who would use an obscure FOSS program instead of something like Final Cut or Davinci Resolve. I could be wrong here, it’s my area.

For me the appeal of Apple is that ‘it just works’ and it looks nicer than everything else so you pay more for it. I’m personally happier to put a bit of work in to learn how stuff works, have a more customisable experience and save some cash but I’d recommend Apple stuff all day to my non-techie friends / family if they would get value from it.

FOSS is however in my opinion the right approach in terms of sharing knowledge and keeping the internet open. Having open source and self hostable solutions means the internet belongs to it’s users and not corporations. We live in a capitalist society though so if you have a good idea, shouldn’t you be allowed to monetize and profit from it rather than give it away for free? Where the future of our species depends on it though I agree the knowledge and inventions should be ‘open-sourced’ and not patented like in your COVID vaccine example.

Sorry for the rambly wall of text. Enjoyed your post.